V&A PLAYERS: Nicky Bird (Captain), Jago Poynter, Henry Turpie, Ross Ashcroft, Rob Taylor, Christiaan Jonkers, Tom Ayling, Andy Jones, Phil Goodliffe, Marc Terblanche, Adam Jacot.

OUR SECOND OLDEST FIXTURE after the mighty Hermits, and always fun. This year, when they turned up, eventually, I counted the number of their yoof element, young people who run and bend and throw. None. In contrast we had 7 – 8 if you count Christiaan (I don’t).

Before the game I sat and chatted with Tom Ayling, Christiaan’s young assistant, about Cubism and the shock of the new.  One of the oppo thought it perverse to discuss such poncey stuff with the shock of the election still echoing, so I changed tack and mentioned that the late Sir Alistair Horne was such a literary star that he had literary groupies throwing themselves at him. The aphrodisiac is fame it seems, and it matters not your trade. Tom said he has to fight off the women of Henley howling for Christiaan outside JONKERS RARE BOOKS, such is Christiaan’s status in the used book world. My best days were at the V&A. Nature played me a cruel trick and made me a heterosexual, so I was a lone wolf among a sea of pansies. I do best when women have no choice. Drink helps of course.

Because the CAC had only six players when we tossed (I won) we had to let them bat. We opened the bowling – in lovely breezy sunshine – with Jonkers and Andy Jones. Both bowled tightly. They crawled to 20 at 2 an over. This augured badly for them, teams rarely recover from such a dire start, particularly with an appallingly slow outfield. Then Jonkers struck. LBW. But the Arts Club began to up the run rate with hefty blows from Small and Billington. Billington smote every ball in the air, and was lucky to survive two tricky chances which Marc dropped at cover, off Jones. But, on 37 and threatening a big score, he was trapped off a lifter from the excellent Ayling and caught neatly by Turpie at point. Ross held a stunningly good catch off Rob Taylor at deep mid-on to dismiss Small (42), Rob bowled their No. 4, Ayling bowled their No. 5, and they were in trouble.

What a difference yoof makes in the field. And Phil Goodliffe, our keeper, 67 and deaf but amazingly lithe and adroit, he reminded me of my former self, 38 years ago, when I could move and hear. He got a nice catch behind, but missed a slim chance of a stumping. Jones came back at the end and bowled their No. 7, and Rob threw down the wicket from mid-off for a brilliant run-out. The Arts Club stuttered to a meagre 135. But we have fucked up from this position before.

When I arrived at the ground at 10.15 to open up and lay out lunch (provided by the Tea Lady, although she didn’t turn up) Nick P-G was there before me, strimming. He is buggered with ligament trouble but stayed on to do the Steffan stuff, clearing, cleaning, scoring. Like Steffan, but with clothes. He even locked up so I could get to the pub for a medicinal whisky for the throat. A saint, like his missus. Lunch was entirely adequate, tea less so. I mentioned at lunch that the paté was a bought version and filthy, but you lot ate the stuff anyway, so I was wrong, as I was about the election.

We discussed last week’s febrile game, in which the ‘c’ word was audible on the boundary. George Winters of the Townies got whacked by Lachlan’s faster deliveries and needed icepacks. Didn’t sound like village cricket. Personally, I get all the violence and abuse I need at home. One who was there said Emley’s limpet innings – the anchor role – caused disquiet, which moved us to discuss things you shouldn’t do, like opening with Nick, flying BA or calling a snap election. ‘Try everything once except incest and folk dancing,’ said Thomas Beecham but he was wrong. I’ve tried folk dancing and it’s quite harmless. ‘Never invade Russia or Afghanistan’. Good advice, and I’ve made stringent efforts to do neither. Never write a Ninth Symphony; it proved fatal to Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Dvořák, Mahler and Vaughan Williams. If you must write a Ninth called it 8a. ‘Do not wear lederhosen, ever’. Or a Tyrolean hat. Buddy Rich, the drummer, was asked when being prepped for surgery – ‘Is there anything you can’t take?’ ‘Yeah, country music.’ His last words. Speaking of which that arse Nostradamus predicted thousands of things that didn’t happen, except one – ‘Tomorrow, at sunrise, I shall no longer be here.’ He was spot on.

We opened our innings with Ross Ashcroft and Tom Ayling. Their bowling was erratic (in total they bowled 16 wides!) but included some nasty shooters and lifters that Ross, in particular, handled well. Tom was careful to get the measure of the variable bounce and offered a glimpse of his quality by a fabulous cover drive in the third over. They scored at a brisk 5 an over. Ross was giving no chances, Tom was lucky that two catches went down, but soon knuckled down and smacked the inevitable loose ones, blocking the others. We reached 50 for 0 at tea. Ross had a bit of previous when playing for the CAC years ago and thus enjoyed his dominance of the bowling. After tea both batsmen pulled and drove towards victory. At 100 for 0, I mentioned, again, that we had fucked up from here before. ‘No we haven’t’ said Jonkers. And we didn’t. With a succession of imperious boundaries – a 6 to reach Ayling’s 50, and a 4 to reach Ross’s (the winning shot) – we marched past their total. Never before in our illustrious history have we had such a victorious opening partnership. Tom scored 67* with 10 fours and 1 six; Ross scored 51* with 7 fours. A photo was duly taken (see snap).

We went to the pub. I mentioned that Ayling’s straight drive was a ‘thing of beauty’ (Keats, Endymion). Which morphed the conversation to cricket poetry. Cricket has spawned some dreadful stuff, the direst being that bilge about ‘Play up! Play up! And play the game!’ But Punch did a nice hatchet job (in the style of Tennyson) on William Scotton, after his notoriously boring Test innings v Australia in 1886 (34 runs in 4 hours, Emley is Gilchrist in comparison):  

Oh, nice for the bowler, my boy,

That each ball like a barndoor you play!

Oh, nice for yourself, I suppose,

That you stick at the wicket all day!

And the clock’s slow hands go on,

And you still keep up your sticks;

But oh! for the lift of a smiting hand,

And the sound of a swipe for six!

Harold Pinter, that grumpy leftie, wrote ‘A Cricket Poem’. It goes like this: ‘I saw Len Hutton in his prime / Another time, another time.’ Thrilled by his own genius, Pinter faxed it to 24 friends. A while later he rang one of them, the playwright Simon Gray, to ask what he thought of it. Gray said, ‘Um, I haven’t finished it yet.’