“Freeland: England’s Jewel”

Match: 17 / 410

Won by 17 runs

Team	Total
FFTMCC	161
R. Hadfield 88, J. Hotson 20
Freeland CC	144 - 9
M. Bullock 3 - 12, A. Darley 2 - 14

Local knowledge has always been a vital factor in rural cricket circles and The MAD were blessed in this, the debut fixture against the small West Oxfordshire village of Freeland, as both Timms and Webster are ex-residents of that parish. Having said that, the day belonged to an out-of-towner as Richard Hadfield’s batting carried the honours.

As the casual reader will probably know, Freeland was first formed as hamlet in the mid-16th century, and its name derives from the ‘frith’ or wooded land to be found near the old Green at the bottom of the village. Nowadays, Freeland is mostly a linear development with the long Wroslyn (derived apparently from ‘wrestling’) Road running through the heart of the village and connecting its approximately 1500 citizens. On this road, you will find the sole pub, the Oxfordshire Yeoman, which is nowadays run by Trevor, publican and leg spinner (interestingly, the pub was known as The New Inn until the 1970s when it underwent a major refurbishment and name change – long after it could actually be considered ‘new’. Crazy stuff). This is where we met before the game and some of us had a pint from the Little Ox brewery, which is actually to be found in the village and apparently uses a ten-barrel brewing system.

Turner (left) on hand to help with a guy whose back has gone.

Now, Freeland had a pretty successful OCA league team for a while, but this fell apart a few years ago and their fixture card now just consists of a few friendlies. Consequently, the square is not quite as pristine as it might have once been, and upon visiting the pitch, it became clear that the wicket was going to be of the ‘sporting’ variety; a combination of thick, mottled grass and the driest April since records began enabling even the most innocuously paced bowler to part the batsmen’s hair with terrifying velocity. Perhaps bearing this in mind, Freeland’s skipper suggested making sure everyone got a bowl.

Captain for the day, Russ Turner, opted for a Carter / Webster opening duet. This turned out to be more of a brief encounter than a symphony as Geoff (0) edged a ball that cut and lifted, the last ball of the first over, and Webster (0) followed the very next ball, after knobbing his very first ball of 2017 straight to point. The score was then 0-2 and less of a platform than a small depression.

Hotson (20) missing a slam dunk.

As Webster trudged off, one could see a look of disappointment cross his face. This was probably more than likely because one of the homeowners on the Wroslyn Road side of the ground had chosen to plant some rather wild leylandii which obscured the church clock from the playing area. The church, St Mary’s, was originally built in high gothic style in 1871, but didn’t have its bells cast until 1896, when they were made and hung by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Russ Turner was also likewise probably a bit sad when the score plunged to 19-3 just a few overs later, although this was probably more because he ran himself out than due to any sightline issues.

Now we should look at the background against which the innings of the day was set; a saucy track with an opening bowler who was happy to fling down rather unfriendly bouncers two or three times an over, a failed top order, an overcast day, and all this in a village which had suffered quite badly from the agricultural depression of 1860’s and consequently had seen its population drop by almost 25%. Hadfield, though, chose to ignore all external and agricultural conditions and batted through for an 88 of high skill and character.

He still needed some support and cometh the hour, cometh the men. Jake Hotson proved the perfect foil and while Hadfield took toll of anything pitched up, driving particularly elegantly through the offside for the majority of his 14 boundaries, Hotson got right behind everything, ignored the ones that flew, and cut and jabbed the odd single to keep the strike reasonably rotated.

Hadfield (with helmet) soaks up applause for his fifty.

After drinks, Jake opened up a little before being bowled for a valuable 20 out of a partnership of 62 (81-4). By this time Hadfield was properly out of the traps and the score rushed to 110 before Mike Reeves (5) was unluckily run out as he was hit by a Hadfield straight drive which deflected directly to the bowler (110-5). Smith was immediately bowled (110-6), then the innings saw another brief flourish as Hoskins ran for everything available before skying one (140-7).

After Bullock played round one, Hadfield was finally out (151-9), the highest individual score of the day by 58 runs and the single biggest factor in The MAD win. A final flourish from Darley, whose innings comprised of a dot, a four, a six (which landed just in front of the Maxwell’s old house, where Timms used to go and play as a youngster) and then a messed up set of stumps took The MAD to a score which had to be at the very least competitive.

Tea was taken at the Yeoman, rather than the new village hall, which was rebuilt in 2011 and opened by the Rt Hon David Cameron, who was the Prime Minister of what used to be the United Kingdom at the time. The village hall is actually pretty good, so that’ll probably be what he’s remembered for.

Paddy Mellor makes a guest appearance to coincide with teas.

As Freeland’s umpire said at one point, “the pitch is the same for both teams,” and this was certainly true. And he should know, as he prepared the horror strip. Freeland’s innings started similarly to The MAD’s, losing the first three wickets for very little before a couple of partnerships pulled them round and made for an interesting finish.

Shorten’s opening spell, from the Pigeon House Lane end was excellent, not unlike a mirror image of lefthander’s Reeve’s efforts later in the innings. He pitched the ball up and consistently swang it back into the right-handers, with the odd ball jumping at the gloves from not far short of length. At the Blenheim (named, obviously, after John Blenheim, the first Duke of Marlborough) Lane end Darley (2-14) cut his run up down to a few paces (which given the state of the wicket was not a bad plan in terms of everybody’s health) and mixed up some legside filth with a few gems. The first cut back to knock over Freeland opener Bartrip’s (9) off peg, the second did likewise for the Brown (5). In between these wickets, Shorten (5-2-7-1) trapped McGrady LBW.

Hoskins and Thorn then bowled tidily, although with little luck, through the mid-period of the innings while Freeland’s Lay and Kendall rode their luck a little – as was required on this track. Much like the village in the late-nineteenth century Freeland began to prosper and the score moved through the 80s.

The track was never one to relax on, though, and was always likely to claim one or two. Lay (32) demonstrated why helmets were a must when the generally pedestrian medium pace of Webster took off and caught his glove just in front of his face, Bullock taking an excellent looping catch behind the stumps, rather like a slow motion Rod Marsh snaffling one off a geriatric Lillee. The MAD looked to be well on top again when an over later Webster (2-24) bowled Kendall. Typical of the day, though, there was still some juice in the game as Freeland spent four entire overs playing and missing at Mike Reeve without losing a wicket while having a dip at Geoff Carter at the other end. With 6 overs to go Freeland wanted a run a ball, had five wickets left, and a fair old finish was in prospect.

Russ Turner’s latent genius then showed as he turned to the one man very few other captains would have turned to at this point – Russ Turner. His very first ball saw Halsey caught on the straight boundary by Webster – just in front of Rod Higgins’ old house (he used to run the Yeoman in the 1980s). With even more prescience Turner then tossed the ball to the President.

As Matt Bullock’s team shirt carries the name of test cricket’s all-time leading wicket taker, it might be fair to suspect that he has a fairly firm grasp on the concept of irony. But Freeland were about to see Bullock’s first MAD bowling spell since 2015 and his first wickets since 2014. Even the other Warnie would have taken 3-12 as decent day’s work and two of the wickets were classic leggies. One saw Trevor (5) the landlord being lured down the wicket and left stranded as Hotson continued his excellent day and removed the bails, the other was to an excellent running catch from the dependable Hoskins, who, coming in from deep mid-off covered a surprising amount of ground for someone who’s supposed to be retired. A win by 17 and a game that had stayed live right up until the penultimate meant a good day out for The MAD.

Celebrate good times.

A guidebook once described Freeland as not really being on the way anywhere, and hinted that you had to want to be there in order to actually be there. This is not, strictly speaking, fair. The road that connects the A40 to the Witney-Long Hanborough road shaves at least a minute off the journey time. And it was a shame that The MAD couldn’t have arrived half an hour earlier and had a look around the splendid Freeland Gardens, which have been run as a nursery garden centre since August 1959, when Fred and Gwen Webster took it over. Based around the old Victorian walled kitchen gardens which supplied the Eynsham Park Estate, the Gardens have begun to specialize in shrubs and it is always a restful place for horticultural shopping. Hopefully they will take up the opportunity next time.

‘A. Stout Yeoman’

*

Statto Scorecards

Far from the MCC versus Freeland CC Played at Freeland, 30 April 2017 Far from the MCC won the toss and elected to bat Far from the MCC won by 17 runs Far from the MCC debuts: none

17 / 410 35 over match

Team	Far from the MCC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	G. Carter	c McGrady b Brown	0	(5)	-	-	1-0
2	J. vdG. Webster	c Rendell b Halsey	0	(1)	-	-	2-0
3	R. J. B. Hadfield	b Halsey	88	(92)	14	-	9-151
4	R. P. Turner *	run out	7	(21)	1	-	3-19
5	J. C. W. Hotson †	b Rendell	20	(62)	1	-	4-81
6	M. K. Reeves	run out	5	(5)	1	-	5-110
7	T. P. W. Smith	c J. Bartrip b Hill	0	(1)	-	-	6-112
8	J. D. Hoskins	c Lane b McGrady	9	(14)	1	-	7-140
9	M. Bullock †	b Halsey	1	(2)	-	-	8-142
10	A. Darley	b Brown	10	(6)	1	1	10-161
11	D. Shorten	not out	0	(0)	-	-	-
	Extras	NB2, W12, LB6, B1	21
	TOTAL	(all out, 34.3 overs)	161

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Brown	4.3	1	29	2	6.44
2	Halsey	5	2	9	3	1.80
3	Walker	6	1	19	0	3.17
4	Lane	6	1	17	0	2.83
5	Johnson	3	0	13	0	4.33
6	Rendell	3	0	9	1	3.00
7	Hill	3	0	27	1	9.00
8	Bartrip	3	0	27	0	9.00
9	McGrady	1	0	4	1	4.00

Team	Freeland CC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	S. Brown *	b Darley	9		1	-
2	J. Bartrip	b Darley	5		1	-
3	J. McGrady †	lbw b Shorten	1		2	-
4	B. Rendell	b Webster	26		5	-
5	T. Lane †	c Bullock b Webster	32		4	-
6	B. Halsey	c Webster b Turner	27		2	-
7	D. Hill	c Hoskins b Bullock	13		1	-
8	T. Johnson	st Hotson b Bullock	5		-	-
9	G. Walker	not out	1		-	-
10	C. Todd	c Hotson b Bullock	5		1	-
11	T. Bartrip	not out	0		-	-
	Extras	W8, LB4, B8	20
	TOTAL	(for 9 wickets, 35 overs)	144

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Shorten	5	2	7	1	1.40
2	Darley	4	0	14	2	3.50
3	Hoskins	4	0	20	0	5.00
4	Smith	5	0	20	0	4.00
5	Reeves	4	0	9	0	2.25
6	Webster	5	0	24	2	4.80
7	Carter	2	0	21	0	10.50
8	Turner	3	0	10	1	3.33
9	Bullock	3	1	12	3	4.00
Note: M. Bullock kept for overs 1-29, J. C. W. Hotson for overs 30-35

MOTM: R. J. B. Hadfield Champagne Moment: J. vdG. Webster’s catch Buffet Award: G. Carter’s one pan salmon with roast asparagus (chip side) MAD Moment: R. J. B. Hadfield’s glasses

Opposition: V092 / 01 Ground: G083 / 01 Captain: C024 / 12 Match No: 35 / 147