It could have gone horribly wrong, and when I fielded, it often did. But on a pudding pop wicket at Shenley with 10 fielders I took my first 4 wicket haul in the UK. It was part of a 10 over spell with the opposition coming at me at times. Which might explain why I went for 59 runs, although 30 of those runs came in two overs.

It was a fairly handy come back. The result of the game was even better when we won with 1 ball to spare and I was preparing to go out to bat with jeans and a t shirt on after I had already showered and changed when it looked like we would win easy.

The best part of the day had to be the magic Andrew Strauss bat.

One thing I like about London cricket is that you are always playing with someone who has some sort of story about playing against Saqlain Mushtaq or knowing Graham Thorpe’s brother.

In this game we had an injured batsman come out. He played a sweep shot early on that just seemed so effortless as it went to the rope, but the noise was amazing. Two balls later he hit a cover drive even harder, and that is when the murmours started.

“He is using Andrew Strauss’ bat.”
“His mate plays Middlesex 2s”
“That is a proper test bat”.

It was being spoken about as if it was excalbiur.

Next over the guy hit me over my head and into some near by paddock and this was no longer a cricket bat, this was now a myth. Everyone who plays with or against this guy is going to talk about this bat. The sixes will get bigger, there will be stories about how he broke the fingers of cover fielders and how he miss hit sixes for fun.

One over I bowled to him went for only one run, a top edge that with another bat, a regular bat made of wood (not of hope and mythology) probably would have been caught. That over I tamed the beast, but in general, he just smacked the fuck out of the ball.

It was hard to know if he could bat, or whether knowing he had the bat of Andrew Strauss he was transformed into some sort of batting behemoth. Although, when I used Inzi’s bat, for one ball, I couldn’t get the ball through the field, but I did knock back a single.

I’d love to give the bat so a batting dunce just to see if the bat is the key, it certainly became the talk of the game.

It wasn’t just that we lost, but that we gave it away, again, and I was fucking sore, again.

We bowled first and they had this slogger who tried to hit everything. He had some eye, but he hit everything in the air, so we dropped him 3 times. He was also one of those batsmen who thrived on negative attention, and no matter how much I told people not to give him any, they did, and he prospered. After he made his 60 odd, almost all from the end he was hitting with the wind with, we roped them back in.

But we never truly got on top. Their old West Indian, who I have mentioned before, went to work. This was the third time I’d played against him, and I’m still fucken yet to see him go out. He made another 60 odd not out and guided them to 233ish. I bowled ok, I got a stumping off a guy I floated one up to first ball he faced, he raced at it and tried to sweep. No idea why. Then I got a guy to play on with a wrong’un, which is always awesome. But I still couldn’t get the Old West Indian dude out, and you’d think I’d have worked him out by now. I thought I had him LB when I turned to appeal to their umpire who looked nervous, but he didn’t give it. He said it was going down leg, it wasn’t, but he may have hit it. Then I had him dropped when he was batting with 11. We had the field out and so I would bowl either very quick balls or very slow ones. Off one of the slow ones he tried to bash it over mid wicket, but hit it straight up and our captain, who I trust in the field, didn’t take it.

I can’t complain though, I dropped him at gully a few overs earlier when I was too close. I hadn’t fielded at gully in a while, and when he smashed a full cut shot at me there was not enough time to move and it just clipped the bottom of my fingers. Eventually we got them out.

Then we went out to bat and we didn’t collapse. In fact we were doing ok at 3/100 with two set batsmen in, but they both went out at once and our lower middle order which has looked pretty good fell apart. Myself included. For the second time this year I smashed my first ball against Wembley through the covers for four off a spinner. And for the second time I was out a few balls later on the same score. This time they had the field out on the fence so I thought I word just work them around for a while, so I got a flighted one and just walked past it. It was the first time in my life i’d been stumped off a spinner. And I use my feet a bit, although not as much as some. I just took my fucken eyes off it.

Then our normal number 11, who can bat, came in and did what I should have, he just pounded the spinner and got a 50 while we eneded up about 50 short. It was a good innings, but it also was a wake up that I shouldn’t be fucking around with dinky shots when my best shots are the ones i hit hard anyway.

So we lost, my knee was aching, my hamstring was sore, my fingers were bruised and I felt like like a cunt for my shot.

But my bowling really pissed me off. Yet again I was bowling well, was on top of most of their batsmen, and I still went for about 4 an over and didn’t get more than 2 wickets. Fit or not fit, I can do better than that, and it pisses me off I never do.

2/40 off 9 and 4 fucken runs.

We bowled first in a declaration game, had I known it was a declaration game I might not have shown up. The House of Commons team lost one wicket early on, but then rode their luck and did some clever batting to get on top.

Not on top, on top. But they only lost one wicket, were scoring at about 6 an over before us spinners slowed them down, but we struggled to get the wickets and one of them went on to make a hundred while some others made 40s and 50s. The pitch was made for batting, even though it kept a bit low at times, and all we could do was restrict them, although we had one or two catchers in throughout almost the whole innings.

Being that it was a declaration game, we waited for the declaration. I think the guy made his century at about the 45 over mark, which was about half way through the day, but they kept batting, and batting. They sent out one hitter, he hit one straight down my throat at deep midwicket, but I had to do the whole boundary rope throw in the air thing and being that I had never done that before I just through the ball way too far away and saved 4 runs. Then he went out and they sent out a man in his 70s, at least, then the century maker went out, and they sent out their captain, former Conservative politician Nick Hawkins.

Perhaps because they told me he was a tory, perhaps because I couldn’t believe they had batted beyond 50s overs, I started to sledge him. I started with a rant about how he had no faith in his bowlers, moved onto how this was a 300 track, and then gave him a bit of stick for wanting a bat himself. He just played and missed 4 balls (playing out a wicket maiden). It was odd. I continued to chat as loud as I could, encouraging us to bowl them out as they might never declare. Clapping every play and miss like it was the first over. That sort of shit. We moved the field in with him missing the ball and the other guy looking older than life itself, and the next over he hit a 2 and a single and declared mid over. It was just weird. Apparently he thought they needed 280, I’m not sure how long they would have had to bat with these two at the crease to get that total, but they settled on 240 odd off 53. This meant we had about 35 overs to score this total, needing about 8 an over.

We went along at about 6 or 7 an over for a while, but we lost wickets as well. I came in at number 5, and i played some shots as I do. Yet again I hit my first ball through covers for four. It seems to be a habit I have now, I’d like it to stay forever, because even if you go out soon after you look like you can bat a bit. This time i did bat a bit, I hit a few pull shots for four, and a couple of drives and was seeing the ball pretty well.

Then they brought on a left arm finger spinner, and brought the field up. Now the obvious thing to do is hit him straight or over the leg side, both shots I have played a lot against left arm spinners over the years. But I didn’t do that, instead I wanted the opposition to know how much better than them I was. So I decided to open up and blast the ball through the offside. The first ball this meant bunting a full toss that should have been hit over the trees for six, into the covers for one. Next ball I faced it meant getting bowled.

I’d made 31 (off 20 balls – I do love it when a scorer counts balls). They were 31 of the easiest runs i’d made, the bowling average, the fielding poor, the captain putting himself on the long on boundary as you do when the other team need 8 an over and I had played one whole drive there.

From there we got some cheap runs off the other spinners, the guy who got me out ended up being their best bowler. But we lost our last big hitter who made 38 I think (at a slower rate than I did, this is important information for me). So we shut up shop for the last 10 overs 6 wickets down facing some very poor spin from one end, and good spin from the other.

We ended up about 160 odd off our 36 overs. It was such a shit ending to the game, but their Tory captain thought it was a hard fought draw, the rest of us had to be woken up.

Had he declared between the 45 and 48 over mark it could have been a good game. Instead it was a pointless game of cricket. This game did nothing to warm my feelings to the Conservative party.

31 runs & 6 overs for 17 runs.

I turned up after having travel injections in my arms. My left arm wasn’t feeling too dandy. I batted at number 10 or 11 because of this, and went out there and played one effective shot, and one handed reverse sweep off the spinner.

It was dainty and perfect, and went for two to the longest boundary. That was the only ball I got near, and I was run out in the second last over when I and the other dude both called yes and no in the one run.

My bowling went pretty well, the ball came out pretty much how I wanted it too. I got a fair bit of bounce at times as my left arm wouldn’t go very high and my action fell over causing a few unintentional top spinners. I got a couple of wickets, was close to a couple more, but we hadn’t put many on the board, so I had to chase wickets hard. This mean bowling a very flighted ball last ball that ended up in someone’s garden.

We lost pretty easily in the end. Last year we beat them in two games because we beat them so easily the first time.

So I made 2, and took 2/18 off my 4 overs which included 2 sixes.

Because of this game (I suspect) and the shots, I couldn’t move my neck for a full week, meaning i missed a game for Barnes. Next time I won’t get shots on the same day I play cricket.

The other team were keen as mustard, but had to wait for our captain. Obviously they didn’t know about our casual start times. Eventually our captain arrived (bringing a small child as a fielder) won the toss and bowled. Being that I had also turned up late, I didn’t see the pitch, but on first look it didn’t seem too bad.

How to explain how their first 6 didn’t make double figures. There was good bowling from us, but their batsmen all looked good in what little we saw of each one of them. The pitch was ok, a bit low with the odd touch of inconsistent bounce, but nothing that would scare anyone. None of them seemed scared, they just seemed intent on going out, and there was even a run out. Ofcourse our team is utterly useless at closing out teams, so instead their captain and a slogger got together and started slapping us around.

I was brought on to get some above their eyes. My first over was rough, but I got away with it. Next over I was miss hit for six from a sweep, and I thought, time for some tricks. So I threw the ball up as high and slow as I could, and watched him play 7 shots before miss hitting it to point. Next ball I knew he would want to hit hard so I bowled a quicker one that was meant to be a Yorker. It didn’t york him, because he was playing up a line that the ball was a foot from. It was a handy wicket, as this guy had made 47.

From there I started really bowling good, and had one over where 5 balls were hit in their air in and around fielders. Then I had a dropped catch before getting their captain caught at point. And I was off the field. We were only chasing about 128, so I knew I wouldn’t need to bat.

I was listed at 8, and in a pissy little chase like this you don’t want to bat if you’re at 8. I was so confident I gave my gear to our number 4 and did some scoring. We got most of the runs while only losing 3 wickets, it was a cruise. They seemed to give it up after an over of legspin from their captain who bowled seam up earlier. We lost a wicket, and then the scores were tied, and we lost another.

I was borrowing gear from anyone I could, as the one batsman who wasn’t out was the guy with all mine. So I stride out there, 6 wickets down, scores tied. I was using a bat given to one of our players by Inzi, and first ball was given a nice juicy full toss, I punched it into the covers and called wait, the fielder fumbled it and rolled around for a second, in some situations I would have tried to take the run. But why risk a run out when we only need one run to win? I mean I’m batting with a guy who is well set, and there is plenty of time.

Had I known what was to come, I would have taken the run. First ball of the next over the well set batsman was bowled. Not even the greatness of using the hawk could keep him at the crease. Then there was a gap, as we had no one padded up, and then I small a very small kid coming down. The small kid that was there to make sure we had 11 in the field. He must have padded up quickest. He was about 12 and he bolted onto the field. I told him he was facing a left arm bowler who wasn’t too quick and for him to block out the over.

He was bowled first ball.

Now we were 8 down, scores still tied and coming in was a hard hitting rather unconventional Saffa. I thought we were fucked. I could just see myself not facing another ball as we lost all four wickets in this last over. Our number ten survived the hat trick ball, getting struck on the pad, I charged down the wicket as much as I can charge, but they had a leg slip and there was no run.

The next ball was edged, but inside edged and it went straight through the keeper and that was that. Somehow we had made this a real game when it never really looked like it would be. But we won.

I got myself a tidy 2/26 and a scintillating one ball 0*.

Oh and after the match, while my captain and I walked off the field laughing, we were almost hit by a ball that may or may not have been thrown deliberately at us. One of their players told us not to worry about it as the bloke was mental.

We lost too, which was shit.

The game was against Harrow who all turned up before us even though it was our home game. Our captain was late, because our captain is always late. When he did arrive the opposition captain told him our ground was a shit hole. It wasn’t, it was nice enough.

We bowled first, as we do. We got an early wicket, and then they got away with the same batsman who hit us lat year we played them. He only seems to have a couple of shots, and they are both in the air, but he either has luck when he plays us or he is in control of where he is hitting it. Eventually we got him out and a few others, but then some shit went down. Just before he went out he took out both of our opening bowlers. Both with straight drives, one on the toe and one on the finger. The finger guy quite clearly had to leave the field as his finger was pointing in an odd direction. The toe guy, our 8 for hero from a few weeks back, kept bowling for a while, but then went off the field looked at his toe and realised there wasn’t much left of it. He stayed on the field at first slip, but we really were down to 10 fielders and two bowlers.

I came on mid over to replace the wonky finger. First ball I got a bit of spin and beat the bat, so next ball I bowled a wrong’un that he left and bowled him. From there we got a few quick wickets and they were 6/120. It looked like the loss of quick bowlers wouldn’t matter. I had a quick 3 for, and was bowling well. They had a kid in who said he was 16, but he looked 8, and a South African tail ender who could biff and defend. The young kid then played one off the face of his bat into the keeper’s gloves. We all just accepted the wicket, but their umpire didn’t give it out. A few boys came the kid a go, I just asked the umpire why it wasn’t out. He said that this kid was honest and would have walked if he hit it. Later the kid told me he didn’t walk. I can’t complain, not only would I have not walked I would have goaded the opposition as well.

From there we just had one of those days you have when you are short of fielders, and the ones you have are injured or slow. It was shit to be out there. I bowled very well, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t get the breakthrough, balls keep dropping over the head of fielders or just before them. I dropped two catches, one off my bowling, one off the back of my hand that someone else caught. But it was just a long and shit time.

They eventually closed on 260, 9 down after our captain had come on and bowled one good slow medium delivery and half trackers, wides, beamers, and took 3 wickets. The same as I did. Bastard.

Then we batted, and I think we got bowled out for about 80. Shocking. Shithouse. Garbage. I went in at 8, I wasn’t too flash after my bowling, but I could hardly be bothered to be fair. So I slapped a couple and planned to slog until I missed one but didn’t even get a chance as the guy at the other end went out and this shithouse game was over.

Then I limped to the local train station with my shit hamstring.

4/42 off 12 and 5*

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.

A twenty20 game with non crickety types. It seemed good, until I got off at the wrong tube stop and had to walk for about 20 minutes to get to the ground. Then I introduced myself to the wrong team, which always sucks.

Finally when the game started things got worse. We fielded, and the first ball that came in my direction made me take 6 steps before I felt a tightening in my hamstring. It wasn’t a tear, it was just a strain, but it was sore, and I could see how it would fuck up my day.

The quality of cricket was amazingly low, but it was nice to play one game that wasn’t league cricket. Even with my hamstring I was one of the few fielders who could stop the ball and throw it over the stumps.

My bowling wasn’t that great. The hamstring made it hard to bowl, and to be honest, I couldn’t really be bothered. In my second over I was bowling to a woman, I bowled slow leggies off two steps, she ran past one. In next was an American who had never played before. I just tried to fire one in at his stumps, but I missed. They eventually made about 130.

I’m not sure how.

I was asked to open. Why not, I thought. They aren’t going to have anyone who can really bowl, I’ll knock off a quick 25 and grab a beer. It was one of those games where you couldn’t go out first ball, so first ball when this guy game in off a surprisingly good run up I slogged as hard as I could, getting an edge to the American at third man who caught it. Even though I had hardly looked at the ball, I noticed the guy could bowl. But second ball I pushed one through the covers and felt pretty good.

After that I got myself to the other end to watch my partner play and miss for the rest of the over. The next over I asked for two legs, our umpire looked at me, so I asked for centre, he still didn’t know, so my batting partner walked over and gave me two legs and then explained to the umpire what the deal was. I started with a lovely flick off the pads through midwicket for four. I was floating on air, 9 runs off 4 balls, and all was right with the ball. The wicket was keeping low, so I was a few feet down the wicket. One did keep low, and I tried to cut it, and it just rolled low. Next ball I did what any self-respecting batsmen would do, I got forward. The ball struck me on the pad, as I played slightly across the line.

I looked to see if I could steal the single, but I couldn’t, not because of any fast moving fielder, but because I had been given out LBW. The umpire who didn’t know what taking guard was had somehow worked out all the rules of LBW and decided that me being 3 or 4 steps out of the crease was not important. I was gutted as these 25 retire innings can really help with your average.

When I went off I told our captain he had better replace our umpire or the whole team would be given out. He decided that meant I should go out there. Quickly we were about 20 for 5, and looking fucked as their one decent bowler kept beating every one and getting the odd wicket while the guy who got the lucky LBW of me also got a couple of other wickets.

With beer in my hand I umpired some of the worst bowling I’ve ever seen, while our batsmen did their best to hit it. Somehow, and I think wides and byes might have been the reason, we ended up really close, needing 12 off 12 to win after our captain came in and did what I wanted to do, hit some fours and retire. We failed to get there, we needed four off the last ball, we got none, the wicket keeper stopped it, which was our best chance of winning.

Then I walked back to the tube, up the hill with my sore hamstring. But I made Soph drag my bag for getting me into this game of cricket that hurt my body and pride.

Oh, and for the record, I fucken hate umpiring.

I started with taking a great one handed diving catch in the slips, but then my elbow hit the ground and the ball did too. It pissed me off because one good catch in the slips, especially one like this, and you can book a spot for a couple of years. Luckily the guy, who could really bat, went out shortly after.

When I came onto bowl they were still 1 for, at about the 16th over mark, after I had chased a ball that this dude about one hundred metres past the boundary. I used my latest run up, and I bowled two of the shittest overs ever. If my overs were children Hitler would have put them down. So I changed actions again, for perhaps the 6th time this year. I went back to a style I used once in a game in 1999, I was that desperate, and suddenly, the ball came out great. I got a wicket straight away (a LBW) the big guy who’s hit the massive hit earlier couldn’t get me off the square. It felt good.

But somewhere around my 7th over I slipped. The pitch was just crumbling at the crease, and my bad knee twisted and got very sore, very quickly. I told the captain I would bowl one more over, he said ok. Then after the next over he asked for one more, an over I took a wicket of the big hitter. So I bowled one more, and then one more, and then I was in my 13th when I couldn’t even run through the crease, and had to finish the over bowling off spin from one step. Ofcourse that didn’t go well, as one of the batsmen scooped a ball up on the legside and I must have slammed my knee into his bat or something, and for a second I thought I’d really hurt it. That, thankfully, was the end of my spell. I’d slowed them down, but this was a side with many good batsmen, and they still scored about 250.

The way I got the big guy out was interesting. He seemed to have trouble with the ball floated up on leg stump, so I tried to get as many there as I could, eventually he tried to smack one over midwicket, and got a leading edge that went all the way to long on where England’s Vice Captain’s Brother, took the catch, threw the ball in the air, and then came back from outside the boundary to claim it. At the time I was so excited I told him I’d never bag his brother again, which is a horrible lie.

With my sore knee I limped around the field feeling sorry for myself. I had a ball go through me that I was so bad at trying to stop I almost fell over. The captain tried to move me around the field, but I thought he was joking, so I made a smart-ass ill-timed retort, only to realise that he was really trying to move me around the field. During the tea interval he asked if I wanted to open the batting, yet again I thought he was making a joke, apparently he wasn’t. I declined because I could hardly walk and I figured the delay in the order would give me time to feel better.

Our top 5 made a combined total of 17. Since I was batting at 7 there wasn’t much delay. I was really stiff when I batted, I started with an all run 4, and perhaps the easiest all run 4 ever. I jogged two off a square drive, and then purposefully got in the way of the keeper so he missed the throw and jogged another two. It was a lovely start. From there I hardly faced a ball for 5 overs, except for one over where I got one half volley and two full tosses all of which I hit straight to the one man in front of square on the off side. Their bowling was all fairly good, fast medium for club level, all could do a bit with the ball, and the pitch had kept a bit low all day.

Yet myself and BOTEVC (brother of the English Vice Captain) put on another partnership. Him smashing them, and me happy to be at the non-strikers end. Just when I thought we were back in the game, BOTEVC went out off the last ball before drinks. The new batsmen came in, and he was a talent too, he’d only batted that low because he slept in and missed the first innings. He played some great shots, but he even let me bat a little. I got a couple of cheap fours off the off spinners first over. Off his second or third over they appealed when I hit a sweep shot into my foot that was caught by the keeper. It was given not out, I had no idea so I told them that I was certain it had bounced. I wasn’t really batting all that well, but I wasn’t facing enough balls to get myself in form, and I could barely be bothered hitting out.

In a few overs I was out anyway. I hit the ball to cover, but I must have sliced it, because I was sure it was going past him and instead it went straight into his right hand he hit the one stump he had to aim at. Somehow I had managed to run myself out for 14 with a sore knee.

Idiot.

But it got worse. While running that one completely stupid Fucken run I did hurt my hammy. Not a tear, but it was very tight. I then went and had a shower and while I was washing away my day I slipped and smashed my head on a bar. It just wasn’t ever supposed to be my day.

Richmond were the best side we had played all year. No one really stood out, but they seemed to have four proper seam bowlers, a tidy top order, and they were good in the field. it wasn’t a pleasure losing to them, but I don’t mind losing to good sides.

At the other end they brought the slinger back on, perhaps thinking that with his pace and this pitch he’d go through the tail. But he also bowled some bad balls, and that is how I got started, a flashy square drive, then a sweep (best way to describe it) to a short ball that got stuck in the pitch, and then a short ball outside off was given a walking slash one or two bounces over cover.

From there we put on a pretty good partnership. After the bowling machine guy had bowled about 12 overs everytime he came on I told him how tired he looked and abused his ceptain for not giving him a rest. After 15 overs he was taken off, which opened up both ends for us, and we scored easily taking 16 off the next two overs from that end.

For a while the only time it looked like we would go out was a couple of progressive calls for runs from me, and a couple of conservative calls from my partner. He was trained in cricket from the Lord’s coaching manual, I was not. But as a partnership that meant even through we were both right handers we were very different to bowl to. We also went about chasing a total in a very different way.

I like to look at the scoreboard at the end of every second over, make sure the score is ticking over, ensure that time is not a problem (it really wasn’t in this innings) and calculate how many more overs we need to be out there. My partner was the opposite. He liked to just bat, he hardly looked at the scoreboard at all, never mentioned what we needed or that the score was ticking over and told me to not worry about the scoreboard at all. Both options worked best for us, but would have been disastrous for the other person probably.
The helmet never came in handy, but I was glad I had it when a ball roared up off a length and thudded into my shoulder and left thumb as I tried to fend it away. It hit my left shoulder (I still can’t use it properly) and went out to silly mid off where the keeper dived and caught it. They all went up at once, and I gave my best don’t fuck with me stare to the umpire, he gave it not out. When asked by the Aussie keeper if it had hit my glove, I just smiled like an asshole and said, “We’ve had some pretty poor LBWs today haven’t we?” He just smiled back, the truth is I don’t walk when the opposition umpire is calling the shots (I would if it was one of our players umpiring), because I don’t walk.

From there we put on 70 odd before they threw the ball to someone that no one in the team had seen bowl before. His first ball was full of length and the keeper up at the stumps took it above his head. The next ball was short and I went back to pull it and it kept subterranean while bowling me. I’d made 44. Top score for the day. I’d played some great shots, stolen some singles, played some ugly shots, but generally I changed the pace of the game and made the chase way more simple than it should have been. Our partnership was the biggest and by far the fastest of the game.

And as a team we only needed 13 more to win, I was pissed off, but even more so when we lost another wicket that over. I went to have a shower, I couldn’t see us lose after that. But we didn’t. we cruised in with 3 wickets in hand as my partner made it there with ease, even finishing with a massive six.

It was a good well earned (everyone had a bruise) win. I was happy with my batting. For some reason I bat my best in chases, and while I was pissed off I went out at the end, I like going in and changing the momentum. I still can’t hold a drink with my left hand.

I should now talk about my partner, if only because alluding to batting with Alastair Cook’s brother at the start should be followed up on. He batted very well, and although he probably needed someone like me to do the majority of the scoring, he was probably the one batsmen on the day that never really looked like going out. He also has better footwork than his brother, although in the third’s of the Middlesex league footwork is easier to use. I’d loved to have seen Alistair Cook bat on this pitch, I think he would have taken a couple on the body as well.

I must be off now, am adding “played in winning partnership with the brother of England’s Vice Captain” to my resume.