V&A XI: D. Pitlarge (Captain),N. Constantine (CATERER), C. Mounsey-Thear, T. Bird, J. Tetlow, A. Pitlarge, J. Arnold, C. Jonkers, A. Jacot, L. Nieboer, D. de Caires, N. Bird (12th Man/Umpire)
Nicky noted at lunch that one of the banes of the casual club cricketer’s existence is another side cancelling. This leads to a lot of stress, overactive email inboxes, and local clubs being pestered for their Sunday XIs. Nicky’s solution to this was to invite a Boodle’s side to Stonor on the basis that ‘they are gents, so won’t cancel’. On Monday, they cancelled. After the usual flurry of emails, Ilija stepped up to the fore by offering seven or eight Serbian Sloggers who could form the core of a team for us to play against.
Ilijia, a long time Slogger himself, had stepped over to the oppo and unsurprisingly opened the bowling for them alongside Hussain. Ilijia had suggested that they were a bit short on bowling and made the most of this being a timed game, with no overs limits, to allow for some mammoth spells by him and Hussain. Ten overs for Ilijia and eleven for Hussain, who switched from seam to spin mid-spell, did a lot to keep our run rate down. After 22 overs we were 64-1 — Joe had brought a flurry of boundaries opening but was caught off Ilijia for 19, but Dennis (17) and David (19) were rather pinned in by the accurate Krunic/Hussain partnership on what is still a capricious pitch. It would however take a change of bowling to get both wickets, at which point lunch was called given that the next batsman, Nick, was catering.
Nick had teased the V&A WhatsApp earlier in the week with a promise of what was to come, sharing a photo of five kilos of beef with the promise of another kilo on Saturday. Nick’s idea of cooking the beef, alongside some chips, in the Stonor pavilion kitchen was an ambitious one. The Stonor pavilion kitchen is hardly that of The Fat Badger, and despite occasional use the oven is rarely asked to warm up 1% of a cow. Nevertheless Nick, with Lizzie ever helpful in the pav, pulled this off with aplomb, despite the oven’s/air fryer’s best attempts to thwart him. Roast beef and chips were enjoyed with Nick’s lovely Café de Paris sauce. Ann Widdecombe was suggested to have fallen off a ladder, card cheating strategies were compared, and Nicky thanked the Sloggers without being drawn into Balkan politics.
We resumed our innings with Tom and Nick at the crease. A brief scare followed when Nick was dropped on nought, but that did not stop his or Tom’s swashbuckling batting as they brought the attack to the first change bowlers. The loudest cheers of the day then came when Tom scored some runs on the off side, but that unfortunately rather got to his head… lightning did not strike twice, and a second shot to the off got him caught for a quickfire 15. Nick continued to bash the Sloggers around with much success, being joined by valuable support from CMT (25) and Lachlan (19), before getting out to a rank long hop (close to bouncing twice) with an even worse swipe whilst charging it. In any case, the 65 that had preceded more than made up for it by saving our innings, though the nearby farmers may find quite a bit of wheat now trampled by our oppo looking for the ball.
As we got to 200 the Sloggers started to get a bit restless to bat. Jasper, among others, certainly made his feelings known about our continued innings, though this was perhaps unfair given that we declared after 38 overs, giving them 42 overs to chase the total.
I opened up with Christiaan but it was neither of our days, both of us too inaccurate with our bowling. I swiftly suggested to David that I should be brought off, Adam then taking a couple of overs before tea, at which point the Sloggers were cruising, one down, at above eight an over.
Much has been made of ‘hydration breaks’ at the current World Cup. Cynics say they are another example of the gradual creep of American-style advertising into the beautiful game. Others disagree. World Cup villain-in-chief Gianni Infantino, bearing a striking resemblance to the Hood, is one person who thinks them a positive: “Maybe the coach can reassess certain situations, correct certain mistakes. The players get a little rest and come back in full speed. Well, is that bad necessarily? Maybe it’s good. We’ve never seen [games] played in such an intensity.”
No one would’ve called this game intense, it resuming late enough that whispers of concern around making a 10pm start England game were starting, but our hydration break was invaluable. ‘Niemor’ (Lachlan) and ‘Nauseter’ (CMT), per the scorebook, resumed the bowling and both put in incredible spells. Nauseter took 3 in his six overs, dismissing their settled opener for 72, rather collapsing into some of our arms after a couple of the later wickets. He came off in an inspired moment of David’s captaincy, when the latter brought Dennis on only for him to take a wicket first ball. Niemor meanwhile was our Ben Stokes, with an epic 14 over spell leading to figures of 5-43. This would perhaps happen more often if we didn’t usually limit bowling overs, but, after the spells earlier, there was little the Sloggers could complain about. Like Nick in our batting innings, Niemor/Lachlan dug us out of a bit of a hole, and the Serbian innings (despite the introduction of an extra player beyond the agreed 10 … a bold move after 8pm) spluttered out for 179 just in time for the London contingent to make their World Cup viewing plans — if only just … Joe was last seen sprinting for the set of Lime bikes at the bottom of Wandsworth Bridge Road.
V&A win by 19 runs.
