Chenies and
Latimer - Sunday 20th May 2007
Despite the BBC’s
weather forecasters predicting rain, we played out a lovely days' play in the
picturesque Chilterns village of Chenies. LNZCC was fully present and correct
before the appointed 11.30am tee-off, including Scott Foley and Finn Hurst who
had walked for an hour from Chalfont tube station to get to the ground. I say
all, but that excludes Tim 'Sat-Nav' Bills-Everett who rang at 11.15 asking
‘Right, now where is this ground?’ Suffice to say, it wasn’t where he was, which
was near Maidenhead. The wicket looked firm with a touch of green and the heavy
roller was out on it as we pulled up. C&L seemed to have tapped the Commonwealth
for about half their team with a couple of lively looking chaps from the
sub-continent, a non South African looking South African and an Australian who
had a fairly comical turn of phrase in the sledging department all thrown
together with Skipper Kevin, Mr 1000 Wickets and 4 or 5 young English lads.
Called tails and put C&L in to bat, trusting that our three-pronged fast-bowling
attack of Hurst, Foley, and Dan Anson would prosper on the greenish top. I would
have felt a lot more like Clive Lloyd if the 4th fast bowler wasn’t still
halfway down the A404 - and if I was a 62-year old 6ft 5 West Indian.
I had a gut-feeling that Hurst was deliberately playing possum about his
abilities with the ball when he told me he hadn’t bowled for about 10 years and
was ‘…probably going to be a bit loose.’ Foley told me something about ‘Finn
breathing fire’ so we unleashed him from the western end. I’m pretty sure A
Swann Esq was the most surprised when Hurst’s first ball was a Harmison-like
flat out rocket that hit its apogee somewhere over the batsman’s head and landed
in Swanny’s gloves on the full, and he was standing miles back. The next one was
on a length and tore past the batsman at throat height. Nice recovery.
We opened with 6 overs from Hurst and 8 from Anson, both of whom bowled with
varying degrees of accuracy, width, hostility and quite a bit of vim. Some of
that vim was taking its toll on Swanny who admitted after about 10 overs that he
hadn’t expected the ball to hit the gloves so hard so often. That was compounded
by Foley and Ben Dormer rocketing in a couple of very accurate ‘good arms’ from
the outfield - Dormer practising for later in the day by knocking over the
stumps from deepish mid-off, just cos he can. After 10, C&L were looking
comfortable at upwards of 7 an over, quite a few of which were streaky edges or
just beyond the reach of a fielder, especially if I count the chestnut gelding
in the field next door as a legitimate fielder. Both Hurst and Anson were very
unlucky as edges flew straight through the slips cordon on at least a couple of
occasions.
First change was to Foley at the western end and he opened up with a cracking
chest-high bouncer that carried through to Swanny, smacking those fingers again.
By this stage, Sat-Nav had arrived and spent a good 20 mins buggering about in
the changing rooms before ambling onto the field. I guess that’ll teach him for
taking all the studs out of his boots at the end of last season. Sat-Nav took
the eastern end and between the two of them, they put the brakes on and
engineered the first breakthrough when the opener tickled Foley through to the
keeper. 87-1.
Through a combination of accurate fast bowling and tight fielding, we clawed C&L
back to about 4 an over at lunch, for 2 further wickets. Foley took out middle
and off with a lovely Yorker. In an inspired (even if I say so myself) change 2
overs out from lunch, the gentlemanly waft of Richard Holden came on. Now then,
we’ve seen it so many times before that it’s become routine. A batsman who’s
become a bit bogged against swinging pace sees Big Richard come on, takes a look
at his first then watches the second and thinks ‘this one is going into orbit.’
A steepling top edge was taken by Anson and Holden completed a wicket maiden to
take us to lunch with C&L at 122-3 off 22.
After lunch, they’d obviously eaten a lot less of the gateaux with the
still-frozen strawberries than we had, so our plan to feed them a few runs in
order to generate a declaration worked a treat. With such short boundaries,
anything with a bit of willow behind it tended to go for a four or a six.
Richard Keyse came on, parried my ‘are you sure you don’t want a fine leg?’ with
‘No, I won’t be bowling down leg. Anyway if I do, I deserve everything I get.’
Tricky was desperately unlucky to biff a couple straight down leg, in the
opposite direction to the field he’d so carefully set, and watch them get tonked
to the boundary. As you can imagine, Swanny was loving that. At 10 runs an over,
our carefully-contrived plan to feed them runs was threatening to turn into the
dinner rush at the National Obesity Convention. By the 32nd over C&L were at
220, most of the trees on the southern fence were taking incoming and I was
considering moving the fielders out to beyond where the horses were in the
paddock next door.
After changing back to an all-pace attack and swapping Foley and Sat-Nav around
breakthroughs came pretty quickly. Sat-Nav collected his first with a well-taken
catch at first slip by Craig Robinson, who’d battled on with only one
functioning hamstring. This was supported by two run-outs, both of which were
real peaches. Sat-Nav had been swapped to the western end and was dead-batted by
the batsman who called for a single. TB-E took off down the pitch, weaved
between the two batsmen and right-footed the ball straight at middle stump to
run out the non-striker by a yard. Well done Lenny Pascoe!
The Ocker came in to bat and proceed to ‘gee up’ his
doing-quite-well-thank-you-very-much English fellow batsman with ‘Deeg eet een,
mate, you’re on 84! You’ve got a great chance for a ton here.’ Shortly
afterwards, Ocker called the lad through for a quick single with blatant
disregard for Dormer’s previous dead-eye-dick throw down. Direct hit from square
leg by Dormer. Run out for 84, hate it when that happens. Dormer also took a
catch to give Lenny Sat-Nav the figures of 2-36 off 10. This was followed by
Robinson’s second catch and C&L’s innings closed at 260-8 off 50.
Dormer and Pete Tippen opened for LNZ – Tippen breaking out a new bat for the
first time. After narrowly surviving the first ball he faced, Tippen shared in a
solid opening partnership of 51. Both players were playing the loose ball well,
Dormer jabbing a squarish cut to the short boundary without really moving his
arms and Tippen middling a couple over the infield into unprotected areas.
Both were riding their luck until Dormer skied one too many and was caught at
mid on. Tricky then contributed to a healthy 45-odd run partnership with Tippen,
who went on to a well-hit half century thereby banishing the 2006 blues and
becoming ever-so-fond of his new bat. Tippen was caught for 58 and Anson joined
Tricky at the wicket. Tricky survived a couple of miserably optimistic appeals
before being given leg before by our own much-travelled, perma-tanned version of
Peter Hain. (Have you seen Martin Conway’s tan? He’s turned mahogany!) Martin’s
now given two LB’s in two matches so I reckon that’s it for the season.
Walsh (note how I’ve reverted to the 3rd person to describe this short juncture)
joined Anson. Walsh troubled the scorers for all of 4 minutes and 3 balls before
doing his usual not-bothering-to-check-if-the-new-bowler-is-any-good routine and
feathering (if a snick that could be heard at Heathrow can be described as
‘feathering’) the 4th delivery faced to the keeper.
We needed at least a couple of big overs in order to even things up but C&L were
bowling very tightly and giving nothing away. Foley and Anson consolidated for a
short while before both began to cut loose. Anson was looking well set before a
mix up of some sort saw the Ponsonby-ite run out the youngster from the Bay of
Plenty when Anson was on 23.
We were now well behind the pace - 4 wickets in hand and needing 120 off about
80. Foley then accelerated as Swanny played himself in. By this stage, Mr 1000
Wickets was on with his deceptive dobblers at one end and the young Asian medium
pacers at the other who immediately skittled Swanny for 10. Robinson joined
Foley and the two of them were just getting settled when Foley was castled by
the same medium pacer for a very competent 41 runs. Robinson survived an
extremely confident appeal for LBW. Luckily for Craig, the umpire (me) decided
that the full toss that hit him on the back foot was drifting towards leg. Whose
leg I’m not sure, but anyway he wasn’t out.
Hurst came in and Robinson reiterated that the chase was still on with 11 an
over to get. Both players combined well, taking 2’s and 3’s with some ease
before Robinson leaned into one and tonked Mr 1000 Wickets over the longest of
long-on boundaries for a mighty 6. After looking capable of upping the ante,
Hurst was bowled by the same medium pacer for 10, and Lenny Sat-Nav came in with
4 overs to go and LNZ on 219. Bills-Everett was facing the ever-so-accurate and
not-very-slow chap from C&L, who snorted through a first-up beauty. I have no
idea how it missed off-stump but thank heavens the Gunn & Moore sticker on the
stump wasn’t facing outwards cos it was THAT close. Bills-Everett and Robinson
were still chasing the target until Robinson picked out the only fielder beyond
cover and headed back in having scored 15 off not many.
In strode R Holden of Sharapova Towers, SW19 and he and Bills-Everett faced the
last 13 balls to pull down the shutters on a well played draw.
In an all-round effort which included some excellent outfielding, an elegant
half-century by Tippen and some very tight spells of fast bowling, GBK Man of
the Match was awarded to Scott Foley for his figures of 38-3 off 12, 41 with the
bat and great effort in the field.
Thanks to all who made the trip out there for what was an enjoyable day’s
cricket, with extra thanks to Mahogany Conway and Peter Coleman, who kept the
scorebook immaculately yet again.
Scoreboard Chenies & Latimer 260 for 8
declared LNZCC 224 for 9 at close Match Drawn Chenies 260/8 at 50 overs
Batting
Runs Catches Stumpings Run
Outs
Ben
Dormer 26
1
1
Pete Tippen 58
Richard Keyse 14
Daniel Anson 23
1
*Gerard Walsh 5
Scott Foley 41
+Andrew Swann 10
1
Craig Robinson 15
2
Finn Hurst 10
Tim Bills-Everett 4*
1
Richard Holden 1*
Extras
17
FOW 51, 102, 109, 115, 154, 184, 197, 219, 219
Bowling
O M R W
Finn Hurst 10
0 61 0
Daniel Anson 9 0
60 0
Scott Foley 12 2
38 3
Tim
Bills-Everett 10 0 32 2
Richard Holden 5 1
29 1
Richard Keyse 4 0
35 0
Umpire : Martin Conway
Scorer : Peter Coleman
GBK
Man of the Match : Scott Foley
