London Erratics Cricket Club

Founded 1974 for recreation and refreshment

Sunday 4 June 2006
London Erratics v FC London CC
at Gunnersbury Park

Merciless
LONDON ERRATICS — batting 4s  6s 
Head run out 52    
Rivington bowled 2    
Khawaja bowled 1    
Green J caught 4    
† Pannell lbw 0    
Fitzmaurice caught 10    
Evans NOT OUT  9 2   
Green T NOT OUT  4    
Green S    
Padmore    
* Eltringham    
129 for 6 in 35 overs
Fall of wickets:  1(Rivington)–26, 2(Khawaja)–30, 3(Green J)–38, 4(Pannell)–38, 5(Fitzmaurice)–101, 6(Head)–125
A 35 overs game. FC London won the toss and elected to field. All those who had a look at the pitch while the kit was being manhandled from the distant carpark, could instantly tell that it was going to be a day for the bowlers.
Variable bounce and significant lateral movement meant there was going to be no repeat of last year’s run feast. After contributing little to the opening partnership, James Rivington got an off-cutter that was much too good for him; and shortly afterwards Nasir Khawaja got one that kept low.
The next 10 overs saw the addition of only 8 runs. When Jonathan Green finally found the middle of the bat, he unfortunately hit the ball straight to cover. And in the same over, Andrew Pannell was given out lbw by Nasir. Just 38 scored off 19 overs, 4 wickets gone: it was looking grim.
Luckily, FC London had failed to bring along a fifth bowler. Their first candidate quickly lost it and never got it back: high full tosses and wides kept umpire James exercised. The second offering was not much better. Debutant Brad Fitzmaurice was watchful and picked off the loose ones that were within reach. The hundred came up in the 30th over, and Brad was unlucky to be caught by mid-on’s armpit in the next over.
All this time, Jim Head had been there at the other end. The conditions had kept him unusually quiet, but he had been accumulating steadily in ones and twos, and his patient fifty was well deserved. In the penultimate over, he adventurously called for a quick leg-bye, but didn’t make it.
Michael Evans had flat-batted the only two boundaries of the innings. And Tim Green immediately struck the ball with ominous ease. Would the hard-hitting FC London batsmen find more runs in this wicket? At least we would hope to bowl more tidily throughout and not concede their 47 extras (11 no balls, 30 wides — and we were being kind umpires!).
FC LONDON — batting
1   b Green T 13
2   c Khawaja b Eltringham 3
3   c Fitzmaurice b Green S 10
4   c Head b Eltringham 18
5   b Head 4
6   lbw b Head 0
7   st Pannell b Eltringham 0
8   lbw b Eltringham 4
9   not out 0
10   c Green T b Eltringham 0
11   c & b b Head 0
56 all out in 22.2 overs
Fall of wickets: 1–15, 2–28, 3–28, 4–39, 5–43, 6–50, 7–53, 8–56, 9–56, 10–56

LONDON ERRATICS — bowling
Green T 4 1 10 1
Padmore 5 2 11 0
Green S 2 0 7 1
Eltringham 6 2 19 5
Head 5.2 2 9 3
When the FC London opener smacked the fourth ball to the boundary, an impartial observer might have wondered whether batting was quite so tricky after all; but Tim Green and Alex Padmore quickly made things uncomfortable. Alex bowled with good pace and control, and was unlucky not to be successful; Tim punished the opener for trying to be too aggressive. Tim gave way to brother Simon, who had to leave early to get back to school: a nice little spell was rewarded with a debut wicket off the last ball, courtesy of a well-judged catch at cover by Brad.
A double change introduced skipper Matthew Eltringham’s gentle floaters and Jim’s fizzy tweakers. Matthew started with a wicket maiden — Nasir celebrated finally hanging on to one low down at slip by pinging the ball into the stratosphere. After beating the bat with his leggies, Jim surprised two batsmen with successive offbreaks. The two were now combining to grind down the opposition mercilessly, Jim pouching a slice to point. Defeatist gloom spread through the FC London side — including their umpires, who gave no benefit of the doubt to their team mates for a debut stumping by Andrew and for a horrid lbw (younger brother umpire to aggrieved older brother bat, ‘You were plumb’; bat, ‘Yeah, whatever’).
In sad desperation the last two batsmen skied Matthew to Tim in the covers (good catch trotting back) and Jim back to himself. So concluded a ruthlessly efficient performance in the field. In eschewing the temptation to mix things up, skipper Matthew (who picked up his best figures for the Erratics) had displayed the sort of killer instinct that we ought to have every now and then.
Erratics won by 73 runs
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