V&A XI:David Pitlarge (c), Christiaan Jonkers, Adam Jacot, Jasper Arnold (wk), Dennis De Caires, James Waddington, Dominic Scott, Ilija Krunic, Marko Krunic

On a perfect early May morning Stonor valley is truly poetic. John Clare’s unabashed joy of rural splendour is captured in “The Shepherd’s Calendar. In “May” we find twittering swallows, hedgerow crickets, swarthy bees, flowers in bloom and the deepening sky. That said, Clare’s account of May-time sporting activities refers to “ …children, wild for sport [ who] , alternate catch the bounding ball” – nothing at all to do with the V&A team taking the field on this beautiful morning.

After a stressful week trying to drum up a full XI, V&A fielded 9 players in a 10 a side game.

The team was not young – at best, autumnal. Christiaan Jonkers was comfortably the youngest player at 50 years old. Nicky Bird suggested that I check the players’ ages and record the average age of the team. The questions I would have had to ask seemed impertinent. For the purposes of my personal estimation, I thought I would gauge this metric by reference to the excess over some of the more impressive test batting averages: the magic number would probably be comfortably  above averages for Len Hutton and Jack Hobbs at 56.6 and 56.9 respectively, and even greater than England’s latest batting star, Harry Brook at 58 (for older stats lovers it is worth noting that he sits just above Wally Hammond at the moment and has now  played over 40 test innings).

Whisper it quietly, but Nicky’s own murmured estimate was a shade above Don Bradman’s final test average…

V&A’s opponents for the day were the Battersea Badgers.

The Badgers were led by Karl Larsson who has taken over the captaincy this season and proved to be exceptionally friendly and flexible before and during the match. He should take much of the credit for what turned out to and thoroughly enjoyable day, all round.

In some of our more recent fixtures, the “toss” has been substituted by a conversation which is part confession, part negotiation. For this match, the Badgers would bat first; the usual 35 overs were agreed with commitments to providing substitute fielders for the V&A team and its lowest scorer batting twice. Karl was, however, slightly more resistant to my request for some latitude on over limits for the bowlers. I explained that we might struggle to find five bowlers who could each bowl seven presentable overs. Karl remained sceptical. The Badgers had been rolled over in the past by Lachlan Nieboer. Firm assurances to the effect that Lachlan was nowhere to be seen, and would certainly not be pounding in from the Pishill end , brought Karl around, albeit with some residual circumspection  – looking over towards the pavilion, he observed that we did have some other regulars who could bowl, making particular note that  “you have Adam, and he is quite crafty”.

The Badgers, by contrast, looked impressive with their punctuality and athletic warm-up.  They wore uniform smart caps and had club shirts, in most cases with players’ names on the back. The latter is quite useful touch in games where people are forever trying to identify bowlers and fielders whom they have never met. That said, it is not an entirely perfect marker: Adam, with his usual courtly grace, was heard apologising to the player wearing the “Martin” shirt for failing to remember whether he was called Matthew or Malcolm.

The Badgers commenced their innings with conviction. “Young” Christiaan Jonkers (8 -0-53- 1) opened up from the Henley end. Unsurprisingly, he sent down five tidy overs but was wicketless in his first spell. Ilija Krunic (8-0-58-1) opened at the other end. Ilija is in his first V&A season. Cross-fertilisation amongst cricket teams at this level is common – we have a number who play, or have played, for similar teams such as Jesmond Jags, Chelsea Arts Club, ACME and Haxted House. As far as I am aware Ilija is the first “Serbian Slogger” to turn out for V&A (his brother Marco, kindly filling in on the day, would therefore be the second). Ilija has a nice high arm action and is an orthodox metronomic style of seamer. He bowled well and was unlucky to encounter the opener, Kenton, who went on to score 61, taking 19 of one of Ilija’s overs including an effortlessly flick off the legs. Kenton’s knock was the best batting performance of the day by a clear margin. His timing was often exquisite.

In the field, Jasper, resplendent in black pads, was typically sharp behind the stumps, standing up to just about everything and stumping one batsman. The captain held on to a couple of catches in the deep, now exhausting his quota of successful grabs for the year, although that was about it as far as the fielding is concerned. More catches were missed than dropped (which is worse?); in some cases, fielders seemed even not to realise that the ball was coming to them.

The V&A bowling performance was, nevertheless, creditable in all the circumstances with the two evergreen all-rounders, Dennis De Caires (7-0-34-0) and Adam (8-1-32-3) maintaining reasonable control in the middle of the innings.

A feature of Dennis’s tidy spell was a skilful mix of cutters and variations of pace.

Adam in particular justified the Badgers’ concerns about his artfulness, as his figures show.

A word also about Dominic Scott (4-0-20-2) : a common feature of the successful one-day sides of the 70s and 80s was the availability of a serviceable fifth bowler  – typically one of the older members of the team who would often be described in Jim Laker’s monotone as being “always there or thereabouts”. I did not want to trespass on Karl’s goodwill too much, so we needed another four overs from somewhere.  Dominic performed this role selflessly and successfully. He took two wickets went for no more than five an over late in the innings.

Some degree of control, therefore, was maintained. The Badgers ended up with 209 with a relatively fast (and short) outfield coupled with a firm pitch. There was little sign of the runaway train we sometimes see in the last 10 overs, so well done to the bowlers.

Lunch was taken during the Badgers’ innings. Sarah Jenkins, not for the first time since her official retirement, kindly agreed to step in and manage the catering which was prepared and presented with her usual elegance and efficiency. It was greatly appreciated by all, in particular by the Martin shirt wearer whose request for vegan food had been recognised, thanking Sarah graciously.  Nicky Bird delivered his usual vote of thanks to the opposition and short speech. The Badgers seemed at first a little bewildered by some of the references to “badgers” which Nicky had trawled up from the Wikipedia entry for “badgers”. However, he then found a much safer object of derision – lawyers and their prolixity. All was well thereafter.

V&A opened their innings with the captain and Christiaan, the latter keen to free himself up for an evening engagement.

The Badgers’ bowling was every bit as competent as their batting. First up at the Henley end was a sharp left arm medium pacer bowling around the wicket whose shirt signalled that he was “Hash”. It turns out that this was General Hash, formerly of the Afghan army. He had, apparently, fought the Taliban-  a fiercer challenge than the V&A batting lineup. His first five overs went for only eight runs, beating the bat several times with what would have been, for him, the off cutter. Nevertheless, It was the other opener, White, who accounted for Christiaan.  Marco, Ilija’s brother, came in at 3. He engaged in some entertaining fraternal banter with Ilija throughout the day, and they were watched by an adoring mother (“they will always be boys”). Marco made it look easy – crashing the first ball he faced to the point boundary, although he was only able to add to couple before giving White his second wicket.

James Waddington came out to join the captain: two sixty-something lawyers together at the crease. Can cricket get more exciting? We have other things in common. James broke a finger badly last season, and I broke one, possibly two, the previous year. Earlier in the day we were swapping notes about treatments and specialists (very sixty-something); however, a dodgy finger remained a common theme in our later discussions as we were both dispatched by some stern umpiring by one of our number before too many fireworks.

This brought together Dennis De Caires and Jasper for the most promising partnership of the innings, both looking particularly good. Jasper hit six boundaries in his 32 and Dennis almost matched him with five, including at least one perfectly placed sweep.

Ilija then played straight and well for his 20; he started off supporting Dennis, who ended up with a solid 25 but V&A were still some way short of a respectable score when Adam arrived at the crease following the departure of Dennis.

Adam was a revelation both in terms of skill and determination. He hit some lusty blows including a perfectly timed pull from the Badgers’ best bowler, General Hash, sending the ball rocketing to the boundary. It was a genuine batsman’s shot. In Birdian cricket classification that alone was clearly “butch”, and Adam’s 23 added to his earlier three wicket haul was the performance of a true all-rounder. Ian Botham was also butch, but I would be surprised if any of his opposition captains considered him “crafty” as well. And then there is Adam’s diction… Can you imagine a contest between him and “Both” on that.

The V&A managed to pass 150 and take the game to the last over. As with the bowling, this was a reasonable achievement and by no means the capitulation which we sometimes see when struggling for players.

After pulling the stumps, there was something of a rush to clear and depart for what seem to be various reasons. The Badgers were commendable in the way they assisted with the tidy up routine. No one had any time for the customary visit to the Golden Ball for refreshment and analysis, which was a shame because our visitors seemed a very convivial bunch. We look forward to seeing them again and wish Karl further success in his first season as captain.

The cricket remained engaging until the end, even if it was reasonably clear that V&A would not challenge the Badgers’ score. Still, no one was complaining: those who played and watched clearly enjoyed an idyllic early summer day with its sense of more to come in the coming weeks- in this  Clare’s verse would be entirely apt:

While all that lives enjoys the birth
Of frolic Summer’s laughing mirth.