Report by Daniel Mortlock:
"Madingley Mulch is where I used to buy my poo!" No, that wasn't a weirdly scatalogical sledge to induce mental disintegration in our new opponents; it was Faruk's moment of nostalgia for a time when he had a proper car that was big enough to transport his own manure. In fact, Madingley Mulch CC didn't really seem to have much of a connection to Madingley Mulch the company ("formed some 20 years ago supplying products to the landscape industry" which has since "grown into one of the leading suppliers of materials in one cubic metre bags", immediately explaining why Faruk's tiny smart car isn't up to the task - it's literally a tonne of shit). The primary unifying theme of MMCC was, instead, that most of their players were Sri Lankan either by birth or heritage, including one, Ruwan Pitigala, who played a number of First Class games there before moving to the UK.
Despite the now standard flurry of rain-related of WhatsApp messages through the afternoon - Yash Verma even supplied video footage of it hailing in his garden - it was glorious by the time we all converged at Fitz. That said, the recent wet weather did have a material influence on the game, as we were forced to use the pitch at the very edge of the square, apparently just 35 metres from the pavilion. Moreover, the pitch itself was almost as soft and green as the outfield, so the general consensus was that we should bowl first in the hope that the wicket would dry out as the evening went on.
Fortunately (or perhaps inevitably), the Madingley Mulch skipper called incorrectly at the toss and so we headed out to see if we could keep them to a manageable total. "Kiser" Ahmed certainly did his part, once again bowling with pace, precision and lateral movement to repeatedly beat or hit the outside edge; that he ended up with figures of 1/26 from his three (eight-ball) overs was as unjust as it was astonishing - there was only really one proper shot hit off his bowling. Perhaps the one problem was bowling with sufficient pace that any ball which hit the bat went for runs, a notion which was backed up by the fact that both Francois "Ruasso" (0/17) and Paul "Jordon" (1/12) forced the batters to put more effort into their strokes, resulting in lots of mis-timed shots. Paul's wicket was, once again, his 366th for Remnants, taking him to equal second with Tony Malik (PBUH) on the all-time list. James Robinson innocently enquired "Who's first - is it Andy Owen?", which induced the withering response "No, it's me, by about a hundred wickets" from . . . well, if you know, you know.
Following this brief interlude, we continued to go down through the gears pace-wise, turning to our spinners, particularly from the northern end of the ground from which the big boundary was on the leg-side. This worked well enough for "Fairuk" Kara (1/20), who apparently decided that the game was being played in too friendly a spirit: when he received a return from the outfield with calls of "keeper! keeper!" ringing in his ears, he immediately turned and hurled the ball . . . straight into the face of the non-striker, standing about a metre away - and, fortunately, wearing a helmet.
When Faruk took his wicket Madingley were 93/3 with just 35 deliveries remaining in their innings; while the scoring would inevitably accelerate, we had hopes of keeping them to under 140 . . . which were wrecked by the appearance of the aforementioned Pitigala who was not only a good batter but, far worse from our perspective, left-handed. This meant going back to the drawing board with our bowling strategy, and hence asking Iqtedar Alam (who, possibly taking inspiration from being the first of our bowlers to have their name spelled correctly on the scoresheet, returned match-best figures of 2/16) to bowl from the end with the short leg-side boundary for right-handers. This improvisation worked perfectly: Iqtedar had two batters caught on the short leg-side boundary by Quentin Harmer, who hence continued his optician-assisted fielding recovery; and then he almost dismissed Pitigala, who went for the big hit to the long boundary where Lahiru Wijedasa ran around and got his hand to the ball, palming it in the direction Daniel "Morlock", but unfortunately not quite with enough of a connection to give Daniel the chance to take credit for what would have, had it been completed, surely been the greatest catch in club history.
Pitigala's continued presence at the crease then brought about the crisis point of the game: the change of ends at the end of the over meant he had access to the miniscule pavilion boundary with our slowest bowler, Quentin, now on and bowling into the wind. The fact that the scorers had spelled Quentin's name correctly didn't help - indeed, he probably wishes they'd got his name completely wrong - as there was no way to prevent Pitigala playing a sort of tee-ball, hitting four sixes in a row (although one was a total mishit and just escaped Qaiser's grasp on the boundary line; it would have been easily caught on any normal ground).
Such geometrical arguments all but forced Daniel (1/33) to bring himself back onto bowl the final over. While he did at least avoid being hit for four consecutive sixes, Daniel's only real achievement was give 'keeper Marcus Baker the chance to take a stumping off a wide: Daniel's first ball swung down leg and Marcus made a great take in his out-stretched left hand and then, as he was falling over, transferred the ball to his right and threw down the stumps with the batter over-balanced. While it was a fabulous act of cricketing skill, there's no escaping the fact that Marcus had stumped the wrong batter - Pitigala was still safe at the non-striker's end. In the end Pitigala finished on 47* off 18 balls, taking his team to a surely winning total of 156/6 (which of course, in a season defined by dismal scoring, recorded as 157/6 at the time).
Our openers Yash Verma and James Robinson were sent out with instructions to soak up the bowling if need be - with yet another bowling-heavy side our best chance of a win was for them to really get their eye in. And the bottom line was that the two Madingley opening bowlers were, once they found their line, too good to attack without significant risk - each conceded just a single boundary from their three overs - and after a third of our innings overs we were just 29/0. If we'd been batting first that would have been a perfectly good foundation; but with a target of 157 (not 158) to win that meant we needed 118 (not 119) more from just 80 balls. Our one hope was that the change bowlers wouldn't be so good and so it turned out: one started his spell with a sequence of wild leg-side deliveries, two of which were wides and one of which was pulled over the short boundary, meaning he'd conceded 16 runs after one legal delivery; and then we got a measure of revenge on Ruwan when Yash smashed him for 4 4 2 4 4 1, the fours all going to the long boundary.
After 11 overs we were 110/0, and it would have easy to start thinking about a 10-wicket win . . . but Yash and James were both nearing the agreed retirement score of 50. In the end James (47 off 50 balls) was caught one shot short, thus ending a superb opening partnership; and then Yash (50* off 36 balls) retired the following over. And it was then no surprise that the fresh batters couldn't maintain the same scoring rate - other than the openers, and we actually went out with a bit of a whimper as none of our middle order managed a boundary or scored more than six. (Other than the openers the only significant contribution to our total was wides, with a well-made 27.)
A good game played in the right spirit, but Madingley fulfilled James's pre-match prediction that "they will be decent". With of 3 wins from 10 (completed) matches means we're on track for one of our poorest seasons, so hopefully we can turn things around tomorrow.
On my tube ride to Imperial College in the morning
the person sitting opposite me got up and dislodged a
10p coin which fell onto the floor of the carriage.
Knowing that I didn't have a coin to toss at this evening's
game I figured I'd pick it up, but then forgot to when I got
off the train.
Heading to King's Cross I reversed my journey and sat down
in my standard spot - right at the southern end of the train,
just as I had been this morning - and the coin was still there.
Taking this to be a "sign" (of what is unclear),
this time I did pick up the coin,
confident I would be successful this evening at the toss.
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Paul's 366th wicket had been previously announced
on
May 27;
it turned out this was an error due to
erroneously-placed "#" in the Remnants master database,
the result of which that Faruk Kara's wickets this season
were credited to Paul by the accident of being close together
in the alphabet.
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Strictly, this was a terrible guess:
Andy Owen has "just" 177 wickets;
enough to be 8th all-time, but some 282 from the top of the table.
That said, this is largely because Andy has played so many
games as 'keeper and/or batter.
Extrapolating his bowling strike-rate of a wicket every 21.27 balls,
if he'd bowled a full allocation of 4 (six-ball) overs in each
of his 331 Remnants games he'd have taken 373 wickets,
good enough for 2nd place.
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