Genesis 1: 

In the beginning, Keats created the heaven and the earth. 

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Keats moved upon the face of the waters. 

And Keats said, Let there be light: and there was light. And Keats saw the light, that it was good: and Keats divided the light from the darkness.

And Keats called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning and the afternoon were sessions of the day in which cricket could be played.

And Keats invented the new ball, and the bat, and the stumps and bails and boundary markers. Keats invented the fielding positions, the bowlers, the batters, the wicket keepers, and the concept of match teas. And the people did play cricket, and they did rejoice.

But Keats did fail to upload the scorecards to Play Cricket, and the career averages of the people did become unclear. And the people did despair. And each week he did forget to upload the stats again. And the people were sorrowful and without hope. And they didst not know of the marginal risings or fallings of their meagre village cricket statistics.

And the people did rise up and cast Keats down. And with a great cry they did declare that the King’s Road NEED THEIR STATS, and a reckoning had indeed arrived. 

And so it is written that until Keats does UPLOAD THE STATS, the world shall return to darkness.

– – – – –

Now that is out of the way, let us discuss King’s Road’s sojourn to lovely Lincoln. 

Where is Lincoln? Even now I could not tell you. You could put a map of England in front of me, even a map of Lincolnshire itself, and still, I am quite sure I could not point to within one hundred miles of its location. What I can tell you though, is that the Road set out with a fierce purpose, to break the spirit of Pinkney, organiser of tour and a pretender to Keats’ captaincy crown, before the weekend was out.

We needn’t have worried. As the first revellers arrived at King’s Cross station, it quickly became apparent that our train had been cancelled. This sent dear Pinks into a downwards spiral from which he would at no point come close to recovering. Cmac was so excited by the turn of events that he fell asleep in the pub at 11:55am and poured his entire beer over an unsuspecting PEJ.  

Much merriment followed, along with further travel delays, and trips to nightclubs that have since been reported to be Covid hotspots. Whether the Road brought the deadly virus with them remains unclear, but it is worth pointing out that Fergus touched just about every person in Lincoln as he roamed the dancefloors of the charming medieval city over the course of the long weekend.

Sunday finally arrived, and with it, the time had come at last to play some proper cricket (we will choose to largely discount The Hundred match played on the Friday. If it is a real format, the Road did a commendable job of ensuring it did not appear to be so).

I would like to tell you who won the toss, but in all honesty, I was focussing intently on ensuring that my intestines did not fall through my rapidly widening rear end. Either way, the Road would bat first.  

Smally and Pinkney went out to open. In typical Smally fashion, a stylish late cut to third man got him off the mark, bringing Pinkney on strike.  

To describe Pinkney as a nervous wreck would, at this point, be an understatement of astronomical proportions. He had received a barrage throughout the weekend not unlike the social equivalent of a Mitch Johnson spell circa 2013. He had not smiled in days. His complexion was sallow, his hair greying, and his eyes wild. He had even been heard to remark ‘I am never captaining this team again’, before Sunday’s game had even commenced.

All in all, this was very unfair on dear Pinks. The Lincoln tour was a roaring success! The pubs were magnificent, the city was delightful, the pie shop was a triumph, and the clubs were even good fun (leaving aside the overly friendly locals, whom PEJ scattered with a few expletives and a shooing gesture on the Friday night). Truly, Pinkney did a wonderful job, and we all felt bad about quite how stressful we had made the experience for him.

That said, what followed was genuinely hilarious. The bowler, a teammate of Pinkney’s of many years, served up a juicy full toss, and Pinkney channelled his inner Sham to crack it straight into the hands of extra cover. As he trudged off the field, some of his teammates swore that they had seen his soul leave his body.

This brought Tom Birch, half a tourist (because he arrived on the Saturday, not because of his height, you cretinous scoundrel), to the crease. Birchy had enjoyed a larger night than most in the rock club the night before, on account of being the only person who knew the lyrics to the assorted angsty tunes we were all treated to. Nonetheless, he made a solid start, stroking the ball to the boundary and scurrying some trademark singles and twos before he perished, bowled. 23-2 and Cmac the new man.   

Smally was enjoying the bounce of the pitch, swivelling onto a pull shot for four, and also cutting to the boundary. On a very slow outfield, this was no mean feat. In fact, you could say that such a bouncy pitch was tailor-made for Smally’s back foot game, which made it all the more galling when he was caught for 16.

With the score 29-3, Niall joined Cmac. Cmac, it is fair to say, looked like a man who was having the worst day of his life. The Friday morning PEJ pouring had promised disaster, but he had experienced a Lazarus-like recovery to thoroughly enjoy his weekend. Sadly, he might have enjoyed it too much, and coward that he is, was struggling to muster the courage to put in much of a display with the bat. His waddling between the wickets was particularly enjoyable, and after one wonderful drive for four, he was put out of his misery when caught for 9.

PEJ joined Niall at the crease. Good things were inevitable. The two had spent the weekend bonding, first painting their nails orange together (Niall had coyly forgot to mention to PEJ that the nail polish contained yips-banishing and run-scoring qualities), discussed Niall’s take on mythology throughout human history, and so captivating had these conversations been that PEJ had even resisted the ever-present and all-consuming urge that inhabits every fibre of his being to discuss Genghis Khan. They set about rebuilding the innings, running many twos, striking not that many boundaries, and enduring dog’s abuse from most of their watching teammates for scoring too slowly.

It was Niall who began the acceleration, flaying a glorious drive through the covers for four, before falling to one knee like a medieval knight wooing a damsel to cream back-to-back boundaries through the onside. The onslaught was relentless, and PEJ began to wonder whether he was in fact batting not with a Colin de Grandhomme lookalike, but with the moustachioed maestro themselves. Sadly, it could not last, and with a first Road 50 in sight, a brute of a delivery reared up, caught the glove of Niall, and rolled onto the stumps.

This brought top tourist Fergus Jones to the crease. He mis-hit his first ball up in the air, was dropped at short fine leg, and responded by promptly pumping the ball over the square leg boundary for the first six of the match. It was the second-best thing he had done all weekend, after stage diving onto Browny the previous night. The tremors are still being felt as far afield as Tokyo. He sadly was caught for 10 not long after while trying to accelerate the rate.

Oscar came next, and blasted 3 quickfire boundaries through the on side (he hit one very, very hard) before being run out off the last ball of the innings as PEJ selfishly held his ground (he had in fact nicked the ball but as he hadn’t been triggered was trying not to look guilty). PEJ would finish on 32*, an innings deemed too slow by Moany and Keats. Keats punished PEJ by refusing to upload the scorecard to Play Cricket for centuries. 161-7 off 35.  

Time then, to bowl.  

Admiral James Mahony has been a man reformed since beginning to wear an orange wristband. Indeed, it seems that the wearing of a holy orange relic of any description (whether wristband or nail polish imbued with the blood of our lord Keatsus Christ) coaxes performances hitherto thought impossible from Roaders. So it was that Moany charged to the crease and clean bowled the opening bat, via his pad, for 0. This was quite the start, but Juggy Bollinger was far from finished! He charged in once more, this time a searing off cutter leaving the batsman floundering, his battlements stormed, and his furniture splintered into tiny pieces. 0-2 suggested this game might not be all that close.

At the other end, our holy lord, the furry ChewbaKeats shared the new ball with Moany. His mortar launches quickly proved deadly, with one batsman skewing a catch in the air to Birchy, and another top edged and well-caught by Cmac. Keats was bowling with accuracy, and the batsmen had no answer. Indeed, he might have had a third wicket, but with the prospect of a straightforward catch, the saddest man in Lincoln’s hands turned into crocodile jaws and the chance went begging.

Chris Brown, a man who looks more like he is still no closer to catching Jack the Ripper with each passing week, was next into the attack. He bowled a snorter of a delivery that did just about everything it could conceivably had done, to bowl the new batsman. This was becoming something of a bloodbath, but if Brown was experiencing the effects of PTSD from observing Jack’s many bloody crime scenes, then he had the good manners to not show it.  

With Pinkney’s friend John the new bat, Pinks decided to give himself a bowl. There could be no alleviating the deep loathing he felt towards the entire Road, but this one wicket could give him perhaps a glimmer of redemption. Being a good friend, John duly obliged by lobbing a catch up to Bibby. Pinks withdrew himself from the attack, his work here was done.

Fergus had a bowl next and brought his Road all-time economy under 24 for the first time, bravo!  

By this point, Pinkney was doubtless feeling that he was experiencing something not dissimilar to Dante’s inferno. Just as each level of Dante’s depiction of torment is more terrible than the last, so too had each hour of this trip proved more stressful than the previous. Given his mental proximity to hell, it is no surprise that he turned to his own demonic force by introducing G.Reaper to the attack.  

Summoning all of his infernal abilities, Bibby finally removed the only batsman to have shown any resistance (the other opener), who was caught brilliantly by M Small with one hand. Bibby grinned, his mouth widened, and he consumed the batsman’s soul for good measure. This left Bibby feeling rather bloated, as he had in fact also ingested the loose part of soul that had escaped Pinkney earlier. Suitably full from a long weekend of harvesting the souls of the damned, he was withdrawn from the attack.  

Next up was a win for the neutrals, as Birchy, that troublesome but lovable scamp, picked up his first ever Road wicket, with another catch for Cmac behind the stumps. An enjoyable moment for all, and a mention for Cmac, who truly did a fantastic job given he had consumed enough alcohol to make good on his nickname, the spud. This meant in the sense that at points throughout the day he had appeared so motionless that it was not inconceivable that he had in fact been transfigured into a potato.

And if potatoes were the main course, dessert was catharsis. PEJ was introduced to the attack, three years after his last competitive bowl. For those who were there, you will doubtless remember the never-ending over, during which that evil little Goblin umpire for Alba wided and no-balled each errant delivery with impish glee. But he was not on tour in Lincoln, and Pinkney’s faith had lit a fire in PEJ. His first wicket was clean bowled, with the ball moving so slowly that it appeared the bail might not actually be dislodged, and his second easily caught by his Oval love interest Matt Small to complete a thumping Road victory.

A fitting end to a fantastic weekend. Special mentions go to top tourist Fergus, nearly top tourist Bibby, who debuted in sumptuous style, and a huge and heartfelt thank you to James Pinkney, who organised an absolute belter of a weekend away.  

Full scorecard here: https://kingsroadcsc.play-cricket.com/website/results/4949995

I can’t remember any of the awards besides Mandy of the Match, which was won by me, PEJ.