'AWNIOGO': BUXTON (H)

they came from Buxton

Saturday, July 8 

At the season’s halfway point we were lying in second position in the league, 25 points behind the leaders Ashcombe Park, having won four, drawn eight and lost one of our opening thirteen matches. Addo was second in both the sectional batting and bowling averages, and was well on the way to overhauling his own league record of 1301 runs. Besides Addo, we had numerous batsmen amongst the leading averages in the section, and Cokey was up amongst the top bowlers.

July is the heart of a season, when a side can gather some momentum and forge a lead or, conversely, lose confidence and fall by the wayside, as happened to us only last season. On paper we had three easy matches with which to commence the run-in – Buxton, Sneyd and Crewe Rolls-Royce – but we would be taking nothing for granted.

Like Nirvana, Genesis and The Police, Buxton are most definitely a three-man band. Last season, at Buxton, we set them 252 to win and they knocked them off thanks to 80-odd from Julian Burgess and 120-odd from Nick Smith. However, in the return fixture we bowled them out for 59, before smashing off the runs in 6.3 overs without losing a wicket. This year, big bad Bob Cuthbertson (who played some Second XI cricket for Leicestershire with Addo) had returned to bolster their fragile bowling, yet still they languished at the foot of the table. 

Buxton CC  first XI, 1995

The weather was fine once again, perhaps a little blustery, and Addo had no hesitation in asking our visitors to bat on a wicket not all that dissimilar from the one on which we played Newcastle and Hartshill. Mauler’s first over passed without incident then Billy Carr, returning from a holiday in Spain, took the new ball from the Pavilion End and prepared to bowl his first over for three weeks. He completed it, about five minutes later, with a wicket to his name having howled three no-balls and been cracked for a couple of fours. The wicket (Julian Burgess, scorer of 1000 runs last season) was picked up with a slow, wide full-toss that the batsman slashed violently towards point, where Addo, looking none too pleased with Billy’s form, plucked it from the sky with his left hand. Burgess walked off, no doubt feeling suicidal, whilst Addo shook Billy’s hand and asked him to take a blow.

Cokey replaced Iain and bowled five tight overs before becoming embroiled in an argument over no-balling with the umpire, Stan Trafford, a man who does seem to court the controversial limelight. Addo himself replaced Cokey and bowled unchanged until the closure of Buxton’s innings. Meanwhile, Billy switched to the Road End after Mauler had finished his spell, yet still couldn’t get either his run-up or direction right and was pulled off after bowling 10 (ten) no-balls and a wide in a two-over spell that seemed to last forever.

We were looking extremely ragged in all departments. Our fielding was abysmal, exemplified by L’oréal throwing three consecutive returns from fine-leg at least five tracks down the square from where I was stood. Darren Carr B.Sc., playing his first game of the season since returning from university, pulled a hamstring while chasing a ball early on and had his attempt to hide at slip scuppered by a strange magnetic effect he had on the ball. Everyone else seemed either strangely lethargic or totally uncoordinated, and it all got too much for Harv who yelled “Come on lads, we’re playing like a village outfit”. At the time, it did dawn on me to remind Richard that, technically, we were a village outfit, but a sarcastic quip wasn’t going to improve things. Everyone knew exactly what he meant, and everyone knew that he was right. 

village

Fortunately things began to improve, not least our over-rate, when Addo decided to bowl in tandem with Darren Carr. Dazzler, resplendent with six-inch sideburns and eight-inch fringe, kept the runs down, whilst the skipper went on the offensive. First to fall was Nick Smith, who had made a painstaking 39 in two hours, given out lbw as he swept at Addo. Bearman and Jackson, as if in a hurry to get out, followed their skipper back to the pavilion, their departures bringing Cuthbertson to the crease. He was still there when Johnson, Buxton’s number 3, completed a Tavaré-esque half-century from 138 balls, the first 28 of which were needed to get him off the mark. He finally fell just before tea for 56, made from 156 halls in 165 minutes, and was joined in the hutch by Cuthbertson who slogged a valuable 40 from only 36 balls before being snaffled by Dave Astle at long-off in the last over before the interval.

For the second successive week we had to go out after tea to bowl just four overs, during which time Buxton increased their total to 219 for 8, of which a colossal 46 came in extras. Our work was cut out if we were to win in what transpired to be only 39 overs. Addo, knackered after his 23-over spell, asked Drew to open with me so he could fill his lungs with smoke before coming out to bat. Hawky had loaned me his old Duncan Fearnley and I decided, at the eleventh hour, to give it a go, determined not to come off the pitch sounding like the proverbial ‘bad workman’.

workman selects tools he will shortly blame

Drew had been playing well in the nets and seemed brimful of confidence as he struck two early boundaries. However, he soon tickled a wide ball to the ‘keeper and was on his way, shortly followed by Harv who was dismissed in almost identical fashion to the previous week. Yet again we had started a run chase disastrously. At 21 for 2 Lovejoy walked stiffly from the clubhouse to begin a most uncharacteristic two-hour stay at the crease.

Slowly but surely we rebuilt the innings and took the score along to 69 for 2 at the start of the last 20 overs, which left us needing 151 to win, no small task indeed. We had to increase the tempo immediately and, thanks to some wayward bowling, began the final hour extremely well as we picked up sevens, eights and nines from the opening half-dozen overs. By now I had started to strike the ball quite well and went after the bowling, hitting Nick Smith back over his head for six. Two overs later I tried the same shot but mistimed it and chipped a catch to long-on having made a season’s best 76.

John Myatt joined Addo and looked like he meant business, brutally clubbing Smith out of the attack with two towering sixes. Cuthbertson’s return put a temporary brake on proceedings and he accounted for Mauler who had crashed a crucial, quickfire 37 from only 25 balls. By now we needed 32 from the last four overs: still a tough task, but with Cokey joining Addo we had to be firm favourites.

Billy Carr's nets the previous week

Addo sent the first ball of the next over soaring over the pavilion, but fell two balls later attempting to repeat the shot to leave us on 194 for 5. 173 runs had been made whilst Addo was at the crease out of which he scored only 49, a fact that illustrates the flexibility of our batting in that the various roles needed to be performed in a run chase are, arguably, within the scope of each and every member of our line-up. Iain Carr entered the fray and smashed only his second ball to the boundary. We all hoped that he had exorcised the memory of his bowling and could help Cokey guide us past the post. It was déjà vu (all over again): 22 runs needed off 18 balls. Cuthbertson bowled an excellent over, conceding only six runs, to leave us still slightly above the magical run-a-ball ratio. Unlike in the Newcastle game, however, we could afford to be more reckless, as defeat to Buxton, as improbable as that was, would not change the promotion picture.

The penultimate over yielded just five singles from the first five balls before Cokey was castled from the sixth attempting to launch one into orbit. At this point I had to don my pads again, since I would have to act as Darren Carr’s runner should he be needed to bat, a scenario that neither of us were looking forward to – both because of the match situation and the likelihood that our headstrong attitudes would in all probability lead to a full-scale row and/or run out. Meanwhile, Smudge had strolled to the wicket accompanied nearly every step of the way by Iain, who had come almost to the boundary’s edge to greet his partner. Heaven knows what they were talking about, but it probably had nothing to do with the match.

So, Bob Cuthbertson, the wiliest of campaigners, was to bowl the final over knowing that he only had to stop us scoring 11 runs, almost two-per-ball, to deny us victory. Could the impudence of youth outwit the imperturbability of experience?

anguish on the spectators' faces [Benjamin Toupein] 

The over began terribly: a dot ball. The throng of Moddershall supporters clustered in front of the pavilion wavered between teeth-clenched silence, nervous laughter and shouts of encouragement. Just a scampered single off the next ball and a leg-bye from the third left us needing nine runs from three balls. Addo, either resigned to the draw or drained by the tension, retired to the shower. Billy struck the next ball for two runs and followed it up with a single. It was a valiant effort but surely victory had eluded us.

With us requiring six runs to win, the Buxton skipper stationed all his fielders on the boundary for the day’s final delivery, including the ghostly wicket-keeper. It was difficult to envisage where a six could be hit. The longer leg-side boundary and the boundary straight back over the bowler’s head would normally be the likeliest areas, but a strong breeze blowing from long-on to third-man rendered this almost impossible. Compared to Smudge, playing his first full season in the first team, Cuthbertson must have been in this situation a zillion times more often. Doug Eyre, supping his third pint of Tennant’s Extra, seemed to be the only person enjoying it as we sat chewing the ends of our finger nails.

With the field set, Cuthbertson ran in to bowl; Smudge, hunched over his trusty willow, waited. The ball was delivered wide of off-stump and slightly short. Smudge rocked back, arching his spinal column, and played a cut shot, sending the ball airbound toward the point boundary. Time stopped. Nick Smith, the fielder guarding that part of the ground, shuffled in a few yards to take a comfortable catch…but then, amazingly, began to retreat as the ball was picked up by the breeze. It can’t, it, it…it has. It’s gone for chuffin' six!! 

Smudger in early middle-age

The ball had no sooner pitched on the dirt road than Mauler, Drew and I leapt into the air and started to run onto the pitch, screaming like maniacs. A couple of seconds later, when the initial surge of ecstasy had subsided and we realized what we were doing, we aborted the pitch invasion and waited as Smudge strode off triumphantly after almost being crushed by an Iain Carr bear-hug. The look on the faces of Buxton’s fielders was one of total disbelief; oddly enough, this was the same emotion going through Smudge’s mind, although his expression could not have been more different. 

A generous amount of beer passed over our tonsils that night as we reflected upon the most improbable victory in which I had ever been involved. Many are the moments in a season that can be singled out as crucial to a team’s fate, but that last-gasp six could well be the one that decides the outcome of our season. Whether it does or not, it was unquestionably one of the highlights of my time at Moddershall and I didn’t think Mr. Ian Smallwood would be forgetting it in a hurry either.

MODDERSHALL WON BY 4 WICKETS 

BUXTON 219 for 8 innings closed (60 overs) 
E Johnson 56, R Cuthbertson 40, N Smith 39, J Addison 5-78
MODDERSHALL 220 for 6 (39 overs) 
S Oliver 76, J Addison 49, J Myatt 37, T Budd 3-59

MODDERSHALL 20 points
BUXTON 8 points