A Gentlemen's Game

As June begins, it signifies and end to the growth period of spring. The leaves are out, the grass has been freshly cut and leaves the aroma that hay fever sufferers hate, and the new series of Big Brother has begun. Everything is at its most beautiful. It sparkles in the radiant light, and a soft calm falls over everything. Especially at six o’clock at night when the sun is on it’s downhill, sprint finish. Its nights like these that you know your hero likes to partake in a gentle spot of cricket.

Once again I turned out for the Astrazeneca XI, this time pitting my guile against the strong side from KPMG. As they are a team of Auditors they are not the most charismatic of opposition. Most of them are still living with their mother’s, whilst diligently building a fifth track to the Euston Road recreation in the spare room. But they are still an opposition none the less.

This was our first adventure this season, and where the likes of KP would be in the nets all winter, keeping his eye in, I was watching cricket on the telly. So, this meant that at least I still knew the rules. I had a plan though, I would practice for ten minutes before the game and everything would fall back into place.

KPMG could be likened to the Germany of inter-company cricket. As I have mentioned, they are lacking any real bona fide personalities, but they are well turned out, very efficient, and well organised. They needed eleven people and they came with eleven people. They were there to play cricket and so they had their whites on, neatly pressed.

My team however looked like a real ramshackle bunch of misfits compared to this example. For one, we only had nine players. Two were somehow confused about dates, and although clever enough to hold down jobs, a cricket match was obviously one step too far. Secondly, Only five people had whites, and so the rest of us were attired in a mix of relatively light coloured football kits with tracksuit bottoms or shorts. We looked like the prisoners team in Mean Machine as we ran out to take on the guards.

From the beginning it looked bleak, but somewhere under the surface we had an energy waiting to be released. As we elected to bat first from the victorious toss, there was a sense that “Gosh, they couldn’t even win that!” Our Captain and gentleman, walked back to where we had congregated with a steely determination in his eyes, with a message that he knew and no one else did, and it was his job above all else in life to pass that message on. He did this extremely well, and told us that we were batting first.

Then to my surprise he continued by saying that, “Mike is the only recognised batsman here, so he will open.” Until this point I was mucking around at the back of the group doing keepy-ups with a cricket ball, but this put me completely off my stride and made me volley the ball thirty feet away.

It was true that last season I did have some success with the willow, and had retired with maximum score on several occasions. It is also true that near the end I was opening, but I still thought that sooner or later someone would come in that knew what they were doing. My whole philosophy on batting at this inferior level of cricket is to do what ever you are going to do… properly. None of this dangling the bat on the off stump, or hesitantly driving through mid-wicket. No. What you need to do is move your bat like you mean it, because even if you don’t connect with the middle of the bat at least you will put some speed on the ball and hopefully make it harder to be caught. This worked for me a treat last year, and so I eventually rode out to the square joking and laughing and in altogether high spirits. Actually looking forward to hitting the ball in anger and playing cricket.

After the masquerade of asking the umpire for your middle stump on the crease, which at my level is such a waste of time but it is the done thing, I then settled in to the first ball. A medium paced delivery coming down the leg side. I saw it all the way and thought to myself a quick knock through square and off we go.

I played the shot and the next sound I heard was the stumps falling over and the cheers coming from the saddo’s. I’d only gone and played on. I was gutted. First ball, and out. Walking back to the pavilion, I was the receiver of some predictable banter, mostly from my own team and that was it. A year I had been waiting to play cricket, and it lasted less than a minute.

After a reasonably successful innings in the end, of 105 off 20 overs, we then skittled them out for 58 for 9 and it came to the last wicket to end their torture. It ended up getting skied by their number 8 and it went up and up and up, and then it came down and down and down right over my head. This was my chance to redeem myself, and at least finish in style. I took the catch and the game was over. We had hammered them, and for all their whites and organisation we came through victorious with absolutely nothing to do with me.

Cricket is like that. It is an individual game played in a team. There are lots of individual battles that make up the match and if you have a stinker then you have to trust your teammates to do their bit. This time it worked out. Although I don’t know how many more chances I will get at opening if I continue in that form.