Vs Shepherd’s Bush

I’ll try and restrain myself from talking about the 1 hour and 40 minute trip it took to get to our “home” game (our ground is fucked, so we went up north and rented a ground). I will talk about the amazing collapse of Shepherd’s Bush.

Our team turns up late to normal games, but this one seemed special. At 1, the designated starting time, we had about 7 or 8 players. Our captain was not one of them, so we went out and had a field with 9 players about 20 minutes after the start time.

The bush had two handy openers and they hit the ball where the fielders weren’t while our two opening bowlers struggled to hit their lines. It looked like it was going to be a bad day. But we hit back once we had 11 players things started to get better. One opener gave his wicket away with stupidity, and while the next two put on runs quick, we were bowling well.

That is when it happened. I was fielding as far back at slip as I have in England. Our opening bowler had discarded the baggage over a shit opening couple of overs and was bowling very well. It also helped that he was bowling with a huge breeze and down hill. So when he got their opener to edge one even though I was a mile back, it carried and I caught the thing with ease.

It was my old slip fielding. The whole ball seemed to happen in slow motion like one of those ads for road safety. It felt really good. And it started one hell of a collapse. I think the were about 1 for 60 at that stage, but the next thing we knew they were 9 for 79 with the down the wind bowler having 7 wickets.

He bowled very well, and even good batsmen would have had to fight to keep him out. There were none there, and instead he got plenty of help from them all. My favourite was the 13 year old who played two balls well and then walked to off stump and tried to flick one to fine leg and then walked before the umpire gave him out LBW.

At 9 for 79 we were jumping for joy.

At 9 for 170, less so.

The pitch was good, our in form bowling was slowing down, and I was too far back at slip when an edge came. I took a terrific half volley take, but I had told the rest of the slips to go closer, but hadn’t moved up myself. That was really our only chance. We tried a few other bowlers, some who bowled good balls, but the pitch was flat as can be. The two guys, a young bloke with a good eye and the best number 11 I’ve seen in this level of cricket, simply batted well. I bowled 4 overs off hamstring related off spin where I just tossed the ball high into the air and waited for them to make mistakes, they didn’t, so we brought our quick back on and he took his 8th wicket.

Then our two openers put on the 170 with ease.

Seriously.

It was one of the weirdest games I have ever been involved in. We won the game by 10 wickets and only 3 players really did anything.

The first 9 wickets of the game went for 79, the next wicket in the game put on 260. And that was that. My back was a bit sore, which would explain the problem with the hammy, a guy took 8 for, two other guys got red inkers in the 70s and 80s, and I saw a terrific, yet in vain, last wicket partnership.

Oh, and my catch.