When it’s all on the line, good teams are ruthless in dispatching lesser teams. Sometimes, teams that are OK manage to do this also. And sometimes, bad teams get lucky and win as well. A quick poll of the major sports writers covering Somerset Cricket League Division 2 has established that KSCC fall firmly into one of these three categories. This unforgiving approach is referred to in coaching circles as The Maddox Principal, named after the famous Jouster Sir Wilfred Helmsley Maddox. When battling for the favours of the ladies and mistresses of the court, Sir Maddox would approach any match with equal aggression and unyielding voracity, regardless of his opponents skill or relative health. Through this, he became the most famous and successful Jouster of his time. Of course, this was the early 1950’s when Jousting was, admittedly, not at its peak. Also, many of Sir Maddox’s opponents were attacked from behind and possibly were not aware that they were engaged in a tournament instead of standing in line at the local greengrocers. Regardless, his record speaks for itself and should not under any circumstances suggest that in those days being connected through old money could get you off several murder charges because you played golf (less well than you jousted) with the magistrate.
South Petherton have been having a difficult season in 2011 and they arrived at a grey and dreary Stourhead ground with what looked to be an understrength side missing several players from the encounter earlier in the year. Conditions didn’t look like favouring any particular approach, but looked like it could rain at any time. When the South Petherton skipper won the toss, he elected to bowl.
It was some time before they had anything to celebrate. The Twin Towers had to work hard, typical late week rain had made the pitch a little slow and there was a heavy dew sitting resolutely on the outfield. Still Sammy G and Ballistic Tomlinson ground away, some of their blissful strokes that would have found the boundary on another day only went for 2 but both batsman looked comfortable against the battery of South Petherton medium pacers. After a commanding partnership of 115 from 26 overs, Ballistic played loosely and disappeared just short of his 50. The Anternator strode to the crease and immediately got into stride, working the ball to all corners before unleashing the prototypical straight drives he is known for. Sammy G was not to be denied, showing that he is not afraid of a six or two and the platform to assault the last overs grew and grew. Anternator once again found himself undone with the introduction of spin and Sammy G tamely prodded a catch after a great innings. Impact players Rayzzo and Livewire unpinched the pinch hitting slots, so it was down to The Professor and the demoted El Capitan to bash and scamper the final overs, both men not afraid of being dropped by the fielders to continue batting, to pip KSCC up to 242/5.
Little did we know at tea that the game at that point was almost over. Snooky took a couple of overs to get going but found booming outswing once it started going. Tommy B was just too fast and smashed through one opener. Snooky off cut his way through number 3 and then the bog hitting Boulton lofted one for The Professor to stand under and snaffle. Livewire Benny took a good running catch to help Snooky out (at one point in the game there were three men standing behind the stumps that had all dropped a catch of The Stranglers bowling, including a regulation chance straight into the bread basket of Your Brave Leader (TM)). The next few overs saw the only partnership of the innings before The Golden Boy had both men bowled Barton, caught other Barton. From 50/6, South Petherton made it to 50 all out. Snooky refused to come off and give anyone else a go, nicking another 2 wickets in his last over to finish with 5-fer. Just as The Destroyer was getting warmed up, The Golden Boy secured the last 3 wickets in one over and that was it.
It was a flat game as South Petherton are in a pretty unfortunate way at the moment, but the lads got the 35 points which was the main aim of the day as each of our challengers also took full points to keep things as they were.
Batting:
S Gillatt 68
M Tomlinson 47
A Williams 43
J Rowe 26*
Bowling: o m r w
S Snook 12 1 24 5
F Barton 5 1 12 4
T Barton 7 2 13 1
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