With the last dregs of summer well and truly drained away into the abyss that has been 2020, 22 men gathered in Banstead for some organised sport on a cold, grey and blustery final Saturday of September.
Unable to huddle together for warmth due to social distancing requirements and lacking the fitness to do a warm up lap of the ground, the 11 selected to represent the Kings Road in the final game of 2020 against the Unabombers CC, realised the reason why the only people playing cricket at this time of year are paid for their troubles. However, 2020 is a season like no other, where every extra over is to be squeezed from a Covid truncated summer.
Captain Jamie Keating warned his team that he fancied a bat first despite the Dark Skies indicating a deterioration in temperatures through the day opening up prospects of 35 overs fielding in even bleaker cold. Sadly the flip of the coin once again favoured the desire of a Kings Road captain looking to punish his team in the field on the last game of the season.
A full array of cable knitwear was on display as the two teams took to the field with the returning Pinkney and now seasoned opener Sherman taking the crease. After the runfest of 2019, Pinkney had yet to score this year, a slump so severe he returned up North in search of run(s). He found said run second ball before pulling a rank half tracker straight down square leg’s throat. Sherman at the other end played himself in watchfully whilst Peter Jackson Eastwood also looked for form following a number of weeks out of the game variously travelling, self isolating and complaining. Tight opening bowling in overcast conditions made scoring difficult and Pete didn’t last long, caught out for 4.
In came Sham de Silva, another man bereft of form. With little left to lose, de Silva was quickly through the gears taking the attack to the bowlers including a glorious straight driven 6. Sherman also started to find the gaps and the 2 started to rotate the strike, working a number of quick singles in the infield. The run rate started to tick up but when Sherman was out in the 12th over the score was still only 29. Murray-Wood came to the crease with a fine balance to be struck, between searching for runs and not losing further wickets. Whilst Woody defended resolutely, de Silva went on the attack pushing singles through the gaps and despatching anything marginally astray in line or length, culminating in an over which saw 19 plundered and the square leg boundary peppered with pull shots. After drinks Woody also got in on the action creaming a drive through the covers for four before realising he’d forgotten to put his spectacles back on following his mid innings beverage, so much for see ball hit ball.
Both batsmen were now attacking some increasingly tiring change bowlers, gaps seemingly all over the field. Shortly after reaching his half century though, de Silva threw away the momentum with some criminally lackadaisical running between the wickets bringing an important 58-run partnership to the end with the score at 87/4 and 17 overs remaining of the allotted 35.
Captain Keating entered the fray and after a cautious start, began to find the boundary with his trademark clubs down the ground whilst Murray Wood continued his onslaught. Woody was then adjudged to be trapped in front on a very useful 28. In a moment of confusion, he betrayed his lack of understanding of the nuances of the LBW rule, arguing with Umpire PEJ that the ball had hit his elbow, leaving it to his teammates on the sidelines to placate his rage with a thorough explanation of the MCC laws.
Kings Road’s finisher Oscar Newlove landed at the crease with 5 overs to spare and the scorecard under par at 119. After 2 boundaries through midwicket Newlove miscued a ball straight up. Unable to escape the Earth’s orbit it dropped into the waiting fielder’s hands. The innings had failed to launch and Chris Brown left the sidings hoping to get things back on track. However, with the onset of autumn, were leaves on said track which resulted in derailment. Some comical running between Keats and Brown resulted in an equally calamitous call from dozing square leg umpire Sham de Silva leaving Keating on all fours and reluctantly returning to the pavilion run out. From there the innings petered out with Brown and Small both out cheaply (the highlight being Small trying to break a zinger bail as part of his usual palaver taking guard) leaving Lax and Rossi to see out the final overs plundering some slow singles before Lax was out with 2 balls to spare.
The Unabombers required 149 to win, on a relatively flat wicket, not intimidating but with deteriorating light and cloud cover, the Kings Road bowlers were in with a shout. Opening the bowling for Kings Road was the train/space machine combination of Brown and Newlove. The Unabombers openers Stanford and Barnes were looking for an explosive start, resulting in a number of sharp chances flying through the slip and gully region. Brown continued to chug away and got his reward, bowling Barnes for 8 and the Road were in the game at 11/1 off 5 overs. Brown and Newlove dried up the runs with a mixture of searing pace and accuracy, the frustration eventually leading to a run out and Newlove’s laser guided throw (after a season of spraying returns everywhere) from fine leg left keeper Sherman with the simplest of jobs to whip the bails off before the batsman had made his ground.
Brown cruised through his allotted 7 overs in one go conceding only 18 runs. Newlove took a break after his opening 4 over spell went for 2 an over and was replaced by Rossi. Without the weight of runs on the board to chase, the Unabombers took the attack to Rossi bringing up the 50 off the 14th over forcing Keating into shuffling his deck of jokers.
All the while the temperature deteriorated and sky darkened with a menacing wind swirling across the ground. The Kings Road fielders struggled to stay warm, each impact of hard ball on ice cold hand drawing winces of pain even from Sherman in his comparatively luxurious leather keeper’s gloves and inners. The opposition on the sideline retired to the warmth of their cars to watch the rest of the game play out.
Leg spinner Matt Small came into the attack and at the other end Pinkney replaced the bowled out Brown. Whilst they bowled with control, the Unabomber batsmen were able to rotate the strike interspersed with regular boundaries. Hope eventually came as Pinkney was justly rewarded, clean bowling Holmes sending a flashing Zing bail flying in an impressive psychedelic parabola before landing 5 meters from the crease. Small then dismissed opener Stanford as Keating’s proactive decision to keep a slip in for the spinner led to sharp diving catch from de Silva reducing the Unabombers to 68/4 after 18 overs.
However this didn’t light the fuse on a Unabombers implosion as Kenning and Lever counterpunched, hitting a flurry of boundaries and ruining everyone’s figures. Keating brought himself on and after conceding 15 in an over, turned back to Newlove. Newlove removed Kenning for 24 off 9 balls but with only 42 to get, Lever brutalised the final overs culminating in 23 off 5 balls taking the Unabombers comfortably past the 149 target with 6 overs to spare, picking up an impressive 60 not out in the process.
As the Road retired to the warmth of the club house before being forced back outside again to reflect on the season in socially distanced groups of 6. It was widely acknowledged that despite the somewhat cold denouement, a thoroughly uplifting season had been manged considering the depths of despair in mid March and infuriating discussions of vectors of disease in mid June.
Cricket has provided a welcome distraction from the tumult of 2020, from the Zoom socials during lockdown to finally managing to get onto the field with our friends in July for 14 games in a season that ended in the last week of September with all Mahoney’s hundreds of whatsapp texts in-between. We’ve integrated new members who have made us richer from a cricketing and ELITE MATESHIP angle, we’ve played matches against new teams at new locations, we’ve watched Mandy play in cheat mode all season, Oscar has continued his out of this world performances and Smally took a five fer! All whilst being led from the front by our beartastic captain Keats. We leave 2020 stronger than we entered, bring on 2021!
Full scorecard here: http://kingsroadcsc.play-cricket.com/website/results/4517094
Mandy of the Match: Shaminda de Silva
Embarrassing: Woody dropping a catch by controlling it on the chest
Tantrum: Woody’s LBW complaint
Champagne: Oscar’s run out