Watton-at-Stone v The Min

Played at The Meadow on 21/06/2009

Watton-at-Stone batted first and made 204 for 5 wkts. The Min replied with 205 for 8 wkts
Result: The Min won by 2 wkts

Match Report

From our Cricket Correspondent

After last year’s casual drubbing at the hands of Anton, Watton’s super-cool keeper-batsman (in the wake of what transpired to be a friendly declaration), who could blame skipper Jel for choosing safety first and inserting the home side? Quite a few seasoned old chunterers, as it happens. Furthermore, Jel’s mutterings about shirt fronts, billiard tables and batsmen’s paradises suggested that his pre-match inspection of the pitch had been cursory and/or myopic. The strip was on the end of the square, undulated alarmingly, and proceeded to misbehave all afternoon - it was later discovered that the groundsman was on holiday and the roller had broken down, information that might have usefully been obtained beforehand. Still, at least Jel didn’t lie to his team mates about the result of the toss…

The Watton innings thus began with uneven bounce and a swinging ball, but a wicket looked surprisingly unlikely until controversy intervened. Mo, operating around the wicket to the left-handed bludgeoner, “Badger” Ellis, struck him full pitch on the front pad. An unusually vociferous and high-pitched Min appeal was astonishingly upheld. The Badger was unamused. Subscribing perhaps to the Beswick theory of lbw (of which more later), Ellis remonstrated with his team mate, explaining with the use of a slide-rule and set of log tables he produced from his jockstrap the geometric impossibility of his being out. For a moment violence seemed inevitable. Only the umpire’s threat to go home “if you’re going to be like that” averted bloodshed. Then the Badger went home. Or to the pub. And the innings continued.

The pitch was like a petulant teenager - sometimes fizzing the ball feistily past the batman’s nose, while at others it just couldn’t be arsed. But the Min bowlers failed to take advantage, uncharacteristically offering a series of inviting full-bungers and half-trackers, which the home team’s young Aussie in particular took a liking to. Mo toiled hard and took another wicket with a shooter, but Wiggy and Iqbal drew a blank. The Carpet-Slippered Destroyer was curiously impotent. Jel helped himself to a lengthy spell of eleven overs in a quest for his first wicket of the season, which duly came. But no more followed, and by the time Earn, bowling rather quickly off a three pace walk-up, and new-boy Ralf Wilkinson, scorning to “use the facilities”, were belatedly introduced to nick a couple more out, all that could be done was to await the declaration. Perhaps the Watton captain was thinking of last year’s Min generosity as he called time on a total of 204 for 5, although the erratic pitch suggested that this might be quite a challenging total.

Tea was very pleasing, with a good array of sandwiches - egg and bacon being especially well received - and some excellent home-made sponges, including lemon and coffee and walnut.

The Min reply began sturdily enough in the face of some pacy bowling from the young Aussie. Earn was out for a quick 19, and Bes followed soon after, given out lbw by the skipper. There followed the polite, Min version of the earlier contretemps. It was terribly restrained and middle class, but the resentment was seething away all the same, as Jel was accused of giving the benefit of the doubt to the bowler and Bes pointed to the “place” on his upper thigh where he was hit, forgetting of course it is where that place was relative to the stumps that counts. In this instance, it was right in front of them. Thus Jel rightly ignored the theory that it is impossible for Bes ever to be out LBW. Only Bes subscribes to this theory. Woodfull was “the unbowlable”; Bes in his sad imagination is “the unlbwable”.

Controversy continued. Mo entered to face the Badger, now returned, and still seething with sarcastic resentment. Mo’s first, solid, forward defensive was met with a hysterical, mocking banshee appeal. Much “eyeballing” followed. Dark mutterings - hawkeye…lbw law…round the wicket…halfway down the track - accompanied the Badger’s slow trudge back. The next ball, Mo played and missed, then, on hearing a strange rhythmic snorting, looked up to see the Badger, who had extended his normal three yard follow-through by another fifteen, looming inches from his face. This was gripping stuff.

Alas, one of the great face-offs in Min history was curtailed by Mo tamely offering a caught-and-bowled the next over to Rob Clayton, Watton’s evergreen slow left-armer, a bowler who achieves the near-impossible by having an arm even slower and lower than Jel’s. He’s been working on a sillier run-up, to no avail. Mo’s wicket was followed by a period of what is often referred to as “consolidation”, but is more accurately described as “stagnation as the run-rate gets way from us and the game drifts towards a dull draw”. In the light of this, Jim’s dismissal to the second big shooter of the day was a blessing in disguise, as it ushered Shaq to the wicket. With 90 still needed at nearly 7 an over, a win looked unlikely, but Watton had reckoned without Shaq in attack mode. A succession of blistering boundaries, including a brilliant clip off his legs, saw the Min through to a thrilling two-wicket victory with a ball to spare.

Watton-at-Stone Innings

Fall of Wickets

Bowling

The Min Innings

Fall of Wickets

Bowling

Win/Loss Ratio

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