Kilmington Vs Venturers, Sunday August 11th

Kilmington 147, Venturers 22-0

We usually play Kilmington early in the season, when it often rains, but the early Easter prevented that this year and instead we played them in August, and it rained. There were only nine of us, but they were happy to lend us fielders in rotation, and enough people turned up overall to occupy all the parking spaces. This inconvenienced Muhammad, who had just carefully aligned his prayer mat in the last vacant one. He moved it away good-naturedly and found another spot nearby.

Once we started playing cricket, a pattern quickly established itself. In Chandrabhan’s first over there was a roll of thunder, and the left-handed opener hit an awkward catch to Charles at cover, who dropped it. At the other end, James pitched far too short and was mercilessly pulled by the left-hander, but Chandrabhan bowled the other opener. James’s length improved, and the left-hander slowed down a bit, but soon there was another roll of thunder, and a short ball from Chandrabhan which he hit straight but hard at Charles at cover, who dropped it. After a while Simon turned to the Venturers’ standard method against left-handers, which is to put Gregory on and hope for the best. There was a roll of thunder, and the left-hander skied Chandrabhan to Charles at cover, who dropped it.

It is fair to say that if you were told that a Venturer had dropped the same batsman three times in the same place off the same bowler, you wouldn’t exactly be surprised but you wouldn’t immediately finger Charles as the culprit. By our standards, he has a fairly safe pair of hands. Perhaps he should have borrowed Muhammad’s prayer mat. However, this clearly had to stop. It was James, really, who stopped it. The left-hander attacked Gregory with insufficient care and the ball skewed off a leading edge, high into the air and straight back, far over the bowler. James, running back from mid-on, with the ball descending over his shoulder, judged it perfectly and held on.

Although the left-hander had been doing most of the scoring, we were not out of trouble. The skies cleared, and Muhammad had a bowl from Chandrabhan’s end. He didn’t immediately pose such a threat, but he didn’t give much away either. The number three, who had played more quietly while the left-hander was in, got frustrated and scooped a catch to square leg off one of Gregory’s more harmless deliveries, competently taken by one of the loaned fielders. In Gregory’s next over, the other established batsman tried to sweep a completely straight ball and missed it.

There were still competent batsmen around (if we had been batting we would have run out of such people long ago): another left-hander had come in. The right-hander hit Muhammad uppishly through a gap in the offside field that someone more agile or alert than Gregory might have closed in time. It made little difference, fortunately, because Muhammad bowled him a few balls later. The left-hander showed a strong preference for the off side, which prompted Gregory to bowl over the wicket to him and post a slip. While this was technically the right thing to do, it meant doing something he wasn’t used to and placing a fieldman in a normally purely decorative position. Nevertheless, one that bounced a bit did catch the edge of a cross bat, but too much edge for the wicket-keeper and too little for slip. In the next over, though, it all suddenly worked: the batsman drove, the ball turned away from him, and the edge travelled swiftly to slip. Slip was Bruce. His task was simple: don’t move, stay low, and catch it. Bruce did all those things, and with that, we were through the batting. The number eight swept Gregory once, then tried to pull Muhammad and missed. He announced proudly that he never wore a box, and sank to the ground, not quite falling on his stumps. Only Muhammad showed much concern for him. He was able to carry on, and top-edged a pull onto his visor a few balls later. It fell safely, but the next ball he faced, from Chandrabhan now that Muhammad was out of overs, he tried to pull again and gave a return catch. The remaining batsman, a competent Australian, failed to marshal the tail. He left the number nine to face one ball from Bruce, which he flapped to mid-off. He left the number ten to face two balls from Chandrabhan, who needed only one to bowl him. The number eleven showed up her predecessors by getting into line, only for the Australian to have a go at Bruce himself next ball and get bowled.

Kilmington is in Wiltshire, but they have been known to field teams in the Dorset and the Somerset leagues, and their tea featured scones in Cornish (jam below) rather than Devon (cream below) style. The price of all this southwesternism is southwestern weather, and Chandrabhan and Charles were greeted by another roll of thunder as they walked out to open the innings. They got through the opening over without much alarm, Charles taking a single. At the other end, the young woman who had batted at eleven marked out a long run-up, charged in and bowled a perfectly good ball that slid off the outside half of Charles’s bat for a couple. She had overstepped, though, and struggled with her run-up for the rest of the over, overstepping twice more and twice bowling from behind the bowling crease. When she did get one on the right length, rather wide, Charles reached for it and slapped it to cover. He dropped it, amid some ridicule as he had earlier taken a catch while fielding for us. Chandrabhan hit the other bowler back over his head for four, and did it again an over later, but there wasn’t much else to be had beyond singles after the second bowler re-marked her run and remembered to stop if she lost it.

It was just getting interesting when the rain finally arrived. After ten minutes it stopped, but soon started again; after half an hour it was clear that nothing more could be done. We drove away in sunshine, but with the next heavy shower approaching.