Venturers Vs Bathford, Sunday April 28th

Venturers 114, Bathford 110

Four runs. It sounds like a good match and a memorable victory, but it was a bit less than that. For one thing, you still didn’t have to be from Chennai to think that it was very cold. It was, at least, dry until the end. More seriously, one of the Bathwick players was struck on the ankle by a shot by Rasesh and collapsed; he had to be taken to hospital, and, quite apart from the worry and unease that this made everybody feel, neither he nor the player who took him played any further part in the game. As Bathford had been one short to start with, they were seriously disadvantaged, even though Murali, who turned up even though he wasn’t playing for us, played for them.

Sulis reminds one of Lord’s. Usually it does that for exactly one reason: there is a distinct slope from one side of the ground to the other. Today there was a second reason: part of the ground was being used for archery, and there were severe warning signs up. The buildings are still boarded up, and only the changing rooms are accessible, although some music could be heard in them that sounded as if it came from the old bar area next door. Perhaps it is haunted by a jukebox. We had brought tea (the solids) with us, but the archers had done rather better and set up an informal bar outside. They were selling Strongbow, although you wouldn’t expect to shoot very straight after a couple of those.

Kevin lost the toss, not to the official Bathford captain (Steve Dent) but to a deputy nominated by Steve to get on with it while he helped Gregory get our kit out of his car. The deputy won the toss, elected to bat, and asked Kevin what he would have done. Kevin said he would have batted and was told “oh, we’ll bowl, then”. So we batted, on what proved to be quite a lively pitch. Arvind and Saahil opened, but Arvind got something unplayable early on. It started on middle and leg, swung late and clipped the outside of off. You have to be a good batsman with your eye in to deal with those.

Indian banknotes have the value written on them in fifteen languages. Much of this diversity was on display in this match, mostly in the form of Hindi and Tamil. This amused Bathford’s lone Indian, whose native language is Marathi but who asserted in the pub afterwards that Hindi is the national language of India. You also do not have to be from Chennai to think that this is wrong, although it helps.

Rasesh made a frantic start and was rebuked in Hindi by Saahil (“It isn’t a twenty-over match! You don’t have to score off every ball!”), who then forgot his own advice and got bowled trying something ambitious. Prashanth played two extraordinary leg glances off the middle stump, spoke English to his partner and one umpire and Tamil to the other umpire, and then was out to a good slip catch. After that Kevin arrived, and things calmed down linguistically and on the pitch. The Bathford opening bowlers ran out of overs, and their replacements, though good, were less of a threat. The threat was reduced still further by a couple of dropped catches, one of which will embarrass Bathford’s Indian for weeks, and then by the accident. This was also a dropped catch really. Raseesh hit it quite hard and uppishly towards midwicket, who started to drop his hands down to attempt the catch. Then he appeared to think better of it, half stood up and was trying to get out of the way when the ball hit him. It hurt, a lot. Bathford’s opening bowler is a doctor and took charge, but quickly decided that although there was probably no break it needed an X-ray; so we allowed a car onto the outfield and lifted the injured man into it.

From a cricket point of view this meant two things. Firstly, Bathford had to rely on second-string bowlers, who actually did rather well. Secondly, we had to lend them three fielders, counting Murali. One of these, Prashanth, took a catch to get rid of Sanket, who, with Alex, had been steadying things after Rasesh and Kevin had both got out. Matt annoyed himself by edging a short ball, but Alex and Akhil added some security before Alex got out and Steve Dent finished things, four overs early, by bowling Akhil and then Anand.

Tea was taken in the back room off the dressing room as it was far too cold outside. The tea arrangements worked well, although actual tea (the drink) would have been nice. There was an urn standing in a corner, but it somehow looked broken and we wouldn’t have known where to plug it in. It may have belonged to the archers, and it would be embarrassing if we blew the fuses. So we made do with cold drinks, and started again quite quickly.

Matt had been disappointing with the bat but he was very effective with the ball. He swung it out late and after four over had figures of 4-3-1-2, one caught by Alex and one bowled with a copy of the ball that had accounted for Arvind. Anand, at the other end, was also economical and deserved wickets, but didn’t get any. The Indian had settled in: he wasn’t going to score fast, but they didn’t need him to and we didn’t seem likely to get him out. At the other end, the doctor was showing more intent and a good eye. Fortunately for us he fell straight into Gregory’s rather obvious trap and got stumped. Akhil, also swinging the ball, picked up a wicket too and they kept the scoring low enough to make the run rate a consideration. When Gregory collected another wicket we were well in control. This was an odd affair: nobody appealed at first, until eventually the bowler realised that as the ball had gone to third man but slowly it must have been pad, not bat, that he had hit.

Here, however, the trouble started. The new batsman was aggressive, and we didn’t have all that many runs to play with. He got an edge to Akhil, but Gregory failed to react, and thereafter hit firmly. Before we knew what had happened they had added thirty and we were in trouble. At that point the Indian miscued Akhil and was competently caught by Sanket, but then came Murali. He batted left-handed at first, although his only attacking shot at that stage was a reverse slosh, but soon switched to right. There is no rule against this, any more than there is any need to ask permission for the wicketkeeper to bowl (though Bathford did); but it is extremely unusual to be able to do both. Switching to right-handed he seemed more comfortable, and contributed some orthodox sloshes to the partnership. We allowed his partner singles, which was probably a mistake. We didn’t bowl very well and we dropped a catch or two, but we needed only two wickets. Matt was out of overs, and Anand’s line briefly deserted him, but Kevin decided to persist with him with six needed. A big swing brought a single. Murali found a fieldsman once, defended once, then swung and missed, leaving Anand two balls at Steve Dent. We all told him to bowl straight and pitch it up. He did.

Scorecard