“MAD’s Melancholy Mud Mishap. In Wiltshire.”

Match: 14 / 314

Lost by 6 wkts

Team	Total
FFTMCC	90
M. Reeves 34*
Nomads CC	91 - 4
J. Newman 2 - 17

Wiltshire is another world, but perhaps not quite the world it wants to be. 1950 has been and gone and, no matter how many Nigel Fucknut posters are displayed in windows, it’s never coming back kids.

Some things are immutable however. The sound of leather splatting into soft mud before dribbling past a waved bit of willow is a sure sign of spring and the onset of a new cricket season. An inviting looking short legside boundary at the pleasant Peterborough Arms ground proved to be little more than a trompe l’oeil as a sticky surface with the consistency of a leper’s tongue negated any MAD attempts at style.

Matt was up for being thrown into the deep end….

Homer (Russ Turner) lost the toss but achieved his aim of batting first, and Matt Reading and Geoff slid out to opening the batting. Matt proved a pretty exact replacement as opener for erstwhile skipper, Spam (off irritating the Cornish apparently) and managed his debut MAD golden duck in just his second game. The bowler had started with a long hop down the leg side and another one wide of off before managing just the one rather good in-swinging yorker. Guess which one Matt got? 1 for 1.

Homer and Geoff (definitely not George today) squelched around grimly for a good dozen overs, looking as much as like scene of crime officers poking around for body parts in a bog than the dashing cricketers we know them to be. Progress was slow, the ball leaving pock marks on the pitch as it slid along its surface. The outfield was essentially pasture preventing perfectly reasonable shots from penetrating any further than the infield. A struggle all told.

The quarter century was brought up with only the loss of one wicket. The MAD had clearly reconnoitred, made peace with the lack of pace in this part of the world and were now ready to make steady and increasing progress. And then... as the Nomads brought on what appeared from a distance to be a rather dribbly spinner, Paddy Mellor was heard to remark ‘I want to be out there. Right now. I want to face him.’

And, lo, he was. And, Lo, fairly shortly afterwards The MAD were 42-8.

P. Mellor walking out to face a “dribbly spinner”.

To be fair the spinner, a left armer, was turning it both ways, the ball was just soggily farting off the wicket like a crap Dambuster bomb and it was still fairly early days as far as the season goes. That would be to be fair. To be accurate though, it was a classic Mad collapse, sparked almost from thin air, with the horrific logic of the lemming. To be realistic though, it doesn’t even qualify for any all-time lists, so, purely for the sake of academic interest, here it is:

25-2: Homer (12) missed a good one from the spinner.

29-3: Geoff, who had battled 51 balls for his seven edged behind

29-4: Paddy (3) was dropped at cover. Then Paddy was caught at cover.

30-5: Moo was not out for a duck (it hit his pad and Matt R compounded his top day out by having a kind of spasm while picking his nose and accidentally giving it LBW*).

32-6: Dobner (2) was caught at cover.

37-7: Webster, just 98 short of what could have been a maiden century, was turned back by the callous Mike Reeves and run out. The ease or otherwise of the run is debatable, but, as we know, history is written by those who write the match reports and the insane cruelty of Reeves should be noted. Would it be an overstatement to compare it to Mark Chapman’s shooting of John Lennon – a golden talent being halted in its prime? Perhaps not.

I digress.

42-8: Wonky (3) was yet another victim caught at cover. There was a lot of cover catching about. Salad (8) went that way later too. If we could have figured out a way of hitting it over, round or even under cover, we’d have scored a shedload.

Geoff (batting) declares war on dots.

This was beginning to look rather embarrassing and something needed to be done if there would be any sort of a game at all. Fortunately a minor revival at least achieved this basic aim. Salad hit the first boundary of the innings in the 29^th over (winning the champagne moment!) and Evil Mike Reeves (34*) finally took advantage of the shorter leg side boundary with excellent pulled sixes off consecutive balls before adding a couple more boundaries in the following over.

The last two wickets added over half The MAD’s final total of 90.

With little to defend the bowling plan on a soggy pitch was pretty simple; full and straight. This we managed, with some excellent support in the field (is there a list of games in which not one catch has been spilled? We should have one; it wouldn’t take up a lot of bandwidth I’d have thought).

Salad (8-2-17-2) and Lego (8-0-22-0) opened up and after a couple of exploratory overs pinned the Nomad CC batting to their creases. Cunningly (remember Hoggard to Hayden in 2005?) Homer put Geoff in at short cover for the first over, hoping for the as yet unsettled batsmen to list a drive. He did, at some speed, just flicking a Carter family jewel on the way. At this point Geoff decided to make a field adjustment of his own.

Salad in particular bowled an excellent testing spell, snaking one back in to bowl one of the openers, beating the bat at least twice an over and probably (from my excellent viewpoint at point) being a little unlucky with the lbw shouts for balls catching the batsmen playing back.

The Nomads’ number three decided that simply being decorative was enough and began a marathon session of patting and prodding. The remaining opener looked keen to get on with it, however, and often swished and missed.

“He’s keen to finish it – got a hot date tonight?” queried keeper Dobner.

“No, Countryfile’s on,” replied batter three.

The ball careers towards Geoff’ nadgers….

Wonky and the villain Reeves took over and picked up where the opening pair had begun; good and straight. Nomads were limping along but content to keep the ball out until Countryfile played on to the baleful Reeves (5-1-12-1). Just before drinks Wonky (6.2-2-6-1) also hit the stumps and the score was 34-3 with 20 overs remaining; a lowish T20 score and The MAD still in it.

However, the wicket was starting to dry and batting slowly became a little easier as the ball started to come on a touch. Finally, as the nefarious Reeves had done in our innings, a batsman chanced his arm and turned the game around. Nomads number five had narrowly missed being bowled by Matt Fielding’s off spin, but then greeted the return of Salad with the shot of the game; hitting him on the rise back over his head for six. Nothing wrong with the ball or the bowler, just a good shot.

Moo’s (2-0-10-0) short bowling spell was quite interesting. Like Steve Finn he appeared to have remodelled his action. Unlike the lanky Middlesex quick Moo appeared to have opted to include a spot of body popping and some electric boogaloo into the mix.

Nomads number five belted a few more before Homer caught him off the persevering Salad. We’d pushed them to it, but the end was pretty much nigh. The MAD lost the game, but at least never gave it away in the field. In particular, Salad’s 2-17 off 8 overs and Wonky’s 1-6 off 6.2 overs were commendable efforts.

“Scribble, scribble… sarcastic… grumble… shit day out, scribble scribble… etc etc etc”

Also of some kind of note was the effort of the Nomads’ number three batsman; 15 runs off 91 balls. Deserving of credit perhaps, but it seems a funny way to spend a nice Sunday afternoon. As my sister-in-lag Mags is fond of remarking, ‘Nice day out, but a long way to go for a bit of chicken’.

Much like The MAD’s trip to Wiltshire.

* - A sign of a keen intellect is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the head at the same time. Thus it is important to understand that Matt’s decision was probably correct and also that Moo was definitely not out.

‘Jack Tractor’

*

Statto Scorecards

Far from the MCC versus Nomads CC Played at Dauntsey Lock, 4 May 2014 Nomads CC won the toss and elected to field Nomads CC won by 6 wkts Far from the MCC debuts: none

14 / 314 40 over match

Team	Far from the MCC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	G. Carter	c M. Baldwin b Codling	7	(50)	-	-	3-29
2	M. J. Reading	b Jones	0	(1)	-	-	1-1
3	R. P. Turner *	b Harris	12	(35)	-	-	2-25
4	P. A. S. Mellor	c Bloore b Harris	3	(10)	-	-	5-30
5	M. T. Westmoreland	lbw b Harris	0	(5)	-	-	4-29
6	S. L. P. Dobner +	c May b Codling	2	(6)	-	-	6-32
7	M. K. Reeves	not out	34	(30)	3	2	-
8	J. vdG. Webster	run out	2	(12)	-	-	7-37
9	D. Emerson	c Bloore b J. Baldwin	3	(3)	-	-	8-42
10	J. Newman-Robson	c Bloore b May	8	(12)	2	-	9-61
11	D. Shorten	b Harrow	2	(15)	-	-	10-90
	Extras	(W11, B6)	17
	TOTAL	(all out, 29.5 overs)	90

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts
1	Jones	5	1	10	1
2	Harrow	5.5	3	8	1
3	Harris	5	2	7	3
4	Codling	5	2	9	2
5	J. Baldwin	5	0	28	1
6	May	4	0	22	1

Team	Nomads CC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	M. Bloore	b Reeves	17				2-25
2	H. Alleyne	b Newman-Robson	2				1-8
3	M. Baldwin +	not out	15				-
4	N. Preddy	b Emerson	5				3-33
5	T. Passley	c Turner b Newman-Robson	32				4-78
6	T. Codling	not out	9				-
7	J. Baldwin
8	P. Harris
9	T. May
10	J. Jones
11	M. Harrow
	Extras	(NB3, W5, B3)	11
	TOTAL	(for 4 wickets, 33.2 overs)	91

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts
1	Newman-Robson	8	2	17	2
2	Shorten	8	0	22	0
3	Reeves	5	1	12	1
4	Emerson	6.2	2	6	1
5	Westmoreland	2	0	10	0
6	Webster	2	0	4	0
7	Reading	2	0	17	0

MOTM: M. K. Reeves Champagne Moment: J. Newman’s cover drive (first MAD boundary of the innings) Buffet Award: M. J. Reading’s Kennington goulash (with extra lamb filling)

Opposition: V022 / 11 Ground: G068 / 01 Captain: C024 / 05