The forecast was poor. England were playing in the European Championships at 5pm. When Lachlan pulled out in mid week, due to a bad back (which he didn’t want anyone to know about), I thought “here we go”. But actually, very few V&A players take any interest in football. In fact, Christiaan despises it. “Ah, we’re suffering a pincer movement on the cricket owing to bad weather and the footy, are we?” he guffawed in the changing rooms. We were going to have to play.
The pitch squelched underfoot and there were puddles on the square, but the beauty of the hallowed turf at Stonor is it dries fucking quickly. A tactical early lunch was called and an afternoon T25 was agreed with Alistair Metcalfe (skipper of A Few Good Men).
Lunch was an assortment of beef, salami, sausage rolls, hard boiled eggs, potato salad, tomato salad, but no booze (it’s haram for Jasper). Some of the new WAGs had, on advice to make cricket bearable, brought ‘provencal lady petrol’ with them. Constantine once referred to rosé as ‘bitch diesel’, which is probably why he’s been through so many girlfriends, and dogs. Nicky applauded Jasper’s mother for her culinary efforts, amongst other things, and toasted Nick Derewlany and his green shoes, which are going into temporary retirement and storage respectively.
When we finally got going, Captain Tetlow sent in the V&A’s equivalent of Jos Buttler and Phil Salt to do some early damage. James Waddington and David Pitlarge exhibited extraordinary strokeplay to reach 4 runs off 5 overs, before Waddington was guilty of running his fellow lawyer out for 5. That left the V&A on 8 from 6 overs. Enter Derewlany. His second shot was a classic of his very own genre of lofted drives, green foot forward and a swoosh of the hands to bounce it under the tree at the Henley end. Enter Tetlow (because Waddington needed a runner). He had badly damaged his coccyx taking a catch on Wednesday. I said “better to catch it with your hands”. After Derelwany was cruelly caught for 22, William Carpmael steadied the listing ship with a flurry of bunts, making best use of Waddington’s runner, until the runner forgot that he was just that – and Waddington was gone for 17. Not having to move very far, Tetlow dug his mark in the mud and joined Carpmael who was now enjoying a flurry of boundaries in return for his bunts.
Amongst their ranks, A Few Good Men had a few good kids. Sienna and Wilbur. Both bowled brilliantly for 10 and 11 years old respectively, but with only a short game being played and a slow start, it was imperative shots were played without mercy. Wilbur eventually picked up the wicket of Carpmael, caught on the boundary for a well judged 55. Tetlow hit a brisk 42* from 20 to take the V&A to 153, with Jasper finishing on 8*. 153 was a defendable score, but without Lachlan and with only 10 fielders, still chasable.
Tea was at the change of innings, which was in fact tarts and black coffee – owing to an absence of milk, as well as some excellent chocolate and peanut butter dates, made by Emily (one of the new WAGs). A special thanks to Ben Horan too, who in the absence of the energetic Adam Jacot, was generous in ensuring the pavilion was spotless. With unrestricted bowling agreed, Alex Pitlarge trundled tirelessly down the hill with the wind in his sails. He has an action akin to Shanon Gabriel at his bustling peak. Slightly more boyish, preppy and less scary, but effective, and he took a classic wicket with their opener edging one to the keeper. At the other end, Christiaan worked away with his usual guile of in-duckers, seamers and occasional trash. He was unlucky to have a catch dropped, but snared the other opener, with a smart running grab from Neil Martin. Nobody saw it coming, especially Martin who dropped an identical chance moments later. The score was 8 for 2 from 2, with the chase looking tough.
However, their 3 and 4 battled hard. Davies, their wicketkeeper batsman was particularly impressive, cutting anything short, driving anything full, and wrestling balls off the hip to the mid-wicket boundary. To give Davies the chance at batting with his 10 year old daughter, AFGM’s number 3 was retired for 25*. We tried to keep Davies off strike. Some brilliant death bowling from Derewlany reminded everyone why he’ll be missed. Despite Carpmael’s best efforts with his off-breaks, AFGM were still in it with Davies at the crease, needing 10 an over from the final 4 overs. But with the game in the balance, he was retired to allow the 11 year old Wilbur to come out and bat, and the game was effectively conceded. Soon after, he was sadly caught behind and then stumped by Jasper from a Christiaan leg-break. The umpire gave it OUT and the offending junior’s willow was quickly thrown to the ground in tears, followed by helmet and gloves.
I once had the displeasure of meeting Jonathan Trott at a Leukemia Trust charity dinner and asked him who (in the all-conquering England team, of which he was a key component) threw the worst tantrums after getting out? Trotty looked sternly into my drunken eyes and said in his gravelly Cape Town husk: “me”. And walked off. At a charity dinner! It’s good, then, that he averaged 44.08 in Tests and wasn’t so charitable with his wicket. Cricket can be a cruel mistress sometimes. Best not to get out if you really hate getting out. Though it never stops Jasper.
In the final few overs, as the clock ticked past 5:30pm, Sienna wore a nasty off-break on the helmet, before showing asbsolute courage and skill to swat the very next ball to the leg-side boundary (to everyone’s amusement apart from Derewlany). In the end, cricket was really the winner, which looked very unlikely on the M40 to Stonor that morning. It was a fitting finale for our aussie friend. We even temporarily forgot about the football, until young Pitlarge snaffled the Wi-Fi down at the Rainbow and we watched nervously over pints of Brakspear. One of the WAGs, who won’t be named (Yarger), wasn’t much interested in the football (she’s Californian), so conversed instead at Jonkers about Georgian politics and taught Pitlarge Snr everything worth knowing about the Suez crisis (he’s a shipping lawyer). We dryly remarked he was probably around for 1956. England then won on penalties, which put the smile back on his face. Last time England won a major tournament (1966), Harold Wilson’s Labour Party had just won a landslide. Will history repeat itself? At the very least, we look forward to welcoming A Few Good Men to Stonor again next year.