By Eck – Its Grim Up North
The Whalers visit the cradle of
cricket –
The
Whalers long anticipated tour of
After
much “faffing” it was decided that we would all drive
up to
The
backdrop to the drive was some extremely unlikely bright sunshine and when the
advance party of just 5 Whalers arrived in Harrogate it was a beautiful evening
and though it was pretty soggy underfoot we were starting to dare to hope that
perhaps the gods were smiling on the Whale and that we were not touring at an
inauspicious time. (Al and Duncs being held up on the
way by some maniacs trying to blow up a car in central
Match
1 Whalers Vs Oakwood Old Gits
Saturday
morning dawned sadly wet, it wasn’t raining heavily but was drizzle and the
prospects of it brightening up didn’t look too good. We were due to play the
Oakwood Old Gits who are a social team from
The
ground we were playing on belongs to the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Cricket Club
(est. 1863) it is set in the grounds of Queen Margaret’s a girls boarding
school and is overlooked by the large stately home that forms the main school
building. There were a few girls walking around and lots playing sport nearby
but I don’t think any of us looked at them as they were still at school. We
weren’t due to be there until 1 which gave people plenty of time to go back to
sleep after breakfast. Dario, James and Rich went for a dog walk with Rich’s
family instead.
Arriving at the ground the rain was not falling but the pitch was very wet. We
met our ringer for the day Will and waited for the rest of the opposition to
turn up. Although the pitch was very wet it was decided that we should play a
Twenty:20 game and so on losing the toss and because a
few of the oppo weren’t there yet we were asked to
have a bowl. By the time we started the rain was falling persistently and the
wicket was absolutely soaking. Perhaps this could be some sort of defence for
the batting of the Old Gits who crumbled away in the
face of some accurate but restrained bowling. Dan started things off by
claiming a wicket for no run in his first over. James opened from the other end
and did same. All the change bowlers then came on and practically did the same.
At one point the poor Gits were 5/5, in fact every
Whaler including keeper Toby bowled and 8 took wickets, questions were asked of
Al and Will who were the only ones left wicketless (although
both made up for it with the bat). There was a grim, dark humour to be found in
playing a couple of hundred miles from home in the rain on a damp sponge of a
pitch and feeling too embarrassed to celebrate as inevitable wickets tumbled.
The
salvation for the Gits lay in the hands of their
number 9 who came in and actually looked like he had played cricket before. He
defended early on and then started to open his shoulders and hit a couple of
lusty blows straight and one very nice pull in front of square. This little
cameo was played out with a couple of partners, one who was a big chap and
found turning on the by now farm like ends of the wicket extremely tricky in
his trainers. The other batsman of note was umpiring at the beginning of play
and insisted on asking the batsman if he was ready before allowing the bowler
to approach the wicket which would have made for some harsh penalties for over
rates if the game was being played at a high level. He was an amiable chap who
had a lot to say and had himself “played at a very high level” this wasn’t
immediately obvious in his technique but I think most would have been prepared
to go along with it had he not made the glaring mistake of complementing James
on one of the “best balls he had ever seen”. The Old Gits
eventually struggled to 42 all out.
The rain was coming down even more heavily by now and it was decided to take
tea between innings and to cover the wickets again for the interval. While this
was a good idea to keep some of the water off the wicket the wheels that the
covers were on dug badly into the out field and left a series of train tracks
running along the pitch. Discussions with the friendly and chatty Old Gits led us to decide to improvise with the format of the
game; we would bat our full 20 overs even if we went
past their score and then they would have another 20 overs
to try and get past our total.
Whalers were sent out to bat with instructions to retire once they had reached
25 to give someone else a go. The wet pitch made scoring pretty tricky; both
the fielding and the outfield were extremely sluggish. The bowling was not
particularly threatening and the openers made steady progress. Gits only had one bowler of any real pace and he was seen
off watchfully while runs were taken from the other end. Al made up for his
lack of a wicket by scoring 25 and retiring as did our other wicketless bowler ringer Will. Duncs
also carried his bat. Next came a moment to demonstrate just how thin and
fragile the boundary between genius and insanity can be. After months of
nagging, pleading, begging and threatening Duncs gave
in to James’ desperate plea to be given a chance with the bat and was promoted
to 6. A shocked hush fell over the ground as he walked to the crease and took
guard. Duncs faith was repaid as James became the 4th
Whaler to score 25 and retire after a slow start. The only real failure with
the bat came from your reporter, Rich who fell caught behind off his second
ball trying to hit the cover off it in the last over. Whalers scored 180 odd,
not as many as we might have hoped for against the Gits
but very respectable in the conditions that we had faced.
We
now came off for a particularly heavy patch of rain that had begun to fall as
we were batting. After everyone had had a bowl and a bat there wasn’t as much
desire to play on for the Gits second innings and
after a brief discussion it was decided that we had done enough damage to what
had been a beautiful pitch when we arrived and the game was declared over. We
all stayed around for a little while and enjoyed making use of the clubs bar
and chatted to the oppo who were an interesting bunch
of people. It had not been the greatest game of cricket any of us had ever
played in but it was at least a game on tour in conditions when most other
clubs and teams would not have even countenanced playing. For that we have the Gits to thank, it wasn’t perfect but at least it was
cricket!
MOM : James Gould (wickets for no runs and
25* when given a batting chance)
MUPPET : Will (running in the Somme–like
conditions with flat soled trainers on)
We
arrived back at the hotel in decent time as the match hadn’t taken as long as
we had thought it might so we all descended to the Spa attached to the hotel
and had an hours fun swimming, in the sauna and Jacuzzi. We then went out for a
big steak dinner at Cattleman’s restaurant. James has asked me to rmention that Pip had forgotten his wallet for the entire
trip and so dinner was on him! Feeling full, glad to have played some cricket
and not sure what tomorrow would hold the entire group headed off to TIME night
club (formerly Jimmy’s of course) it has to be said that very little had
changed in there in the last 10 years and it turns out that is not always a
good thing.
Plenty
of the Whalers present seemed to have been buoyed by the red meat and beer
combination and there were some fairly serious moves being laid down on the
dance floor. Among those shaking their booties were James and Pip who both
seemed memorised by the prospect of drunk
Day 2 Whalers Vs Dace Banks CC
Sunday
morning dawned clear and bright. The rain from all the preceding month was
admittedly still making everything feel damp and the ground was sopping but
surely we hadn’t dared to dream that it would be sunny in the morning after
staggering into bed in the rain in the early hours. If people looked a little
worse for wear on Saturday, on Sunday they looked like they had slept in
graves. The breakfast buffet was attacked by those looking for something to
soak up what was left in their bellies and not in the bloodstream.
We
had quite a while to wait before it would be time to drive up scenic Nidderdale to the ground so we went for a walk into
Hearts
sank into boots (though I daresay some where perhaps slightly relieved) as we
could see the chances of a game being washed away with the kebab wrappers and
discarded chips of the night before. We returned to the hotel, checked out and
confirmed with the opposition skipper that it was worth turning up at the
ground. He had already set off and having missed most of the cricket they had scheduled
for the season due to the weather he assured us that his team were keen to play
if it was at all possible. So we started the 40 or so minute drive to the
ground.
The ground at Dacre Banks is a typical Dales village
ground (Herbert Sutcliffe was born here) with a big but battered pavilion, dry
stone walls around it and spectacular views up and down the dale. The pitch is
next to a river and the water table had become very high. There was a chance of
a game only if no extra water arrived on top of what had soaked in to the
ground. As we pulled up the rain storm we had had in
All
in all I think that those people who came on the tour had a good time, (except
perhaps Duncs who hadn’t slept for a week before
arriving). It was a real shame that the weather conspired to ruin the cricket
side of it but at least we did manage to get a little bit in which looked
unlikely before we left. A big thanks and well done to
everybody for keeping their spirits up and for not getting despondent when
things were not as any of us would have chosen. It’s a shame that we didn’t get
to see all the glory of
