Allsorts Vs Venturers, Sunday September 20th

Venturers 201-7, Somerset Allsorts 100-5

Late in September, the agreement was that there would be seventy overs and the side batting first would declare, if not bowled out, around the halfway mark. This works quite well with eighty overs, but there wasn’t enough of the match and in the end, although we were clearly better, neither side was anywhere near winning.

Ritvij, without an over limit to worry about, played eleven consecutive dots and fifteen in his first sixteen balls. Given our propensity to collapse, that was probably just as well. Toby at the other end kept the score moving more often, but without ever getting boundaries so on average they pretty much matched one another. After he got bowled in the tenth over Jaideep raised the pace a bit; then he got dropped and a few balls later had a wild swipe and also got bowled.

That left Ritvij batting with Richard. There are about fifty years between them but they take exactly the same approach to batting, and if the rules had permitted it they would probably have batted quite happily at four an over for the rest of the afternoon. Not that it was entirely unform. Ritvij even hit a six. More contentiously, Richard top-edged a full toss to fine leg. It looked high from the bowler’s end: Gregory, wanting to check looked across at Bruce at square leg, who ignored him. The bowler, an otherwise rather efficient bloke who wore a bobble hat throughout, instantly declared that in his opinion it was a no-ball, and so it was agreed.

What broke the partnership was the retire-at-fifty rule, which nobody had told Ritvij about: the agreement was that he could complete the over, and that provoked him to aggression and he got as far as 57 before the closure. Ian hit a couple of boundaries and then fell to a sharp caught-and-bowled.

CB arrived, punched gloves with Richard and immediately ran him out in a huge muddle. When he did face, he survived a confident appeal for a catch at the wicket. A few balls later he turned a bit casually for a second run. The bowler thought he hadn’t made his ground: Jaideep thought he had, and there was a row, though all that was at stake was one run.

The important point is this: only if the umpire clearly does not know the basic laws is it reasonable at this level to raise objections. You can’t be expected to carry on if the umpire no-balls you every time you put your front foot over the line of the stumps, or gives you out LBW because you were playing no shot even though he agrees that it wouldn’t have hit the stumps. (I have seen both these things happen.) Under those circumstances you have to ask the opposing captain to appoint a better informed person to do the job, because you can’t bowl or bat normally otherwise. But mistakes just have to be accepted.

Maybe Jaideep was right anyway, but whether he was right or wrong, he is incompetent. We know this. If he weren’t incompetent, he wouldn’t be here. We are all incompetent. Nobody is at all surprised or annoyed when the bowler bowls a slow long hop, and the batsman spoons it to mid-off, who drops it. Why should our umpiring be any more reliable?

Eventually this sank in. CB thrashed about to fairly good effect, Farooq hit a couple of slightly more cultured shots, and Vik hit one very cultured one (Vik is nearly not incompetent) and then ran CB out. That was 35 overs, but Bruce decided to have one more so as to give Duncan an innings. Duncan was out second ball and Bruce had to face the last two himself.

We should probably have declared earlier. The bobble-hatted bloke attacked furiously but soon hit a skier back to CB, who dropped it. His partner hit a skier to mid-on, who dropped it. CB bowled both of them, and that was that: there wasn’t the run-scoring ability for the rest of them to threaten out score, which was therefore far bigger than it needed to be. On the other hand, we didn’t have the time or the ability to bowl them out if they didn’t attack. Eventually they even stopped running singles, mainly because neither batsman was fully fit. Gregory bowled seven overs for four runs, and Ritvij was not much more expensive, but they got only one wicket each, Ritvij’s by a edge that struck Ian on the thigh and deflected into his armpit. Bruce picked up one more wicket towards the end, but the match petered out.