'AWNIOGO': CREWE ROLLS-ROYCE (H)

home, sweet home

Saturday, July 22

Crewe Rolls-Royce at home – the fixture that has provided both my best and worst moments as a Moddershall 1st XI player. In 1992, our promotion year, I broke my ankle playing a friendly post-match game of football on the outfield. Then, last season, I scored my maiden senior century against the same opposition. Obviously I was hoping for something along the lines of the latter, but was feeling extremely tentative about the game as the hairline fracture of my thumb was still very sore. After a painful practice session on Friday I suggested to Addo that someone else should keep wicket (with the Talbot Cup semi-final only 24 hours away, I didn’t want to risk another knock) but there were no feasible alternatives and none of the fielders were prepared to stand up to Addo’s bowling, so I was lumbered with the task.

Having stoked myself up on painkillers, I waited for the Heardmobile to whisk me up to Moddershall. On arrival I noticed that our team had three changes from the side that won at Sneyd: Smudge had gone on holiday to Spain, Darren Carr was playing a representative game for London Hospitals and John Myatt, having to work one day this weekend, wisely opted to miss the league match in favour of the more glamorous cup fixture. Mauler’s absence left John Addison as our only ever-present player this season, but then I suppose he does get paid for it… 

not the coin I used to toss, but one with
an interesting Scandinavia (minus
Norway, not in the Eurozone)

That said, I’m not sure how many professionals turn up ten minutes before the start of play, especially when they happen to be the captain as well. He claimed that he’d lost track of time whilst doing stretching exercises on his lounge floor. Of course, this is a real dog-ate-my-homework job. I accept that he might have lost track of time, but stretching exercises? We all know Addo wouldn’t stretch to reach his beer if he could possibly avoid it.

All this palaver meant that I, as vice-captain, had to toss up. My opposite number called correctly, but to my great delight he chose to bat first. I told him that that is what I would have done (obviously I wouldn’t have, but there was no harm in kidding him) and went off to strap on my ‘keeping pads and pray I didn’t damage my thumb still further. 

After a quiet opening, Addo’s afternoon went from bad to worse in the sixth over of the innings when he committed a rather embarrassing blunder. Stationed in the middle of the three-man slip cordon, he exhorted the bowler, Seth, to “feed the hippos”. In common English, this translates as “find the edge of the bat and give one of the slip fielders a catch, if you please guv’nor”. Inevitably, with the very next ball, Andy ran up and produced a peach of an outswinger that found the edge of MacLoed’s bat. The ball flew to – guess who? – Addo and, wouldn’t you know it, the catch was spilled. To add insult to injury, the ball also scuttled away to the boundary, a fact that seemed to irk Andy much more than the drop itself. Nobody dared laugh, at least not out loud!

hippo ready to be fed

Despite this piece of slapstick, the breakthrough wasn’t long in coming as ‘Barrington’ Brian ripped through the defences of both openers in quick succession to leave ‘Royces’ in the precarious position of 25 for 2. However, it was some time before we next struck as Hampshire and Jones put together a useful stand, composed largely of frenetic running between the wickets yet punctuated by the odd good shot. During their annoying alliance, tension began to surface amongst our troops. At one point I turned to the captain and suggested an alteration to the field which, with hindsight, I suspect he had already considered judging by the abrasiveness of his response. “Put a sock in it, you’re bombarding me”, I think he said. The tone of his reply led to an exchange of insults before a prolonged period of the silent treatment. In anger, I also told Harv that I would be resigning as vice-captain after the match as I didn’t think I had any input to make or any real job to do. I mean, any goon can toss a coin when the captain is late. Our little contretemps was resolved soon afterwards but was a clear indication that both he and I were becoming a little edgy as our good early work seemed to be coming undone. 

With the game drifting away, Iain Carr came to the rescue and split the partnership by trapping Hampshire leg before wicket, then Cokey disposed of Jones in similar fashion after he had helped Leese (the new batsman) edge the score into three figures. Andy Hawkins returned to the attack and reduced Rolls-Royce to 120 for 6 by striking in consecutive overs. His first wicket, that of Dave Sadler, the opposing skipper, provoked the game’s most unsavoury incident. Before he had troubled the scorers he got a thin yet definite outside edge and I took the catch – just about the only thing I hadn’t dropped all afternoon. Perfectly within his rights he stood and waited for the decision but when the dreaded digit was raised he let out an extremely audible expletive before telling the umpire exactly what he had thought of the decision (not by giving it marks out of ten, if you know what I mean). 

'the dispute' ,  j valanzuela

Sadler was not censured, and his displeasure at being given out almost certainly provoked a blatant display of bad sportsmanship later on in the game. It came just before tea when he stopped us from claiming an extra ten minutes’ worth of bowling time. Under the current law, if one team requires only one more wicket to dismiss the opposition they may ask the umpires to delay tea by ten minutes or until the final wicket falls, whichever is the earliest. Rolls-Royce only had ten players so we were quite correct in thinking that, with the score at 155 for 8, we could enforce the ruling. However, Sadler had told the umpires that their pre-pubescent scorer, who wasn’t even padded up and clearly wasn’t going to bat, was playing as their eleventh man, so we reluctantly came in for tea.

Rolls-Royce had reached their tea-time total thanks to the farmyard batting of their motormouth number 5, Andy Leese. Kitted out in a maroon helmet, he looked anything but West Indian as he played most of his shots standing on square leg’s toes, yet somehow he reached 40 before falling to a brilliant sucker punch delivered by Addo. Our captain brought Iain Carr ten yards off the boundary at long-off, then said – quite loudly, just so the batsman couldn’t fail to hear it – “he can’t hit it that far”. The next ball was tossed up, Leese fell for it and chipped a catch straight to Billy. 

keeper's fingers: my fate?

By the time the interval had concluded, relations between the two sides were anything but cordial. The ninth wicket was taken three balls after tea when Haywood edged Iain Carr behind to Drew, keeping wicket in my place to relieve me from the pounding. Not surprisingly, Sadler declared immediately, having achieved the main objective of wasting ten minutes of our potential batting time. 

The time had now come to see how my thumb would stand up to batting. The ‘keeping hadn’t gone all that well due both to the consistent jarring effect of taking the ball and the fact that Cokey kept on firing in missiles from whichever part of the outfield into which he had roamed, missiles that bounced anywhere between two yards and two feet in front of me. Despite his token apologies, this seemed to amuse him no end.

Having seen what happened to Harv at Crewe and not having faced Haywood myself, I decided to wear a helmet. I only needed it for five overs as Sadler was forced to remove his tearaway strike bowler from the attack after he had been blitzed by an immensely fired-up Addo. Lovejoy’s determination was partly due to relishing the challenge, but mainly caused by the mouth of Andy Leese who, after implying that Jon was a ‘chucker’, said to Haywood as we were walking out to bat, “come on Glenn, let’s have a break”, meaning a broken bone. This was conclusive proof, if any was needed, that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. The only thing that was broken was the bowler’s heart, with Addo pulling each and every one of his attempted bouncers to the legside boundary. I also hooked him for four and he was to spend the rest of the afternoon as a spectator whilst the pro and myself rattled up a century partnership inside 18 overs. 

With the aid of another borrowed bat, I felt in something like top form, but, as so often happens when you are finding things easy, over-confidence got the better of me and I edged one of Sadler’s dibbly-dobbly seamers to the wicket-keeper whilst trying the run the ball dawn to third man and farm the strike. Just desserts, I think they call it. It was even mare galling to learn that the umpire would not have given me out –still, if you are a walker then you walk. 

Billy Carr, promoted to number 3, came in and smashed a quick 20 before holing out with victory only a mere formality and it was left to Lovejoy to complete the job with a flourish of boundaries to finish unbeaten on 85, made from 75 balls and including 17 fours.

Our third consecutive league win had been completed with 16 overs to spare but some of the gloss was taken away when we heard that Bignall End and Newcastle had also recorded their own hat-trick of victories. Nevertheless, with Ashcombe Park only managing a draw we had taken the outright lead at the top of the table, albeit by a slender margin. With ten games remaining only 12 points separated the top four clubs. We knew it was going to be real dogfight. 

MODDERSHALL WON BY 8 WICKETS 

CREWE ROLLS-ROYCE 157 for 9 declared (53.3 overs) 
P Hampshire 44, A Leese 40, C Jones 36
MODDERSHALL 161 for 2 (30.2 overs) 
J Addison 85*, S Oliver 42

MODDERSHALL 20 points
CREWE ROLLS-ROYCE 5 points