V&A PLAYERS: A JACOT [Captain], C JONKERS, T P-G, N P-G, D DE CAIRES, N EMLEY, T BIRD, N BIRD, L NIEBOER, D SIMPSON, R TAYLOR, R ASHCROFT

Adam Jacot, who captained, said we were a difficult team to motivate.  He might have been right, but the weather was grey and remained so thoughout the day until obligingly brightening up whilst we sat in the garden of The Golden Ball.  Leaden skies are not conducive to playing cricket, which is why the game never caught on in Blaenau Ffestiniog.  Blaenau was once the suicide capital of the UK, the reason for which would be obvious to anyone who has been there, but the most consistently grey place I ever played cricket at was Netherton in the heart for the Black Country. There the sun shone but rarely, it was always cold and even the residents seemed to have a greyish hue.

The All Sorts, organised by Simon Jacot, erstwhile of the V&A and his old school friend Mark Peel, have a well developed mix of young and old, rather like the V&A.  The old folk can feel they have played a day’s cricket whilst the youngsters run around doing all the fielding, take the wickets and score the lion’s share of the runs.  Mark, biographer of Ollie Milburn and Ken Barrington and more recently Shirley Williams, has recently written a book about schools.  He was describing its content and it sound very interesting, but I doubt it will be a best seller.  Most of us have been to school; we know what it is like and rarely have an overwhelming desire to relive it.

The All Sorts youth program is mainly based on the offspring of the old guard.  Their breeding program seems rather more effective than the V&As.  Tom Bird may as well bat in a blindfold for all the notice he takes of the ball; Tom P-G has his moments, but spends most of each Saturday doing a good impression of a man with a hangover which makes him rather surly, and Louis Jacot, who is developing into a rather useful bowler has found himself a bar job so has not been seen at Stonor this season.

It was a rather one-sided match.  The All Sorts, batting first, got off to a steady start, Simon Jacot having dodged Lachlan’s thunderbolts put his pads in the way of a gentle inswinger and departed LBW.  He appeared rather less than gruntled, as if the job of the bowlers was to serve up pies for him to pile into rather than get him out. At the other end Jonty scratched, edged and mainly missed with such regularity that his imminent departure looked inevitable.  He had already been dropped twice when I bowled him a loopy full toss of about waist high (he is none too tall, so it would have been knee high to most batsmen).  A competent batsman should have deposited this ill judged delivery to anywhere on the ground he pleased, but Jonty swiped it straight into the hands of Ashcroft at cover, only to be given a posthumous reprieve by the flustered umpire at square leg by declaring the ball illegal under that most contentious law, 42.6 “Dangerous and unfair bowling”.

It was a turning point and the batsmen took full advantage.  It is easy to mock the lack of elegance, and we did: suggesting we could put all the fielders in an arc between deep long on and midwicket, but there can be no doubting their effectiveness.  In the 14 overs after lunch they took their total from 101-1 to a substantial 241-2.

Over lunch, a plentiful and delicious spread kindly prepared by Jessica Jacot, Nicky Bird held forth on how tedious the dinner parties he goes are and that there is rarely sufficient alcohol to obliterate the boredom.  Nicky full of wine becomes garrulous and has a tendency to perform half remembered card tricks, so the lack of alcohol may not signify meanness on the part of his hosts, but self-preservation.  Rupert Morris, who wasn’t playing, appeared and complained about the arrangement of the fixture list.  He then complained about the lack of adequate proof reading in my match reports, and of the tendency to extravagance on the part of caterers.  Having exhausted the possible avenues of complaint, he departed as we began playing after lunch.

The V&A’s innings was rather a damp squib.  Only Lachlan held firm with 40, whilst the rest of us fell like flies.  A lively last wicket stand between Nicky Bird and Tom Pritchard-Gordon, the highest of the innings, allowed us to limp past 100 but still left us more 128 runs short of our opponents, exactly the same margin of victory that the V&A claimed over the Bushmen last week.  Such is the wheel of cricketing fate: heros one week, twerps the next.  Nevertheless, is was disappointing not to give this amiable team a better contest.  Next week we play Rob Taylor’s XI.  He has Tom P-G and Dario playing for him so runs, which will leave the V&A somewhat superannuated, but at least runs should be easier to come by.