CICC vs Seveno, 31st August 2019
The swathes of red dots littering the results page tells a misleading story of this year at CICC. I lie in the post coital bliss of a beautiful summer of cricketing love, it has sort of been a miracle.…. (Editor: Wow)
11:45am – Joel looked concerned, was it the fact that I had just hit the breaks and nearly crushed his dog under an unnecessarily large cricket bag, or was it the google predicted arrival time – 12:55? Either way, we were off to the last game of the summer (in the UK anyway).
13:05 – Blazing sunshine. Jimmy tossed, won (heads – good choice skip) and, advised by the great minds of CICC, decided to bowl. The conditions will only get better they said.
17:18 – “This looks spicy”, commented Joel as he returned reluctantly to the rain tarnished wicket. But before we got wet we fielded.
‘The outfield’s not usually this quick’ commented the friendly square leg umpire as the ball skipped like a lively bunny across the sun parched and newly mown outfield. The Seveno opening batsmen looked an interesting pair, like Ben Stokes’ batting personality had been split and set at either end. The wilder of the two swung hard but Goodman (8-0-43-1) had bowled a deceptive slower ball that dipped into his pad and up went the finger of fate. As the sun burned the pace remained surprisingly sedate as the other opener (scoring 46) played correctly and stroked the ball around. Frecknall (5.2-0-21-1) left the number 3 groping and losing his bails with some lovely spin burglary of which Percy would have been proud (less than 20 away now Frekkers and all importantly, 5 ahead). Now Langham (8-3-28-4!) came into the attack and he bowled a Seveno man too. Stern kept up the attack from the football ground end with some searching seam. Tooze leapt around at point and amazingly as we neared drinks there was nowhere for the headband-of-shame to go.
20 overs, 70 ish runs 3 wickets down but getting greyer….
Gregory (5-0-42-2) was handed the ball, took 15 minutes to decide what to bowl, then took a wicket of his own. Four down, what a change skipper! Isn’t this cricket a rather lovely game. Little did we know.
Seveno, a lovely lot, had lulled us. Now the Clapham baby was about to be woken by the whack of an SS cricket bat. Crack, six, crack, six, crack, bigger six, ok I’ll bowl seam, crack, four (thank goodness no-one got in the way of that one). It felt like it happened to CICC but the figures tell a different story… – how did Tooze (4-0-27-0) manage it at the other end? Langham chuckled quietly.
All of a sudden it was 190 ish for 5 and still about 6 overs to go. Enter Legacy Langham, surely he couldn’t get the 3 wickets he needed to surpass Royal on the all time list and become the leading Australian wicket taker for the club (late edit after checking the stats – apart from G Morgan). Surely he would be battered into the beyond like Gregory. He lolloped in, pulling his hangover with him, crack, bowled him, crack, bowled him, crack, bowled him. A triple wicket maiden to pack on the plane home! He chuckled again. Surely that could not be topped – give him the champagne cork already.
[the sound of a record scratching] Hang on….Jon ‘Wayne’ Stern is yet to rise…. silence as the ball flies through the air from the boundary….even Langham isn’t making a sound….. the stumps crack and JWS blows the smoke from his pistol. How did that happen???? (see diagram below). All out. I mean after that run out it would have to be all out, it was worth 10 wickets on its own.
Then it rained, it really rained. And we all looked at Jimmy, who looked at Clack who looked at some others who had apparently also told Jimmy to bowl.
We batted for a while but somehow batting wasn’t as fun as fielding on this day. The rainbow scorebook of Dr Jim ‘that’s not a real Dr’ Clack painted a more colourful picture than the batting. Seveno bowled rather well (and were excellent company in the field) we/I just couldn’t really get going. We waited for the fodder that never really came whilst we ran threes for fun on the SLOW WET OUTFIELD. You could argue that we should have hit sixes like Seveno did when they needed to give it some humptey, but it’s just not really our way.
Special mention goes to the slip catch that got Joel, but Geoffrey would have been shaking his head at the 5 CICCers that were bowled.
Finally, as the 2019 home season drew to a close in the low evening sun, we collectively drifted off to sleep, as though we had drunk too much red wine in front of the glowing embers of a beautiful season. We dreamed together as President Clack caressed 24 off 11 and made it look respectable (including a delightful hat-trick of swept 4s).
The cricketing gods may have sent the luck elsewhere this season but my it has been a good one. May the warmth of it take you all through Winter. Love to you all, and for those touring – you lucky buggers!
Match notes/stats (sort of):
Headband: E Gregory, for a ‘rolly-polly’ shortly after noting to M Langham that there was nowhere for the headband to go.
M Langham/Dean/Bowler: Going past J Royal (who introduced him to the club) on the all time wickets list with a triple wicket maiden, his last over for the club (until he comes back and plays again next summer). We will miss you Langers.
And finally, the real champagne moment: J Stern. Words can not do it justice so I’m going to draw….
By Ed Gregory, aged 38+
