“What time is the train?” – Never before have these five innocent words sent such ripples of chaos through a squad of 11 brave men. Never before have so many Saturday evenings been ruined by fear. Never before has train veteran Matt Small desperately succumbed to making up imaginary train routes simply to calm his own qualms. No sympathy was shown by Shaminda De SilvaCoin who, on a moral high from having his mentee Pinkney impose a further cotton tax upon the Road, boldly started his long path to Tantrum with a declaration of ‘YOU HAD ALL WEEK’. It was to be a gruelling night.
The Road tried their best to dig in through the night and early morning on the shores of Clapham Junction, unsure of their fate as attacks on them and their extraction plans continued. Would anyone guide them across the void? Luckily Cider Small had awoken afresh with grand plans of catching a real train and Captain TWO had sent out a fleet of small undetected craft, to extract remaining survivors. The Road had at last set off for Abinger Hammer.
As they got closer, the storms had eased and a balmy morning had awoken. The first arrivals had decided to calm their nerves with a gentle lager beer. All, except the Admiral that is, who didn’t want to let alcohol mess with his finely-tuned game.
The ground itself looked as stunning as ever, with two grounds-machines in orbit around the pitch, a covered run-up, a player tent, families playing in the brook. The warm up showed plenty of bounce and variation in the pitch, a sign of things to cover even before the shower. After another successful ne-toss-iation, Skip Keats had us buckle up ready to go and try to hit the red ball. Feeling confident after extensive batting lessons from the Admiral, Sher-man strolled out with Chair-Mac to face the music. The pair were guiding us through with great style through the opening overs, until DarkSkies abruptly reneged on his deal with Sher-man and sent the players off. It took ten minutes of brinkmanship until Sher-man wrangled a concession from his nemesis, and the players returned to the field. However, his mind exhausted from the negotiations, Sherm stroked the ball to short mid-wicket and called through the suicidal run. Leaving the field with confused laughter, he was replaced with PEJ. Cmac played some lovely shots, including a divine upper cut above the hapless slip fields for four, before falling for 18 to a good ball on a now-bounce heavy pitch post shower.
PEJ looked set to continue his successful run, until he was asked for one additional tax too many and decided to chip one up to get himself to the bar. Sham and new bat Woody played well, accumulating a nice 36 runs together before. Woody (22 runs) now decided to now start meticulously targeting a run a ball. He strode forward to block out 3 balls, launched the next for 6 through the sightscreen, and then strode forward to block out the remaining two. Not sure why the rest of the cricketing world make a simple 6 an over so complicated.
Matt Small and Jamie Keating were in next, with Smally publicly outed as a ‘plant’ to recover the innings when the rest of the upper order didn’t make runs. Harsh but bold tactics by the skipper. Smally played well, but fell again to the difficult bounce and was caught for a useful 13. Keats was playing well and was then joined by Oscar, when they built the score with a 70-run partnership as we headed into the last half an hour of the timed innings. With opener J. Burt back on, Oscar knew he had little time after some near misses. He thoughtfully decided to play a deft inside edge past leg stump for 4 and then scuffed a 6 over cow corner to bring up his maiden Road and Lifetime 50. Satisfied with this, he then kindly decided to retire and simply left the ball as it struck middle stump. He definitely didn’t try and put the ball over cow again.
Replaced with DC Chris Brown, the Two Bears played well before Keats was caught for a great 20 and replaced by Admiral Moany. With the same intent as previous innings, the Road’s new all-time leading strike rate batsman was brutally out LBW hooking a ball that hit his shin. In the closing minutes, Mr Rossi strode out and decided he’d try and outdo Woody’s shot of the game by striking a glorious single to point and speeding through any run-out chance. In an exceptional finale to the game, Browny struck a glorious 6 into the sightscreen (wasn’t quite strong enough a man to break a hole in it though) to bring up an impressive 1000 runs for the club. Well played sir. With that six, Browny boldly declared the innings over and with the bat under his arm, marched the players off. The Road finished 181-9 off 38 overs.
In a rare change for 2020, Teasmaker was taken home by Annie, whose sandwiches and banana cake went down very well.
With an hour and 20 overs of bowling, the Road set out to both defend 181 and take 10 wickets to bring home a 3rd victory of the year; Opening up with a classic right/left combination of Brown and Mahony. We started with some good pressure-building overs, although Mahony came to regret turning down the nerve-settling pint at the Gomshall Mill when the upslope damned his rhythmic bowling, although he very nearly had the opening wicket with a nearly great diving catch in the slips off a quick darting ball.
Browny bowled his usual stuff, letting the pressure drop on the Hammers, allowing runs to spill fluently through the field for 8 overs straight. Finally, captain Keats was reluctantly but understandably forced to take him off after he leaked another maiden, ending on a disastrous 1-13 off 8 in the spell, with the wicket coming from a solid catch from Keats. Would the Road be able to find more economical bowlers within their ranks to pull the ship back from the brink?
With Oscar taking over from Mahony at the other end, the curse of the extra seemed contagious. With the benefit of hindsight, I think the wicket can’t have been cut straight or something. But at the time, we didn’t suspect anything. However, one that actually landed on the strip did allow Sherman (superb keeping throughout on a varied pitch) to take a nice catch behind to dismiss an opener.
The Hammers had set a steady start, being 45-2 off 14, when the final twenty overs were signalled. With all 10 wickets needed for a win, SPIN maestros Rossi and Smallz were called into the attack to try and crack through the middle order. Rossi performed this role excellently, creating many chances, although I think we must have over-practiced our fielding over recent weeks as only 1 out of 4 catching chances were held (sorry). Smally also relished the opportunity and turned the ball sublimely to rattle the batsman. Starting with a maiden, he then slowly began to tighten the screw and take wickets. From a slow and expensive start of 1-1, he had some way to battle to recover his figures. With the support of challenging bowling by Sham at the other end, he worked to 27-2 before another expensive over brought him to 27-4, with a near-fateful Admiral-spaceman collision narrowly avoided in the pursuit of a catch. Luckily Keats was able to overlook the over’s expense as this fourth wicket brought up Smally’s 150th road wicket. It truly was a day of records and people eager to buy jugs.
With now just 3 overs to go and plenty of runs left to risk, Keats decided to go for the jugular and bring back on opener Brown. There was some great bowling to finish the innings and not only that, but Smally used his last over to deliver a wicket-maiden and his 5-fer. 5 wickets for 28 runs off 9 overs, and 150 wickets. A rather successful day, as Ryan Sidebottom was to agree.
However, the skillful batsman Robertson and the new keeper-batsman Gear both settled in and played the final balls well to bring a well-fought draw. Abinger ended 135-9 off 34 overs.
All-in-all an excellent game and an exciting few overs ended the timed format in style. Thanks for Abinger for hosting us again at a grand ground, and for a really nice and exciting game. To the bar, we strove, where jugs were in hand and the opposition even kindly furnished us with some home-brewed cider. I can’t quite remember what happened after my sampling of the apple-juice, but it must have been good.
Awards:
Matty of the Match: Matt Small with 5-28 and 150 wickets
Champagne Moment: Woody’s glorious but inconsiderate 6 which he broke the sightscreen with
Embarrassing Moment: Sherman’s suicidal run
Tantrum: Sham De Silva – TAxEs, YOU HAD ALL WEEK, but mostly tantrum at getting tantrum
Teasmaker: Annie
FULL SCORECARD: http://kingsroadcsc.play-cricket.com/website/results/4342765
Author: Oscar Newlove