Whalers
With the
excitement of
And so it was,
the traditional 8am pint of strong continental forgone, the Whalers touring
squad gathered, Lord of the Rings style, in a small, rather pretty, village
deep in rural
The local rules
stipulated that this would be a ‘time game’ as this required ‘greater skill
from the Captain.’ Marvellous. Some cynics might also say that this also
allowed the opposition skipper the chance to bowl himself for 15 consecutive overs (not bad for a 73 year old) and dramatically reduce
the chance of defeat for the home side.
Whatever the motivations, there then followed much discussion on what we
should do if we won the toss – bat first and call the shots or bowl first and
drop anchor to avoid defeat if victory seemed impossible. Amid all this debate, the skipper was quietly
hoping that he would lose the toss and not have to make the choice. But win he did and in time honoured fashion,
he chose to bat (he was not convinced the Whalers had the capacity to drop
anchor – it had certainly never happened before).
And so Dickenson
and Bayne strode purposefully to the crease to face some pretty ordinary
bowling. Nonetheless Bayne managed to
get himself bowled without scoring a run.
Things did not get a hell of lot better as first Paul and then Duncs fell cheaply.
It got worse with Andy Nelson (playing for the first time in 2 years)
also went and when he was quickly followed by Ads we were 40 something for 5
and in real trouble. It was
disappointing given the quality of the bowling.
But this kind of
situation is nothing new to the Whalers – most of our runs are scored by the
bowlers anyway – and we gradually began to rebuild the innings. With Big Al holding one end and punishing
anything lose and with lively contributions from Geoff, Ed K and Piers, we
managed to pose a respectable 190 odd by tea.
It took 43 overs so was slow going by our own Pieterson-like standards but a declaration at tea seemed
sporting and likely to give either team a chance to win.
After a good tea,
a fielding practice and a huddle we set about the Chagford
batting. It is difficult to know exactly
how to describe their innings as it was pretty much devoid of any
excitement. They were kept well pegged
back by Dan opening at one end and Ed operating effectively at the other
(employing the long hop to particularly devastating effect). From 6 o’clock there were only 20 overs remaining and at this point the required run rate was
up around the seven an over mark but with 8 wickets in hand they could
certainly go for it. But Chagford never seemed like going for it. Skipper Bayne
threw on the spinners in an attempt to get them out going for the big
shots. Kamal
bowled very well but we managed neither to get many wickets nor induce them
into scoring many runs. Although there were a couple of overs
where we got spanked around a bit.
Their No 1 was
proving particularly hard to dislodge (he was an ex-Somerset player after all)
and we unable to get wickets at the other regularly enough to really put any
pressure on. And so it fizzled out. The overs finished
with Chagford still 40 runs shy but with a bagful of
wickets intact. Quite why they didn’t go
for it a bit more – we gave them the chance – baffled all of us. Still it was lovely location and the Big Man
played the innings of his Whalers career to date.
A quick shower,
finishing off of tea and a chat with the locals followed before we all
hotfooted to
Pints in the
hotel before heading out and, after Nelson leading us around Exeter for a hour
trying to find a pub near the canal, we got stuck into the real drinking. Someone let Big Al order some drinks and
before we knew all manner of revolting but excitingly coloured beverages were
on the table. We even had pints of
cider. Well oiled, it was off to the
nearby club for a spot of hip shaking and shouting each other’s ears. Feeling even older than in
But we would need
more than inspiration to help us the next day.
A miracle was what we really needed.
It was a sorry
looking lot that came down to breakfast and we weren’t looking a whole lot
better when we arrived at Seaton – another very nice ground. Seaton turned out to be town, rather than a
village and given we were playing ‘Seaton CC', this was a cause for concern.
Unfortunately we
lost the toss. This was bad news for
many reasons but mainly because we needed the rest, it was very hot and they
were very good. The opening pair
consisted of two whippersnappers one of whom looked like a particularly class
act. And so it proved – he punished
anything remotely poor (of which he had quite a lot) before falling
the Kirkness rank long hop trick. He wasn’t the first and I doubt he’ll be the
last.
But that was just
the starter. The fall of another wicket
(a dubious LBW) brought two very good batsmen together at the crease. We can consider ourselves slightly unlucky as
the batsman who went on to completely demolish our bowling was absolutely plumb
LBW second ball but given the decision 2 balls earlier, a second LBW was always
going to unlikely. And so it was that we
smashed to all parts of the ground and with tired, hot heads dropping it was
starting to look like a rout.
But salvation
came from unlikely source. The rest of
the Seaton team clearly decided that the hard hitting number 4 should be
retired on reaching his century. Fair
enough. But what they thought was really
hilarious would be to retire him on 80 whilst telling him he had got his
ton. I believe he did not find this at
all amusing but frankly we were glad to see the back of him. The number 3 retired soon after as well.
But that wasn’t
the end of it. They continued to pick
runs up with ease. The final humiliation
was the declaration. Declarations in
limited overs games are pretty rare (I believe) but I
suspect that Seaton felt 285 (off 35 overs) was more
than enough to defend. It also
represented the fact that the oppo clearly wanted to
get on with it.
After an
excellent tea – strawberries, éclairs and pizza – we set out to bat our way
back to respectability.
It didn’t start
too well with Duncs being out to the first legitimate
ball of our innings and thereby recording a tour ‘pair.’ That brought Oz to the crease and with
Skipper Bayne they set about salvaging some pride. A 50 partnership ensued before Bayne plonked
one down gully’s throat. There was
another flurry of wickets as Dickenson failed to replicate his heroics of the
previous day and Nelson didn’t last too long.
With the oppo becoming obnoxious in the field and failing to show us
due respect, it was time for the tail to wag again. Some great blows from Ads (searing cover
drives amongst them), some awesome hitting from Geoff (he hit one of their
spinners out of the ground for a straight six) and good contributions from
Piers and Dan brought the score up to 170 or so and smattering of
respectability. The loss of the final
wicket brought about a big cheer from Seaton who clearly had better things to
do than thrash us at cricket.
And that was that
for the tour in 2005. We all jumped in
our cars to head back to
Although the
cricket was somewhat variable, it was another fantastic tour with cricket in
great locations, a fine night on the tiles and some notable individual
contributions. Roll on