Wednesday 7th July 2004
New Ash Green v Great Braxted
& Tiptree
Wednesday 7th July 2004
Friendly Match
Great Braxted & Tiptree 88-8 (16.4 overs)
Match abandoned.
Tuesday was a lovely day. The sun shone, there was
a gentle breeze, the air was fresh and it was pleasantly warm all day. English
summer at its best. I watched it all out of office windows. So did many others,
I’m sure.
Wednesday, however, the day we had taken off to
play cricket, was a different sort of day.
To be fair it didn’t start too badly. Fairly
sunny, though quite windy. As the morning wore on the wind picked up. By
the time the chocolate shortbread was cooling down and my gardening was done it
was nearing gale force. As I drove to Hartley the wind was whipping through the
trees, and leaves were scattered over the roads almost as if it were autumn.
The field was set up, the wind continued to increase, but the clouds were still
high and not too heavy.
The opposition arrived. One sightscreen was blown sideways into
the hedge. The other blew over completely. We didn’t bother trying to stand it
back up.
Our skipper, James Hewitt, and theirs, a nice bloke with bad
sideburns called Brian, I think, went out and tossed.
They decided to play a twenty over game, on the assumption it would rain later,
then if it didn’t rain play another twenty over game. Of course this is
justified by the fact they are now called Twenty20 games and are very trendy,
though none of us had brought our pyjamas with us to play in. Good thing in my
case – I don’t think a night shirt would have worked well for playing cricket
in, and the other option, nudity, is frowned on in Hartley.
We started the game. Their captain had said they would open with
some comedy batting, so we opened the bowling with James Hewitt and Simon Duke.
And Marc Klus kept wicket. The bails joined in the
fun by flying off every ball. We patiently put them back on for about 6 overs before giving up on them.
Simon Duke took some wickets, his first of the season. Blair
Wilson took some catches. Matt Bushe didn’t. They
scored some runs, but looked like they might not last 20 overs.
The wind continued to blow.
The rain started. It got a bit heavier. Matt Bushe
and Dan Lewsey took some wickets. James Hewitt caught
their captain out. Their daft looking old bloke ran out one of their players by
a mile. Perhaps he didn’t think Matt Bushe could
throw it accurately to Marc Klus, and Klus catch it and take the bails off (metaphorically of
course, as the bails had been dispensed with). Can’t think why he would think
that. He was wrong. The rain got heavier. The wind blew some more. Blair Wilson
looked very cold and wet without a jersey on.
We carried on. The rain got heavier. Then it got torrential. At
last we decided that good will, tour game, or not it was getting just a little
silly, so we stopped.
James Hewitt tried to put the cover on the wicket for Saturday,
so we could either keep the damp in or lose the cover to the wind. It was very
brave of him.
We ate the tea. Simon Duke ate a lot of fruit and FIVE pieces of
chocolate shortbread.
It rained a lot more.
The wind blew.
The opposition drank some beer and left in their minibus, having
been entertained by tales of the gay kiss challenge, the chat up challenge and
the tour virgin buying porn challenge. They decided not to adopt any of these
for their tour.
It rained some more. The wind blew.
We packed up and went home.
Dukey was happy though.