I recall a good friend of mine back in Australia reading the Lonely Planet Guide when preparing to come to the UK. She nearly snorted with laughter when she saw the climate referred to as ‘mild’. The world over knows that in England in rains, how can that be mild when you come from Perth? However, having been lucky enough to travel into the snow encrusted north of Sweden in the heart of winter and stood in the desert of Death Valley in the US, I now understand what mild means. Not particularly hot, and not particularly cold. Whether it is raining or not is neither here nor there. For the first few summers I was in the UK, both travelling and then to settle down and live, the summer months were glorious. A long summers day in England is worth 2 sunny days in Perth for their length and rarity, Pimms and beer flowing through the day and into the evening, completed with a mad dash for the last train which you didn’t know was coming because the sun was still up and, boy, I seem to have missed a couple of meals there....I hope I remember to turn before I hit that wall. However, it’s safe to say that, more recently, the summers have been absolutely pants. The kind of pants that are both too tight and too loose at the same time. The kind of pants that won’t stay up but will still desperately try to bury themselves in your keister. In short, one pretty annoying pair of pants.
Rain is the curse of the home team captain. It means endless fretting about the state of the wicket, regular runs down to the ground to check on its condition, beavering through countless conflicting weather reports for areas that aren't really that close to where you are but as close as you can get and wondering if other fixtures around the county are going to go ahead, thus allowing your rivals to gain extra points on the day.
Rain had fallen for most of Friday night and, late in the morning, became quite heavy. Luckily, due to the diligence of The Chairman and The Gentleman Farmer, the covers had gone on the previous night and had actually done their job. Hidden on the sodden and slippery square of mud was a rock hard wicket waiting to be unleashed. So, much to the surprise of the arriving Wedmore CC, we were ready to play right from the 2pm start. Wedmore won the toss and sent us into bat, which was exactly what we didn’t want to do.
El Capitan nicked one past his inside stump early on, and then the very next ball he faced made the correction and nicked the identical delivery straight into the sticks. The visiting Marley Pelham joined Ballistic Tomlinson at the the crease and the two started a tidy partnership with both showing solid form. Marley was putting on a leg glance exhibition that was a thing of elegance and beauty, while Ballistic preferred the impact approach, with a voraciously pulled flat 6 and some destructive driving. Then came the rain...first a short break for a shower and then, after a couple of overs, a proper downpour that had the boys scrambling to get the covers on. The team were saturated but we learnt that our new KSCC cricket sweaters were fairly water proof*.....only in England, next year we might have to find a proper Gortex version.
The partnership resumed after the loss of an hour of playing time. With the league rules in place it meant a loss of 15 overs for the team batting second but the very realistic possibility of playing out a draw (i.e. the chasing team failing to make the target but having wickets in hand after losing overs without a drop in target). KSCC like losing wickets in sets. First Mr Pelham was caught after a lazy sky and then Biffer had a complete meltdown and swung past a straight one. This time, though, the damage stopped at 2 wickets. Ballistic and Sammy G settled in to a partnership that was a joy to behold. Sammy G punctured the field at will and Mark continued to crash pull shots with remarkable power. Ballistic finally holed out after passing the half century for the first time in KSCC colours (white). The Professor once again played junior partner to his junior partner as the score continued to tick over. In the typical way of these things, he perished not long after team instructions to up the scoring pace, trapped stone dead in front. Sammy G changed gears with the arrival of his partner in crime, Livewire Benny. He started advancing down the wicket and dispatched the ball through midwicket on several occasions. Benny looked good until he was controversially sent on his way by some cack handed umpiring that gave him out off a bump ball. The umpire didn’t even ask the square leg umpire to confirm and the umpire can still barely believe it as he writes these very words! Sammy G sadly fell within touching distance of maximum batting points and it was up to the Fabulous Barton Brothers to make the last handful of runs to pass 200. With the completion of the 43rd over and with the score on 201/7, there was the unusual occurrence of the umpire offering a declaration to the fielding captain. This would mean that Wedmore would have 2 extra overs to make to the runs or survive....
...and attack they did. Only 1 run came from the first over but then both openers started unleashing broadsides. The Strangler in particular found himself in for some punishment as the giant Cave carted him and then Tommy B for two monstrous sixes. A quick change brought immediate success though, with The Golden Boy looping one up outside off to Cave who swung around it and found his bails disturbed. It was a welcome wicket maiden, with the score having raced to 41 at the end of the 5th over. He then followed up with a similar wicket in the following over to peg the other opener, K Wall. Wedmore continued to chase runs but the damage had been done. The Golden Boy and The Destroyer combined to tie down the batsman and see the required run rate climb alarmingly. The Destroyer in particular was choking the life out of the run chase with a disciplined spell. He was eventually rewarded with a wicket that ricocheted pinball style off every available surface before ball and stump finally met. From there, Wedmore looked to shut up shop to protect the draw and El Capitan began to ring the changes. Livewire was all over the place, but buried a couple of absolute beauties in the mix to clean bowl one man. The returning Snooky also got some of his own back, sneaking through another batsman. In a desperate attempt to weasel a wicket, The Destroyer, Ballistic, Biffer and Your Brave Leader (TM) all chipped in for one over spells but without luck, though Biffer and El Capitan would argue that they had very adjacent shouts turned down. In fact, with rain starting to come in, bowling the last over and the opposition desperate to get off the field of play, El Capitan managed to bowl the most boring of six dot maidens that contained 1 wicket and 2 wides. Both teams dashed off at the end with the rain lashing down once again. Finishing on 113/5, Wedmore had secured valuable draw points as had KSCC.
Unbelievably, all the other games in the division were completed, but the covers helped us get in a game that might not have happened otherwise in our corner of the county. Although we lost points to our rivals, damage was limited and KSCC still sit in second spot with plenty to play for.
Batting:
S Gillatt 67
M Tomlinson 65
C Pelham 17
Bowling: o m r w
F Barton 8 2 28 2
S Churchill 6 1 11 1
B Chant 3 0 9 1
S Snook 5 0 29 1
*To be more accurate, thick and water absorbent...it just took a long time for the water to make its way all the way through and thus took quite a while to dry afterwards.
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