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V&A CC – Salisbury tour 2018
27th May 2018
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V&A v Thebertons
13th June 2018
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V&A v The Townies & the Country Folk

V&AvTown&Country

V&A PLAYERS: C Jonkers*, P Goodliffe, R Ashcroft, T Ayling, N Pritchard-Gordon, L Nieboer, H Turpie, N Emley, A Jacot, T Prichard-Gordon, A Wayland and the shell of J Poynter.

The Town & County Folks’ super-star South African all-rounder Ryan Dyer instructed me to do something unprintable on this site. A polite version of his instruction was, “Roger us in the match report, so we can take the piss out of each other”. But how, how much and how far should I go? “All the way”, he said. This is hard to do because “Gorgeous” George Winters’ team are a joy to play cricket against. They expect to be undone by the V&A regulars partly because they play just once or twice a year, but they know they can beat us, as they did last year. They are a very social and sociable team.

V&A vs. T&C matches have a formula. The V&A bat first, face up to 10 bowlers starting with Pete Bridge and Andy Deacon, then moving all the way through to Ben Phillis and Keith Poyser. While the quality of the bowling slips a bit with each bowling change, their fielding remains chipper. Even Bridge, their fielding equivalent of Joey Deacon, stays ‘on it’. The V&A post a solid total that is normally out of reach of the T&C’s. That total will not have been swollen by Adam Jacot. The variation to this theme depends on whether any of the T&C’s proper batsmen are playing and whether they come off. Last year, Spry and Noble played and won the game for them. The scorebook also records A Jacot, Bld. Noble. 6. (VERY CROSS). With these two absent this time around, the batsmen likely to be the sand in the Vaseline of a V&A victory looked to be Rob Burnside and James Hunt.

This time around, Ross Ashcroft and Tom Ayling opened for the V&A and caned 57 off the first seven overs delivered by, you guessed it, Bridge and Deacon. This rapid fire opening partnership deceived all. The fall of Ashcroft (28) and Ayling (31) caused the V&A’s batting caterpillar to droop alarmingly. Their pulsating run rate of nigh on 8 an over was then followed seventeen overs at an embarrassingly flaccid 2.222222ish an over. The track was decidedly irksome. Seven of the ten bowlers used took wickets, the pick being Steve Clapp (8-3-15-4).  Even Keith Adonis took a wicket, in part making up for his earlier outfielding. There is no fielder in the V&A who can execute the Poyser Pirouette like Keith does while letting the ball dribble over the rope for four, though one of ours did later invent a stunning new move. More on that later.

The middle order proved feckless and/or luckless. Some of our middle order smelled of stale alcohol.  From batsman 3 to 9, only one, me, reached double figures. 11 runs in 11 overs off 34 balls is more Allenesque than Emley, yet hardly drew the kind of criticism Emley has to cop. Jago Poynter (8) was still drunk and missed straight one. Lachlan Nieboer (4) looked out of sorts and missed a straight one. Henry Turpie (0) didn’t play a shot to a straight one. Emley (7) was run out. No, Emley ran himself out. Then there was “A. Jacot Ct. Burnside. Bld Phillips 5. (Very cross)”. Our skipper was unlucky. He was ‘caught’ of the Hoffmeister, as determined by both umpires. Jonkers was unlucky because he asserted it was a bump ball. There was tension. He may have been aggrieved. But he is always right.

That the V&A recovered from 116 for 9 was down to an enterprising 32-run partnership between Andrew Wayland (25) and Tom P-G (7). TPG must live with the shame of falling LBW to Keith Poyser. On the rap of the pads, the unorthodox Poyser did not appeal properly, but turned to the umpire one-hand raised and said candidly, “Dead On”.

During all this mayhem, there was plenty of material to rip it out of the T&Cs.  There was a fine lunch courtesy of Megan Ashcroft and plenty of beer courtesy of tour left-overs and the T&Cs. George Winters’ glove-work looked like he could catch the clap. He did drop one off the Clapp (Steve) and another off the Hunt (James). Andy Deacon fielded like Douglas Bader on Mogador. Rob Burnside’s bowling is gone, like David Cameron and his Big Society. Bridge can piss farther than he can throw. Ryan Dyer… Nuff said.

The T&C’s needed to score 150 in their 40 overs to win. It wasn’t to be. The V&A bowled straight enough often enough to exploit the porraceous wicket. Nieboer looked good for his 3 for 15. His wickets were as varied as the bounce. Winters recalls being roughed up last year by Lachlan. This time, he had nowhere to hide from a sharp and straight lifter that he gloved over Phil the Octopus only to caught behind the keeper by the roaming first slip NP-G (now the club’s leading slip catcher of Lachlan’s bowling). Now sweater-less, Nieboer did Rob Burnside with a full-pitched quick one which had some ‘shape’ on it. We were then blessed with the full repertoire of Nieboer follows-through and appeals for leg before as Tom Walsh padded up repeatedly. Fifth appeal lucky.

The dangerous James Hunt was done for by erratic bounce in a beautifully controlled spell by Tom P-G. Also, amongst the wickets were Adam Jacot, Henry Turpie and skipper Jonkers. Two bowlers went wicketless. Wayland’s 4-over opening spell deserved a wicket, but both Phil Goodliffe and Nick P-G fluffed the same low chance. Ayling also went wicketless, but in fairness his effort could hardly be called bowling. His radar was fucked on tour through hard drinking and remains so. One delivery that landed at fine leg was met with a quizzical Emleyism, “Do you know, I don’t think I have ever seen a higher wide”. Perhaps a week’s abstinence would not go amiss.

A word on super-star South African all-rounder Ryan Dyer. At lunch, I suggested to him that 150 in 40 overs was gettable if batsmen like him put patience ahead of showmanship. Phil Goodliffe noted that Ryan batted a couple of overs without hitting his straps and so sledged him thus, “Good stoof lads, they’re scratching around for singles now” to which the super-star South African all-rounder replied, “Don’t know about scratching round for singles. I’m scratching around for fucking oxygen mate”. Ryan ignored my advice and lofted one mighty drive, nobly called for by Turpie, but taken well by Adam Jacot. Jonkers and Emley also took good catches, though Christiaan’s did involve him muddling up his legs a tad. They were probably still round the wrong way from his magnificent fall in his delivery stride earlier in the day.

This fall was hilarious, then alarming and then hilarious again. He hit the ground with force enough to shoot his glasses half way down the track. That he remained prone for so long was a worry, but those that could see his face knew he was fine. So much fun, so many descriptions. Someone said he looked like a fully-fed smiling crocodile. Another suggested he looked like a tiger skin rug, all teeth and luxuriant fur. From first slip he looked to me like the Cheshire Cat on NOx, flattened by the heavy roller.

What else? Somehow our two very friendly teams yet again managed to get a bit of needle going, this time surrounding the feisty pocket-battleship Ben Phillis. There was an element of doubt about the cause of his stumps being broken. Was he bowled or did Goodlife’s gloves break the stumps? An undignified and endless argument erupted between two of our senior pros. Phillis was reprieved. It did not matter, as Jacot castled him an over or two later.

So, a well-drilled V&A team effort, skilfully marshalled by Jonkers (one of my favourite skippers) saw to the T&C part-timers in a 78 run win. Jonkers found a way 11 of us to have a game. But we were 12, so that means one player did little. Who was he? A check of the scorebook shows Jago was present. Of our 12 players, he had the least idea where he was or what he was doing all day. The power of positive drinking had skewered him. Let’s hope his parents don’t get to hear about his exploits.

Post-match, the pitch was flooded by the marauding horde of T&C kinder to play a knockabout game. A few grown-ups joined in for H&S purposes. Ben Phillis looked mighty tall out there. They were thrilled. We were too. It was a wonderful spectacle worthy of a photo on our website, but one must get written consent of all their parents to be able to post the pic.

Man of the Match? A small dressing committee agreed that Andrew Wayland’s roistering batting and splendid bowling was meritorious. At least one super-star South African all-rounder had a day to remember.

Moment of the day for me? Rob Burnside’s thoughts about his age, fitness and ever-declining returns. Rob used to be a handy left-arm seamer and very capable batsman. His knees and ribs are raddled by rugby and the magic has gone. Resigning himself to be an SLA bowler is OK if only he could bowl. Today, he could not. He later got ‘that ball’ from Lachlan. I gave him a couple of sports questions* to ponder on. He thanked me and said “Please can I have some more. They’re more fun than cricket is”.

When Christiaan asked me to write this game up I said, “I would prefer not to. It’ll be as accurate as my umpiring, but it’ll give me the chance to write about Somerset CCC”. So here is a match report that does not note Dom Bess’ fine batting and bowling at Headingly yesterday. Or my sadness that we might have seen the last of Tresco. He broke his foot scoring a ton last month. Or that Brian Rose once declared an innings after one over in the B&H Cup zonal stages to protect the strike rate that  would ensure progression to the knock-out stages. Somerset. La La La.

*Editor’s note.  These questions have been removed from the match report as they contain references to football, talk of which, as the author should know, is not encouraged during the cricket season.