Monster

Sat XI v Grendel (H)

"Grendel is one of three antagonists in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf (AD 700–1000) usually depicted as a monster or a giant. Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf." (Wikipedia)

Late July and the hogweed is high around the lanes of Farmborough where the Cowboys take on the monster. RT1 wins the toss and opens the bowling with Iggy on a flat, sun-baked track offering little help to the bowler. The opening batsmen are solid and hard hitting and manage to accumulate at about four an over, aided by a fast outfield and some inflexible Cowboy spines. RT1's unlucky not to cling on to a sharp return catch but eventually breaks the partnership in his penultimate over. Iggy sends down a couple of maidens and has a few fruitless shouts but remains wicketless.

Michael replaces RT1 from the top end with his parabolic run up and your correspondent shuffles in from the other. Having knocked last week's scab off his knee, he's now bleeding from a shaving related injury and there's more blood around than at the BRI Haematology department. Happily, he bowls 'a dirty grubber' in his first over to remove the other opener and gets his trumpet out to announce his 100th league wicket, then puts it away quickly when demands for a jug are voiced.

Pokemons are becoming easier to catch than a ball off Michael's bowling and the big man is unlucky and disheartened not to claim a scalp during his tidy spell, although later earns a Cider nomination for his 'Oscar-worthy strop'. Iggy gets in on the Cider too, with his should-have-gone-to-Specsavers moment, adjusting his sunglasses while the ball plopped to ground nearby. Ollie also sips from the Cider cup, with some stumping-related aggro after the umpire was too slow to notice the batsman's raised foot.

The monster's getting away a bit, cruising past 150 for the loss of two wickets, but then Westy gets his darts throw out to execute a run out and Ollie takes a stumping, the first of three, in Ev's first over. The monster has several heads however and keeps thrashing about until the final over, knocking the usually economical Raj for a few and despite Ev taking four wickets from his first three overs with some floaty, flighted guile. Still, the Cowboys do well to restrict Grendel to 192 and take all ten wickets, with another couple of run outs and the aforementioned stumpings.

With a wholesome tea, Iggy shows everyone how to feed the five thousand with a trip to Lidl and still turn a profit.

Adam and Raj pad up and go out to bat while everyone else ponders the scariness of the monster's seven foot opening bowler. Fortunately, his height is more impressive than his speed and the batsmen negotiate the first few overs while keeping up with the run rate until Adam goes, caught behind. Westy joins Raj and looks solid and comfortable until he's bowled in the 12th over with the total approaching 50.

AJ, playing his first innings at Farmborough, helps Raj add 81 for the next wicket as the pair seem unruffled by the Grendel attack, which is leaking some helpful extras. Ev meanwhile shows that he's no Beowulf, cowering with his pads on and bleating about the fiery monster as the scorer unwisely tries to multitask and join in with Westy's now obligatory Torygraph quiz. When AJ departs LBW in the 27th over, the Cowboys have reached 128-3 and Raj has accumulated another assured, elegant half-century. Happy takes a different approach, flailing his sword at the monster and occasionally connecting, smiting three boundaries until he loses his stumps: 150-4 in the 30th. Ev has by now conquered his demons and even Michael is smiling, fortified by some red stripes.

It now seems entirely likely that the Cowboys will overhaul their target and it's even possible that Raj will reach his ton, but selfishly Ev scores 9 runs and leaves his partner on 93 not out. The monster is dead and Grendel is feared by none, especially Man of the Match Raj.





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View From The Grand Stand

                      1st Test Day 4, before the wheels came off: Yasir Shah to Alex Hales.

Scorecard

The numbers game

E.C.C.C. Sat XI v Chilcompton 2nd XI

Right, turn over your papers. If a= the angle of rain, b= Gareth Bale c= a cheese bap and d=the distance to Glastonbury, when's the correct time to come off the pitch for rain?

Arriving at Chilcompton to find the opposition engaged in some kind of weird rope twisting ritual, which Ev had been watching with fascination for half an hour, instead of unblocking the toilet like any good Polish plumber would have done, it was decided that what with the recent drizzle and forecast for worse, the match would comprise 30 overs a side.

RT1 and Ev opened the bowling and supported by some tidy fielding, gave away little to trouble the krypton factor scoreboard as the match trundled along at a 0-0 draw. Conceding a miserly five runs from his five overs, RT1's mathematics were binary and easily understood, while Ev fared almost as well in a great spell, with the runs, if not the pitch, drying up. The opposition skipper had said that the pitch was 'dry as a bone', although it appeared to some that the bone might have belonged to a prehistoric bog man buried in peat for several millennia.

The drizzle had become a bit of a pain by the time Iggy and your correspondent took over, liberally mulching the bowling crease with sawdust in an effort to stay upright in the delivery stride. RT1, whose whites had failed the Daz challenge before the match, further tested the efficacy of Proctor & Gamble's formula while executing some brilliantly spirited chases and stops on the mid-off boundary, while fearless Phil blocked some mighty thwacks at extra cover. 

Iggy mixed it up and made the breakthrough, hitting the top of off stump with a pearler. Chancing a back of the hand slower ball, your correspondent duped the new batsmen into a lofted drive to mid on, where Bolts hared in, aquaplaned and gobbled a fine catch. (Another slower delivery on the last ball of his spell duped nobody and the batsman gleefully launched it over mid wicket for six) From the other end, a fine mess ensued when the batsman hoiked a ball from Iggy high into the covers, where three converging fielders each waited for someone else to call for the ball, which eventually plopped to earth between them. How Iggy chuckled.

Spav had a couple of overs from the pavilion end, the best balls of which beat or tied the batsmen up, the remainder blasted towards the boundary as the opposition attempted to bolster their meagre total. Michael passed the edge a few times, inducing a couple of snicks behind, one of which was expertly snaffled by Ollie to great jubilation and relief (the other, flying at an uncomfortable height to Iggy at slip was not). The next ball he trapped the incoming batsman with a dubious LBW and on his hat trick ball "only missed the stumps by that much", as he reminded the batsman later. Bolts nearly took another great catch near the deep mid-on boundary, but having done almost all the work, clocked off early before the ball was safely in his hands. Happy did very well to keep the runs down in the final overs of the innings as the opposition accelerated to 118-4 after 30 overs.

Tea was taken in the swanky new pavilion, if swanky is having four flat screen tellys but no working toilet in the changing room and tea is a noun encompassing grated cheese in a white bap, interchangeable with a bag of sawdust. Nice cake though.

Phil and Bolts opened the Cowboys' innings and set about chasing what in ordinary circumstances would have been a straight four an over, but with rain around it was looking unlikely that all the overs would be completed and some sought clarification of the revised target. Bolts was looking good until tickling one down leg which the keeper was as surprised as anyone to snaffle as it came back down the slope into his glove.

Ev batted with determination - determination not to miss any of Wales' progress in the footy against Northern Ireland. He succeeded, heading off to put his feet up infront of the telly with the score on 0-0. Iggy was bowled for not many, Phil fell after a patient innings for quite a few more but after 19 overs the intensity of the rain forced the players from the field, the covers were fetched and wheeled into place and most eyes turned to the footy. Eventually it stopped, the rain too, with a promising patch of clear sky to the south-west, conjured up by the mystics of Glastonbury, who weren't about to let it drift away towards us. Play resumed under leaden skies and in no time the drizzle started again, becoming heavier, vibes cyclonic. Happy played straight, but down the wrong line of a ball he was attempting to wallop into the pavilion.

It was by now vaguely decreed and generally understood that having passed the 20 overs mark, all that the Cowboys had to do, should the game not reach its full conclusion, was to keep ahead of the opposition's run rate in the corresponding over of their innings. We'd been handed the wrong examination paper. Adam and Spav carried things along, looking like they had things covered, knocking off four or five an over with some thumping shots off the bad balls and correct, unpenetrable defence to the better ones. So much of the match had been played in the rain and both batsmen were apparently coping so well that it seemed quite possible that the opposition's total would be overhauled, After 24 overs, in heavy drizzle, as the scorebook began to liquify to a pulp and the scoreboard attempted to read 91-5, RT1 called the players from the field, albeit under the impression that the Cowboys were ahead of the required run rate and victorious, but also because it was just too wet to play cricket.

The atmosphere in the fetid, heated, windowless changing room worsened and aside from the gurgling of a malfunctioning toilet, an uncomfortable silence descended as the Cowboys discovered that although they'd got their sums right, they were doing the wrong sums. It turned out that they had left the field three runs short of the required total at 24 overs, which was not the same as the opposition's score at the same point. Several opposition players had known this all along and although hardly racing through their overs they were surprised by the off field call to abandon the match. At least this will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN ever, now that we're all aware of the rules, have access to a digital abacus and are de-evolving into amphibious creatures.

Adam was nominated Man of the Match for an assured knock of 30 in testing conditions and Bolts may have won the Cider Moment for the catch which he caught.

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Hi mate,

Iggy opened the Cowboys innings with Phil. Apart from that, wicked mate.

Cheers

Bolts
_____________________________________

View From The Mound Stand

Scorecard

Migrant Labour

Thanks to the free migration of European labour, Señor Iggy joined the Saturday team at Farmborough for their duel with Bath Exiles, one of whom had presumably been exiled a bit too far away, leaving them a man short.

RT1 won the toss and opted to bowl in muggy conditions under an overcast sky, with a full armoury of bowlers up his sleeve. While he took the new ball down the hill and bowled a customary tidy spell, Max (no headroom) wheeled and sprang from the bottom end and explored the batsmen's corridor, finding swing and bounce and passing the bat or finding edges on numerous occasions, one of which Pete was unlucky not to cling on to at slip. Both runs and a breakthrough were hard to come by as the score ever so slowly crept along. Talking of which, at one point, Exile opener Ozzie Brian removed hs gloves and appeared to dig in the crease behind him and remove a worm, or perhaps a witchetty grub to augment his tea later, placing it several feet behind him. As he resumed his stance, Westy remarked that it was on its way back.

Iggy replaced Max, with his new 2-step run up, conceding a few runs at first until he received a knock on the head and improved considerably, taking a sharp return catch to remove one opener and then conspiring with Ollie, keen as mustard with horseradish and chilli sauce, to have the other one stumped. It was about the twelfth appeal for a stumping that Ollie had uttered, at least a couple of which should have been referred upstairs, if such a thing had existed.

Meanwhile, once he'd wrenched the ball from Michael's hands, your correspondent had started a spell down the hill and seemed to be getting away with it, though it was Iggy who claimed the scalps of the two new batsmen with successive balls, bowling one with a peach and trapping the other plumb lbw first ball with a pomegranate. With all that fruit around, a crumble was on the cards : Exiles plummeted from 60-0 to 67-4 which soon became 72-7 after Max took a smart catch above his head at mid-off, Raj swooped to pouch one in the covers and a 79 year old batsman played his stumps instead of the ball. Iggy finished with 4-20, the other one 3-11.

With both bowlers completing full spells, Michael was by now salivating to be given the chance to bowl and not best pleased that Ollie put a snick to ground in his first over, having caught and stopped pretty much everything else all day. Raj came on from the other end and wrapped it all up in five balls, thanks to an astonishing catch by Happy in the covers, where he leaped to his left and somehow curled an outstretched paw around the ball to make it stick. Like his T-shirt said, 'Top Boy' and naturally the Cider Moment. Two balls later Raj bowled the last man and Exiles had lost 9 wickets for 20 runs to be all out for 80.

Thanks to Ollie and cooperative scurrying about, we had tea. There was enough to feed the spectators, comprising two men and a dog.

Raj and Iggy opened the batting as Cliff the visiting scorer, still eating tea from a china plate that he'd brought with him, confessed that their bowling wasn't up to much either. Two boundaries from the first over suggested that he could be right. Westy insisted on conducting another Torygraph quiz and for a while everyone lost a portion of their brains to trivia and shouted out random words

The batting was exemplary, both openers determined to play balls on merit, work the ball around for singles and blast boundaries from the loose stuff. Iggy thundered a ball into the chest of the aforementioned soon-to-be octogenarian, fielding at square leg, which would have startled anyone's ticker, but the old boy looked unruffled and had saved a certain boundary. There may have been a drop and a half chance or two, but it was mostly straight bats, high elbows and wrists and a pleasure to watch. It was a bit of a shame when the total was surpassed in the 15th over with Raj undefeated for a stylish 35 and Iggy on a dangerously-close-to-a-double-jug avoiding 43 as the Cowboys won by 10 wickets. The Malaga migrant unanimously won the Man of the Match vote, while 'Top Boy' Happy's catch will be hard to beat all summer.

Scorecard

Stanton Drew (A)

As your correspondent and Evan were responsibly rehydrating out the back of the Plough at blah o'clock on Saturday/Sunday, a divine being approached with a crystal ball, slightly heavier than the regulation 5 3/4 ounces, on which she proceeded to work wonders with her fingers. Sadly, she didn't seem that enamoured with the art of spin bowling nor, oddly, interested in the folk lore of the Stanton Drew Stone Circle, although her mate did show a keen interest in football. Anyway, she was a bit late. We'd definitely ordered the crystal ball to be delivered in the morning of our return match with Stanton Drew.

Not that we didn't know what to expect; the Bailey Bros. circus in their own back yard. And what a back yard, nestled at the edge of the Mendips, a stone's throw from the Iron Age fort at Maes Knoll, the sweet aroma of silage, dung and Easy Jet fuel permeating the atmosphere.

With RT1 out injured but very present, Raj took the helm, lost the toss and was asked to bat. Happy and Ev opened, but after taking a brisk six runs from the first over, runs were hard to find on a pitch that didn't always play true and both were bowled with the total barely in double figures.

New batsmen Raj and Phil played watchfully, some deliveries climbing alarmingly, others keeping low, but when Phil was caught and Angelo strode to whe wicket the Cowboys were in trouble at 12-3. Still the runs wouldn't come, but now it was good shots that by chance found fielders and the damp outfield which slowed the ball up. Unable to settle in and repeat his form from the previous week's encounter, Ange was caught behind with the score on 25 and plucky Ollie – I think that's what I heard – joined Raj.

Slowly the pair started to forge a partnership, the meagre run rate causing some spectators to seek alternative entertainment, namely the infamous playboy and Murdoch scribe Westy, who conducted a quiz from the pages of the Torygraph and Michael, who enlightened us with his recent knowledge acquired from watching a documentary about 'Animals What Fly'.

Meanwhile, Raj was batting assuredly and superbly, finding threes and fours in the deep outfield, ably assisted by Ollie who was also starting to find gaps in the field. After the slow start, the total didn't reach 50 until after the drinks break, but thereafter it picked up momentum as first Raj and Ollie completed their 50 partnership, then took the total past 100. Eventually, it was that man RB, returning with the ball from the top end, who had Ollie in a tangle with his favoured swivel pull and, lest we forget last week, demolished his own furniture and was hit wicket for an essential 39.

Cruising beyond his half-century, Raj was joined by Rob who helped to keep the momentum going with a few hearty blows before being caught behind with the score on 140-6. Heading into the final overs, Chris helped Raj push the score towards more batting points, but then Raj edged behind for a text book 71 and it was left to Michael to scurry up and down and wring out the last possible runs from the innings which closed on 152-7.

Tea was a heavy carbohydrate affair and suffered from the lack of a greengrocer in the village and water in the tap.

Defending four an over, Michael – who was struggling with pulled quads after batting – and Nick opened the bowling against RB and one of the opposition's lower order batsman, who had difficulty laying a bat on Michael's deliveries from the top end. No such problem for RB, who, despite Nick's tidy bowling, pounced on anything a tad full or short and smote it straight or long, and in one case straight at the bowler, who did well to even get his hands up in time, especially after last week's skull-cracker. Technically a chance, which were few and as difficult.

Evan replaced a hobbling Michael, who'd nevertheless bowled a remarkably tight spell to keep the game alive. Soon after, the right-hander mistimed one to point, where Rob M calmly pouched it after it hung in the air for a while. Chris replaced Nick, unafraid to give it some air, but after a quiet first over, RB assaulted his second, exclaiming, "Well, if it's up there, I'm going to whack it aren't I?"

Skipper Raj stepped up to replace Chris, bowling flatter and quicker and soon earning both verbal and defensive respect from his adversary. This was some tightly economical bowling against Bailey the bludgeoner, now subdued and not scoring as freely as he was accustomed. As ever, Ollie ferreted around behind the stumps and scurried out in front of them, alert to any half chance or stolen single.

By the time your correspondent came on to bowl he'd also twanged both quads and seen enough of RB to anticipate a drubbing. Sometimes, it's just so hard to get the ball to go straight, nevermind the agricultural incline of the pitch, or so it seemed as several balls veered off towards the village, extras increased and Ollie took more blows to the body. The second over was a bit better.

Perspectives naturally vary, depending on where you stand on a cricket field. Ollie swears that it was a dirty grubber that didn't bounce at all, but the image that's coming with me to my grave is of the ball hitting a third of the way up RB's middle stump, to deprive him of another century and get the Cowboys back into the match: 115-2

By now, the aforementioned Westy was finding the cricket more interesting than journalism and his lone voice of support was not only welcome but filled the vacuum left by the absence of the braying Bailey clan.

Raj bowled another tight one before another Bailey hit across a straight one and in our imaginations the stumps and bails flashed vivid orange. The excitement ramped up even more the next over when Raj hit the Stanton Warrior No.3 on his pads and after a small delay, umpire RT1 lunged forward with his finger aloft. “Shocking”, said the square leg umpire, who presumably had a better vantage point:120-4.

Despite the Cowboys best efforts, the opposition's middle order wasn't going to squander the opportunity of having a bat and knocking off the remaining runs, which they did with four overs to go without losing any more wickets.

We reconvened in the garden of the Druids' Arms, where Raj received the Man of the Match vote for his quiet and outstanding talent with bat and ball, while the Cider Moment was finally seeing the back of RB, after he'd scored 277 runs against us this year, although we didn't really need a crystal ball to foresee the possibility.

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