London Erratics Cricket Club

Founded 1974 for recreation and refreshment

Sunday 30 June 2002
London Erratics v Black Rose
at Highgate Woods

I’d rather have my teeth pulled than play games like this

Supposedly a 35-overs game. The Erratics won the toss and elected to field. Chris Dunabin had done well to put together some sort of team for this second game in the one weekend. But the Erratics were clearly under strength. We suggested that Felix Middleton should play for us to make it ten-a-side; but though he agreed to field for us, he refused to swap sides — the rivalry with his brother Giles was too important. It wouldn’t have affected the result, but the addition to our bowling and batting strength might have prevented the game being such a farce throughout.

In fact, Giles and Martin Parsley bowled quite well; and Martin’s figures would have been better had he not suffered from some harsh wide calling. After trying to run on a James Rivington misfield when most right-thinking people would have said that the ball was dead, the chippy No. 2 satisfyingly hit the very next delivery to James at midwicket.

Tony Poulter and James endeavoured to continue the good work, though with no penetration. The No. 1 had been getting stick from his mouthy team mates, and in his impatience to smash to square leg an extremely slow ball from Michael Evans he trod on his wicket (then sportingly swore loudly and hurled his bat to the ground).

That was as good as it got. The later Erratics bowlers got the yips, and the Black Rose skipper hit a succession of slow full tosses with blistering force beyond the boundary. No one could keep track of how many spare balls we got through.

Fortunately, inept work by the Black Rose scorers meant that their batsmen only faced 34 overs.

BLACK ROSE — batting
1	hit wicket	b Evans	18
2	c Rivington	b Middleton G	8
3	not out		69
4	not out		83
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
218 for 2				in 34 overs
Fall of wickets: 1–10, 2–68

LONDON ERRATICS — bowling
	Middleton G	7	1	33	1
	Parsley	7	1	24	0
	Poulter	7	0	44	0
	Rivington	7	0	33	0
	Evans	2	0	25	1
	Dunabin	3	0	48	0
	Riedel	1	0	11	0

When Giles gave Peter Andrews out lbw off his brother’s bowling, one already knew that the innings was not going to go well. Tony tried to hit the leather off the ball, but was well caught at extra cover. James gave a reprise of his now familiar role, ‘Man at the other end of a collapse’. At 16 for 5, a new lowest score looked painfully possible.

James and Nick Riedel (no experience or technique, but a very good eye) nudged things along, until James was bowled off his pads with the score on 38. Giles was almost immediately caught wandering out of his ground, but was invited to have another go. Nick hit a four to take the Erratics past the WPP total (celebration on the boundary), but then he too was stumped. Now Giles was facing his brother’s bowling, and gleefully tonked it around — well done, Giles. The game ended when the ball whacked Martin on the ankle, and he had to be helped from the field.

Conclusion: the sort of game you’d be glad you hadn’t play in, but just read about on the web site. (And if you did play in it, try and wipe it from the memory.)

LONDON ERRATICS — batting				4s	6s
	Andrews	lbw	2
	Poulter	caught	5
	Rivington	bowled	15	2
*	Dunabin	bowled	0
†	Kavanagh	bowled	2
	Evans	bowled	4	1
	Riedel	stumped	12	2
	Middleton G	stumped	0
	Middleton G (bis)	NOT OUT	14	2
	Parsley	retired hurt	5
69 all out				in 22.2 overs
Fall of wickets: 1–6, 2–8, 3–8, 4–10, 5–16, 6–38, 7–38, 8–42

Erratics lost by 149 runs

2002 Season

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