A flurry of wickets caused the abandonment of the scorebook in search of pads with which to face a hat-trick ball. Examined under a microscope, it was blocked. Shortly afterwards a stupid probing drive found an edge but luckily it plopped into space and enabled a single. Then a cut four to the short boundary but after a change in bowling, with my foot so far down the wicket it was nearly in the next field, my extended front leg met a full ball from a floated spinner and the umpire - a team mate - extended his finger in judgement. Later, he would explain the decision, without invitation, leaving me in doubt, with a new theory that his previous almost half century had made him over confident.
Failing to bat out all the overs is a bit naughty, but another LBW decision (which looked out from the boundary but was again debated by the batsman) led to an early demise of our innings, short of the double century we'd hoped for. As we left the field, a missing member of the opposition team arrived.
The tea had been driven to the match on the seat behind me as the driver struggled to extricate us from the city through traffic jams and navigational errors. It still tasted fine, although with running and jumping to do, it was best not to scoff too much.
Our opening bowlers tested the batsmen, despite a rather grubby ball and the best of the afternoon's humidity gone. The almost-half-centurion received a nasty crack on the knee. The score progressed to the doorstep of concern before our bowlers hit the stumps for the first of six times. In between the score appeared to race, stagnate, escape, proceed and fall. The number three batsmen had about him the air of a tail-ender, swinging and a missing many times, connecting twice to reach the boundary before the first change bowler up the hill cleaned him up.
Running in down the hill, the sweet spot found last week, where the ball popped to an awkward height, was elusive. By now it was evident that our opposition were a team of hitters and buoyed up by having a five-fer under his belt, the No.4 batsman was intent on making early summer hay.
There was some bad fielding; dropped catches that bred disappointment and anxiety and some brilliant fielding; the hyper-extended arm of the man of the match plucking a blinder at backward point astonished all. Pretending to hover like a buzzard over a field mouse got me a run out, but the yorkers down the hill sometimes came out as low full tosses and got punished. One got through, played on or off the pads: Bails off. Nice. Soon after I got rested, to come back on at 'the death': It's up there with being night watchman; an awkward job, but someone's got to do it and if they pick you, they probably think you've got half a chance.
The game was nicely balanced, for a spectator, but with the light fading and a few light spots of rain arriving, nobody on either side felt particularly settled. The skipper bowled down the hill, went for a few runs, then hit the stumps. Same happened at the other end, the run rate just getting away from the batting side, despite the soapy ball far too often failing to find a safe pair of hands in the field.
It's probably best not to shout, as the ball arcs in the murky sky, "Surely this time." It didn't work and on dropping it, the fielder, one of the more enthusiastic and the most economical bowler, was perhaps best left to battle his demons alone.
"If we lose this, it'll be because we haven't put everyone back on the boundary", someone said to me between overs. "We can give them a run a ball."
"Actually, you'll have to come back on up the hill", the skipper apologised, "I've miscalculated."
The demons had by now apparently convinced the aforementioned fielder to believe that he perhaps wasn't a boundary fielder after all and with this new found half knowledge, he spilled another one. I'm equally culpable for not discussing swapping the fielder in one of the most crucial fielding positions for a right arm over. The drizzle, wet ball and uphill task had distracted me.
Still, nil panic. "It ain't getting away from us. Bowl straight. Oh crikey" clamour the voices inside, as two fielders let a ball reach a hedge before and between them. Somehow, one over goes for three fours, which is almost as many as eight went for last week, but then the skipper strikes again from the top end, bowling the danger man.
I hadn't remembered the bloke who turned up at the close of our innings and didn't realise that he wouldn't be batting, so when I bowled a straight one that was lofted high towards long on at the bottom of the field and expertly and mercifully pouched, the words, "It's all over" didn't fully register.
Scoreboard
Post match refreshment arrangements. Unfortunately, the opposition didn't drink biiter.
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