Scorecard

Marldon v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sun 31 May 2026 at 1.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Lost by 4 wickets

Match report Match report by Martin Wright

Driving down to Marldon, I attempted to explain to Erratics debutant Jonathan (“Nice Neighbour”) Snicker some of the local rules, only to arrive and find they’d been subtly amended. At least I think they had. Each year, I think I’ve got it, and each year I realise I haven’t. This time, there was something about “if you hit the ball over the uphill boundary and it comes back, it’s a four, but if it doesn’t, it’s a dot, and a warning, unless a dog brings it back, in which case it’s fine, unless it’s a poodle, in which case it’s minus two runs and you have to bat left-handed…”. Or something.

Such local idiosyncrasies aside, the outfield looked shorter than it has ever been, the wicket looked pockmarked but largely played true, the threatened rain never arrived, and all was set fair for a fine Sunday’s cricket.

Skipper Lee lost the toss (I think – I really need to pay more attention to such details when I’m writing the report) and we were inserted. Duncan Chave and myself opened, and weathered the initial Marldon assault, before Duncan was very well caught driving. Just as he had been at Lustleigh yesterday, in fact. This brought Matt Crawford to the crease, and he soon opened up with some gorgeous drives; one in particular, which went searing past mid-off, was straight out of the mythical MCC coaching manual – foot to the pitch, left elbow well up.

With Matt continuing to strike the ball powerfully, the scoreboard rattled along, until he departed in a very Erratic excess of honesty: having advanced to a quickfire 36, he went to turn the ball round the corner, got a faint edge, was well caught by Keeper Rowsell, who appealed, and Matt, like a true Erratic gent, walked. Silence from the rest of the field, though, silence from the bowler, who was half way back to his mark before realising Matt was halfway back to the pavilion. Others weren’t sure he’d hit it at all, and told him so. Some bafflement ensued as to just why he’d cut himself off in his prime. But when he returned to umpire later, I assured him I’d both seen and heard the nick. Which, he said, made him feel a lot better. Happy to help.

Phil Power joined me and timed the ball nicely before being bowled by a lovely delivery, and so enter Ben ‘BYB / Yardie’ Yarde-Buller, fresh from an imposing knock at Lustleigh the day before. He soon found his form, launching one off-drive which was struck so sweetly that mid-off felt obliged to usher it past him to the boundary, along with the almost identical repeat shot the next ball. But that was a rare act of generosity on the part of Marldon’s fielders, who mostly pounced with annoying agility on anything within reach.

Ben fell foul of the Marldon rules when he launched a magnificent shot soaring way over the trees at midwicket – one of the more beautifully brutal strokes ever to result in a mere dot in the scorebook. He departed for a briskly elegant (and elegantly brisk) 21. Meanwhile I was finally finding my mojo (which must have got stuck at the bottom of my kit bag for most of last season) and ended up on the same score as Fraser Chave made at Lustleigh on the Saturday. (Shockingly, when asked in the pub later whether there had been any previous incidence of two Erratics each scoring 81 on successive days, Fraser didn’t know.)

So after our allotted 35 overs, we closed on what was generally agreed, over yesterday’s leftover Lustleigh cakes by way of tea, as a par-or-just-above 190.

But if it really was above par, no-one told Marldon’s batters. The first few overs passed quietly, with Nigel Rutherford and Roger Putnam keeping them quiet, and Roger clean bowling Nick Morris. But then Adam Claridge and Harry Roberts started to tuck in with maximum prejudice to anything loose, and quite a lot that wasn’t.

“Hurricane” Harry in particular made what we thought was our respectable start look woefully sluggish with some superb, pitiless ball striking. In 11 overs Marldon had already knocked off half the runs required, and more than double what we’d managed by that stage. They were helped by a touch of generosity on our part in the field, with the normally bucket hands of Duncan springing an uncharacteristic leak, mainly to Harry’s benefit (to be fair, none of the grassed chances were exactly dollies). Duncan later explained that he wanted to let Fraser clean bowl him, which he did. Eventually.

The pick of our bowlers, Fraser’s arrival did help to stem the tide, as did Lee and Ben. Wickets began to tumble, most of them to Fraser, who was impressively economical as well as deadly. Newcomer Jonathan, in his first bowl for six years, showed promise with his “loopy leg breaks” (his words). One or two of them were perhaps a touch too loopy, but others landed well and beat the bat.

The Marldon innings became a touch becalmed; the scoring rate required edged up past five an over, and for a while we were most definitely back in the game. But Michael Barnard steadied the ship and put it back on course, and with a final flurry of boundaries from Grant Thompson, Marldon sunk HMS Errratics, sailing home by four wickets with four overs and a bit to spare. A good game played in a very friendly spirit, and a generous helping of roast potatoes (responsibly recycled from the Sunday lunch?) in the Church House Inn afterwards helped ease the pain of defeat.





Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 15w 2b 1lb 
for 4 wickets
20
190		        
Duncan Chave ct G Thompson b J Bewick 14 28 2 50.0
Martin Wright Not Out  81 94 14 86.17 2
Matt Crawford ct S Rowsell b M Barnard 36 39 8 92.31
Phil Power b G Thompson 13 22 2 59.09
Ben Yarde-Buller b M Barnard 21 19 4 110.53
Fraser Chave Not Out  5 10 50.0
Jonathan Snicker  
Nigel Rutherford  
Lee Grant  
John Curtis  
Roger Putman  

Marldon Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Peter Foot7.003500.005.00
Daniel Outhwaite4.001800.004.50
Jackie Bewick7.0021121.003.00
Grant Thompson7.0032132.004.57
Michael Barnard7.0060230.008.57
Harry Roberts2.001000.005.00
Adam Claridge1.001100.0011.00

Marldon Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 4w 7b 1lb 
for 6 wickets
14
192 (30.3 overs)		     
Nick Morris b R Putman 0 10 0
Adam Claridge b F Chave 25 17 6 147.06
Harry Roberts b F Chave 70 41 9 3 170.73
Tony Simcox ct M Wright b F Chave 9 14 2 64.29
Sean Scott lbw F Chave 10 16 2 62.50
Sam Rowsell ct M Wright b B Yarde-Buller 18 37 3 48.65
Michael Barnard Not Out  29 34 5 85.29
Grant Thompson Not Out  17 16 1 2 106.25
Daniel Outhwaite  
Jackie Bewick  
Peter Foot  

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Nigel Rutherford4.013400.008.50
Roger Putman3.0030130.0010.00
Fraser Chave7.011543.752.14
Jonathan Snicker4.004300.0010.75
Lee Grant6.012800.004.67
Ben Yarde-Buller5.0122122.004.40
Phil Power1.301200.008.00