V&A XI:Jasper Arnold(c), Tom Bird/Balthazar Walsh, Vincent Walsh, Tom Walsh, Christy Kulasingham Rory Jenkins, Christiaan Jonkers, Ilija Krunic, Robin Hayley, David Pitlarge and Adad Jacot

The Invalids fixture is one of the longer standing on the V&A list, and the Invalids themselves are a club of rich history who have recently brought up their century.  They were founded in 1919 by the poet and critic, J.C.Squire, as activity for chaps injured in the First World War and were soon immortalised in perhaps the most famous of cricketing novels, England, Their England by A.G.Macdonell.  Happily, such distinction has not gone to their heads, as we have seen with other clubs of similar longevity, and they are as affable and convey the same degree of pleasantly organised chaos as Macdonell depicted back in 1933.

During the week, our captain, Jasper Arnold, had informed Adam Jacot that he would be batting at number eleven, an act Adam found demotivating.  Nevertheless, Adam was on good form throughout the morning, batting off Nicky Bird’s frequent barbs with some panache.   In life as in cricket, Adam hides behind his shambolic air, a ready wit and a steely competitiveness.  The aforementioned Radio Bird had crackled into life as the first balls were being bowled and continued to broadcast to whoever was willing to tune in until his customary departure time just before tea.  He was rather amusingly sent on his way by Mervyn, the Invalids umpire who, presumably mistaking him for hoi polloi loitering by the deep cover boundary, unceremoniously ordered him from the ground.

The cricket itself was not nearly so exciting.  Batting first on a damp pitch the V&A found the going tough. Messrs. Kulasingham, Pitlarge, Hayley and Bird all made ponderous starts before striking the ball with unerring accuracy to a fielder.  When Rory Jenkins failed to strike the ball at all and was bowled, the V&A were precariously placed at 56-5 from some 18 overs.  A recovery, of sorts, came in the form the Tom and Vincent Walsh, father and son, who put on 64 either side of lunch with a mixture of stylish strokeplay and helter-skelter running.

It is always a good day at Stonor when Steph does her pulled pork for lunch and this one was out of the top draw.  Nicky gave a brief speech which, unusually, was neither coarse nor managed to offend anyone.  Nicky’s post prandial speeches are a recently recent occurrence at Stonor, coinciding with this retirement from writing match reports.  This is a great shame as his match reports are a great deal more amusing than mine, if somewhat less factually accurate.  A flavour can be gleaned by his brief description of the genesis of this fixture.

“We started about 25 or 30 years ago. Tony Bird was chums with Richard Durdon-Smith. In those days the team was middle-aged and arty / actorish. Richard went to Haileybury, so it made for an inclusive quorum of minor public school boys. He then went to Oxford, married Maria Aitken, and then got unmarried. You may recall he seems to specialise in playing people like Lord Halifax (the Foreign Sec.) and Lord Justice Lawrence, presiding judge at Nuremberg. He said he hadn’t the build to do Goering. One of our morons thought he was talking about Goring and Streatley. There ensued, I think, a conversation about house prices.”

After lunch, a late flurry, mostly from Tom Walsh who finished with 52, saw the V&A to 147-7 from their 35 overs.

This modest total began to take on mountainous proportions as the Invalids made an uncertain start in the light of tight bowling from Jacot and self.  21-2 became 87-5 with no sign of a reliable batsman.  However, they had remained in touch with the run rate and it was clear that the V&A would need to keep taking wickets if they were to restrict the flow of runs.  The dropping of at least six catches, albeit some very hard, is not conducive to taking regular wickets, however, and George Selley’s 42*, which mixed flowing left-handed cover drives with a certain amount of agriculture and no small amount of fortune, saw the Invalids home with a few overs to spare.

This match is the fifth of the season and our fifth defeat.  I think that might be a record.  But it matters not: it is enough to sit in the dappled sunlight of the Chilterns, listening to the sound of the kites, scoffing Steph’s delicious tea, perhaps even observing a passing Spitfire and drifting off to the inevitable, ensuing arcane bollocks from Nicky about obscure, ancient aircraft.