London Erratics Cricket Club

Founded 1974 for recreation and refreshment

Sunday 21 July 2002
London Erratics v Tar Barrow
at Tar Barrow, Cirencester

Whimsical umpiring cues last-ball defeat

On a warm, mainly sunny, afternoon Tar Barrow won the toss and elected to bat. The prodding style of the No. 2 contrasted dramatically with the free hitting of the No. 1, and the Erratics were fortunate to see the ball trickle off the latter’s pad and dislodge a bail. Lively bowling from Giles Middleton and prodigious movement from David Brook reasserted some control, and both were rewarded for their efforts.

Matthew Eltringham and Mark Hattam also picked up wickets, but fed the Tar Barrow batsmen with enough to push the score along. Richard Heller seemed out of sorts, as the batting side now started to give the fielders the run around — though Richard did well to come back with a couple of wickets. Unaffected by a pause to watch a Stealth Bomber skim past, the later batsmen contributed usefully, and the total mounted quickly.

Giles returned to claim the 8th wicket. And in the final over before tea, the No. 10 badly underestimated Tony’s arm (‘my one throw of the year’), and the last man was bowled next ball.

TAR BARROW — batting
1		b Brook	18
2		b Eltringham	37
3	c Khawaja	b Brook	0
4	c Hattam	b Middleton	11
5	st Khawaja	b Heller	52
6		b Hattam	12
7		b Heller	19
8	lbw	b Middleton	15
9	not out		10
10	run out		5
11		b Middleton	0
193 all out
Fall of wickets: 1–27, 2–39, 3–63, 4–75, 5–102, 6–150, 7–??, 8–??, 9–193

LONDON ERRATICS — bowling
	Middleton	12.4	1	39	3
	Brook	9	2	29	2
	Eltringham	4	0	26	1
	Hattam	4	0	24	1
	Heller	4	2	36	2
	Truscott	3	0	20	0
	Berrigan	1	0	4	0

The Erratics’ generosity in supplying the match ball was ill rewarded when Tar Barrow sneakily produced their own new ball for the second innings. This seemed to have backfired when James Rivington found that (if ever he could get a bat on it) the ball travelled very nicely to the boundary.

The third wicket pair, John Trucott and Brian Berrigan, had hit 125 runs off Tar Barrow’s bowlers two years ago, but today they managed just six runs off six overs of tight bowling. Nasir Khawaja started belligerently as usual against the change bowlers, and things looked promising until John was the victim of an implausibly good one-hand catch by one of the less mobile fielders. David failed to keep out his first ball, Mark swung across the line of a straight one, and suddenly survival was the order of the day. Matthew, nervously seeking his first runs for the Erratics, ably steadied the innings and joined Nasir in making the score respectable.

With three overs to go, the game was drifting towards a dull draw — the opening bowlers were back, Matthew was still playing with care, and Nasir’s attempts to raise the tempo were frustrated by his own loss of timing. Then Matthew was bowled, and in the penultimate over madness set it. Having turned down one lbw appeal against Nasir, two balls later James was smitten by a flight of fancy (some twisted sense of narrative structure?) and gave a much more dubious decision. Still, we could surely avoid losing two wickets in the final seven balls. When Giles gloved the next delivery to the keeper, we suddenly had the trauma of watching Nick Riedel survive the last over. Coached by James from square leg, Nick kept out the first five balls almost with assuredness, and even carved one over the slips for four. But he rashly lunged forward to have a swish at the last ball, and James had the wholly unwhimsical task of giving him out.

The Erratics were dismayed after the game to see Nasir putting in a transfer bid to play for Tar Barrow.

LONDON ERRATICS — batting				4s	6s
	Rivington	caught	29	6
	Poulter	caught	9	1
	Truscott	caught	6
	Berrigan	c & b	3
*†	Khawaja	“lbw”	45	6
	Brook	bowled	0
	Hattam	bowled	0
	Eltringham	bowled	28	4
	Riedel	stumped	4	1
	Middleton	caught	0
	Heller	NOT OUT	0
135 all out
Fall of wickets: 1–31, 2–40, 3–46, 4–56, 5–61, 6–68, 7–131, 8–131, 9–131

Erratics lost by 58 runs

2002 Season

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