Scorecard

Blagdon Hill v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Sun 07 Jun 2026 at 2.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 72 runs

Match report Mark Hailwood reports...

Saying ‘Blagdon Hill’ to an Erratic is a bit like saying ‘Mordor’ to a resident of Middle Earth. Those who have survived the ordeal tell of bitter winds and immovable batters, of dark skies and harrowing defeats. As we set off on the long drive to the Blackdown Hills, we did not trust to hope. Against the power of Blagdon there can be no victory. Not with 10,000 men could you do this. We only had nine.

The media (i.e. Annie Chave) had written us off before a ball was bowled, as usual. But with our stuttering start to the season, and not a single member of our team confident of victory, that seemed fair enough on this occasion. Still, at least we could enjoy a long June afternoon of cricket, whatever the result. Or could we? Our hosts thought the rain radars didn’t look promising, so a 30 over game was agreed to try and finish before the deluge came. This produced a bit of grumbling from George. His trusty weather app – called ‘Ecstasy Skies’ or some such, presumably used by the youth of today to determine when to have an all-night open-air rave – suggested a 0% chance of rain. Others thought the shortened format sounded merciful. And if George turned out to be right, we could always don our Erratics bucket hats and rave the evening away.

We batted first. The pitch had enjoyed the recent wet weather, and was a beautiful shade of what Farrow and Ball might call ‘Bowler’s Green’. This made timing and judging the bounce a little difficult. We started solidly enough though. Rik’s trademark might be the blistering 30 not out on a batter-friendly T20 wicket, but he demonstrated his range here with a hard fought 35 off 54 balls that gave us a solid platform to build from.

Lee Grant took up the invitation to do so, scoring his 13th Erratics half-century. The General was in imperious form, unwilling to be stymied by a tricky wicket, and quickly unfurling his usual barrage of big hits. One crashed very pleasingly into the sightscreen. Many more were launched majestically over extra cover, though unfortunately this was the longest – and most uphill – part of the ground, and the boundary was somewhere off the edge of the map of the known world. The result was that Lee ran more threes than you would usually see from the team in a whole season. And two of every three involved a steep climb up the slope. He’ll be in good shape for the tour.

Whilst Rik and Lee had been holding the fort, the Rohirrim arrived, in the form of Stoke reinforcements Joseph Liyo and Ginhoy Joseph, to take us to 11 players. A glimmer of hope, just a faint one, crept into Erratics hearts. This was going ok. And when Joseph Liyo joined Lee at the crease, the bars emptied (well, the Ladies’ toilet did) at the prospect of a particularly explosive partnership. It wasn’t to be, as the low bounce did for the new batter early on. The less spectacular but highly dependable Ginhoy turned out to be the key batting reinforcement, and contributed a priceless 24 by getting bat on ball and working the angles, especially behind square on the leg side. His wagon wheel was Kirby-esque.

Others had quietly come and gone, succumbing to the challenging conditions, but we had stuck to the task and were heading for a respectable – if perhaps not winning – total of around 150. But we still had one more move to make. Enter our Captain. Our King. I still think of Fraser as an opener, but he has increasingly been using himself as a late innings situational hitter. Here, he did it brilliantly. We went into the final over having just hit our target of 150, but with the skipper on strike with the chance to add on. Your light-hitting narrator, and last man in, was at the other end. So, we ideally needed to deal in even numbers, and not lose a wicket. I forget the precise sequence of shots played, but after a blur of hard-hitting and hard-running, Fraser had added 20 to the total. 170. Could we dare to dream?

Aficionados of the proper cricket tea should look away now. It was, as is so often the case these days, a bring-your-own affair. To make matters worse, we were asked to take no more than ten minutes over it. To be fair to Blagdon, this was with one eye on the inclement weather. But it was another indication of the fast-diminishing status of the once great institution.

Did curtailing an Erratics tea constitute ‘poking the bear’? We certainly took to the field in determined mood. ‘Intensity’ is a sporting buzzword that has generally passed the Erratics by, but there was a touch of it on display here. We even celebrated our wickets with enthusiasm. Fraser did a little jump when he got one. Whatever next. Phil Power doing an aeroplane down to third man? Nigel whipping off his shirt and jumping into the crowd?

Of course, Lee is more willing than most to visibly enjoy taking a scalp, and he took his chances to do so here. He produced a devastating display of swing bowling up the hill that got us off to the dream start, sending three very decent looking batters back to the pavilion before they could get going. It was an all-round display from Lee that furthered his case to be considered among the great Erratics all-rounders. He’ll have to keep doing it for a few more years before that status can be assured, but he is now just three wickets behind one of the greats, in Chris Ferro, so his CV is getting seriously compelling. [By my reckoning there are six ‘great’ Erratics all-rounders, but perhaps something to discuss in the bunkhouse…]

For all Lee’s heroics, this was anything but a one-man show. Blagdon Hill batted deep, judging by the amount of Millichamp and Hall and extra-cover drives on display, so it took a fine display from the whole bowling unit to stop them from recovering. Though wicketless, I delivered a testing opening spell down the hill that induced numerous edges and mis-hits, but the penetration came from elsewhere. Joseph Liyo made up for his earlier duck with a probing spell that claimed three wickets, and very nearly a hat-trick. Whenever a Blagdon batter looked like they might kick start the counter-attack, we knicked them out. Fraser, not for the first time this season, took a wicket immediately after coming on. George continued his fine form with the ball, adding two wickets of his own.

The bails were flying all over the place – seven of their dismissals were bowled – but our bowling, unlike on all previous visits here, was not. We gave up just one bye (a welcome and tidy appearance from Sid behind the stumps) and one wide, and rarely missed our spots. In what felt like the blink of an eye, we had bowled our hosts out for under 100 in just 24 overs. We had smote their ruin on the hillside.

We returned to the changing room full of beans, though we resisted helping ourselves to the remains of an open bottle of rosé wine from the fridge, or the seven bottles of (unchilled) Sauvignon. Instead, we simply basked in the satisfaction of a fine team effort, and a most unexpected victory. We had proved the doubters wrong, which included ourselves. And then the rain came. Had our hosts held out for a few more overs, they might have escaped with an abandonment. It was clearly meant to be our day. They were, it should be said, magnanimous in defeat, and their friendliness on each visit was the reason we wanted to come back despite previous results. After this one, we’ll positively look forward to the game next year! And who knows, perhaps we’ll now even head to Broadclyst with a bit of hope…


Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
14w 5b 2lb 
for 9 wickets
21
170		        
Duncan Chave st W Neale 5 26 19.23
Richard Lindsay ct L Trotman 35 54 5 64.81
Lee Grant ct A Hannam 51 44 6 1 115.91
Matt Crawford b D Wright 1 4 25.00
Joseph Liyo b L Trotman 0 2 0
A.N. Other ct A Hannam 24 19 5 126.32
Sean Webb ct E Harvey-Knight 0 7 0
Fraser Chave Not Out  33 14 1 3 235.71
Sid Thomson ct E Harvey-Knight 0 7 0
George Mather b E Harvey-Knight 0 1 0
Mark Hailwood Not Out  0 2 0

Blagdon Hill Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
W Neale6.0216116.002.67
T Sampson5.012800.005.60
D Wright5.0026126.005.20
D Stone3.002300.007.67
L Trotman3.001226.004.00
A Hannam5.0049224.509.80
E Harvey-Knight3.00933.003.00

Blagdon Hill Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1w 1b 2lb 
for 10 wickets
4
98 (23.5 overs)		     
Elliot Trotman Bowled  7 8 1 87.50
E Harvey-Knight Bowled  11 18 1 61.11
C Jones Bowled  8 15 1 53.33
A Free Caught  14 29 2 48.28
Louis Trotman Bowled  8 9 88.89
Duncan Stone Bowled  7 10 1 70.0
T Sampson Caught  23 21 4 109.52
J Stell Bowled  0 1 0
W Neale Lbw  16 20 2 80.0
D Wright Bowled  0 9 0
Andy Hannam Not Out  0 3 0

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Mark Hailwood6.012400.004.00
Lee Grant6.012438.004.00
Joseph Liyo4.011836.004.50
Fraser Chave4.001728.504.25
George Mather3.511226.003.13