“Plenty More Guns in the Bag”

Match: 18 / 469

Lost by 23 runs

Team	Total
Kesgrave CC	259 - 8
A. Darley 2 - 23, I. Howarth 2 - 33
FFTMCC	236 - 5
I. Howarth 78*, M. Reeves 42

Plenty more fish in the sea, probably not. Plenty more gas in the tank, perhaps? What was the metaphor that Andrew Darley was searching for when he uttered these immortal words towards the tail end of The MAD innings?

After the excesses of the night before, the FFTMCC assembled at the appointed hour of 11am for the taxi ride from the Orwell Hotel, to the village of Kesgrave, just beyond the outskirts of Ipswich. There were three different taxis and therefore of course three different prices for the roughly 20 minute journey, depositing us near a deserted leisure centre in the middle of nowhere.

JMO’s drone hangs out with Giant Duck.

· It was another scorching day and no surprise that the outfield was parched, however the outfield was surrounding what was supposedly a belter of a batting track.

· Alright, time to come clean. I remember almost nothing about this game. Here are the fragments that I do remember:

· Darley was captain. Was he the only one to volunteer, or did he win some sort of draw involving the top trumps?

· Did he win the toss? I thought he did and generously opted to field, but the score book says different.

· I do remember the hosts being jovial and accommodating, turning up before the game it was clear that they’d managed to maintain a healthy club in un-scenic surroundings. Much like ourselves really, who have no real home to call our own, it is the way of many cricket clubs to eke out an existence until the local council decides to call time on the pitch and turn it in to housing, for people to live but have nothing to do with their leisure time except go shopping.

· They had a fridge stocked full of alcoholic Ribena, I definitely remember that.

Ribena. Helping to stay hydrated after days on the piss.

· I opened the bowling AGAIN and took no wickets AGAIN, but didn’t get flogged too much. At the other end the skipper (6-1-23-2) opened with himself and took two wickets.

· Matt took a good catch, smashed at him at square leg, or could have been just behind point, it was almost definitely somewhere behind the batsman.

· Everyone got a bowl. Russ (2-0-23-1) picked up a wicket. Was that the catch by Salad, the very next ball after I dropped their number 3?

· As yes, that reminds me, Salad was excellent behind the stumps, only let one bye through all innings, he looked like a natural keeper, moving gracefully towards the ball and cushioning it with the gloves, rather than going at it all iron hands. Pity he can’t bowl and keep wicket.

· They had some decent players, the opener retired (bored) after about 80 and their skipper was 66 not out at the end. The skipper (K Bostock) seems like the life and soul, encouraging the youngsters to play the game in the right way. I think it was his lad, about 10 years old who ran around fully kitted out including helmet – good lad.

· They scored a terrific total, 259-8, but somehow it didn’t seem excessive. After racking up big scores on the previous two days and on another belter of a pitch I think we thought it was gettable.

Celebration time in front of a gorgeous backdrop.

· I do remember tea, those fruit skewers I think saved several of the team from getting scurvy.

· I remember even less about our batting. It was good to have a decent innings (42) alongside Spam (78*), I hit some streaky fours and a top edge that somehow crashed into the fencing surrounding the adjacent cycle speedway track, for six. Jake gave me out LBW, I was certainly plumb, but got to bitch about the bowler coming round the wicket, like you have to in that situation.

· Spam and Russ (29*) shared a terrific partnership of exactly 100 unbeaten. Looking at the scorebook, I see it was in 78 balls, whilst the skipper extolled them to up the pace even more, claiming we had “plenty more guns in the bag”.

· At one point it almost looked like we’d get there, but in the end fell twenty odd runs short.

Hotson is distracted by a floating ball near his armpit.

· With Timms and Carter due to turn up the following day, we needed, for the only time this tour, to have some sort of draw to decide who would sit out the following day. Now I’m as up for a convoluted, lengthy and multi-stage draw process as the next man, but Darley over stepped the mark with his spin the bottle, hit-the-can combination. It defied one of the principal laws of drawing tour teams – it had an element of skill involved. Fortunately, after several players had fruitlessly flung some cricket balls in the general direction of some cans without getting anywhere near them, it was decided that to avoid being there all night, we’d revert to the tried and trusted, pick a card, flip a coin combination.

· Hahaha – oh yeah, the bell end.

· After the game several of their side hung around chatting until their first team arrived back from their game. They are / were a great bunch, accommodating hosts, a really good game played in a good spirit, they’re welcome in Oxford any time.

· Oh shit, the pub, we went to the pub, totally forgot about that. It was a long walk.

‘Reevsie’

*

Statto Scorecards

Far from the MCC versus Kesgrave CC Played at Kesgrave Community Centre, Suffolk, 4 August 2018 Kesgrave CC won the toss and elected to bat Kesgrave CC won by 23 runs Far from the MCC debuts: none

18 / 469 35 over match

Team	Kesgrave CC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	A. Gogna †	retired	82		9	3	-
2	S. Jahangir	c Bullock b Darley	9		2	-	1-26
3	N. Patel	c Newman-Robson b Turner	59		8	-	2-161
4	H. Bostock	hit wicket b Rundle	0		-	-	3-170
5	Josh Leech	b Howarth	3		-	-	4-208
6	K. Bostock *	not out	66		13	-	-
7	James Leech	c Roberts b Rundle	5		-	-	5-212
8	A. Eddy	c Reeves b Howarth	9		2	-	6-230
9	A. Philip	c Newman-Robson b Darley	4		-	-	7-253
10	J. Evans	b Williams	0		-	-	8-254
11	G. Wallen	not out	4		1	-	-
	Extras	NB4, W13, B1	18
	TOTAL	(for 8 wickets, 35 overs)	259

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Darley	6	1	23	2	3.83
2	Reeves	4	1	15	0	3.75
3	Hoskins	6	0	47	0	7.83
4	Roberts	4	0	31	0	7.75
5	Bullock	2	0	26	0	13.00
6	Turner	2	0	23	1	11.50
7	Rundle	5	0	46	2	9.20
8	Howarth	4	0	33	2	8.25
9	Williams	2	0	16	1	8.00

Team	Far from the MCC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	C. T. J. Williams	c Patel b Evans	23	(25)	5	-	1-33
2	M. Bullock	c Eddy b Philip	14	(30)	1	-	3-68
3	J. C. W. Hotson	c James Leech b Evans	8	(15)	2	-	2-59
4	M. K. Reeves	lbw b Philip	42	(38)	5	1	4-128
5	I. Howarth	not out	78	(66)	14	-	-
6	C. D. Roberts	c Patel b Josh Leech	6	(5)	1	-	5-136
7	R. P. Turner	not out	29	(32)	4	-	-
8	M. S. Rundle
9	J. D. Hoskins
10	J. Newman-Robson †
11	A. Darley *
	Extras	NB3, W15, LB4, B9, PEN5	36
	TOTAL	(for 5 wickets, 35 overs)	236

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Wallen	6	1	28	0	4.67
2	Evans	6	0	37	2	6.17
3	Philip	6	1	32	2	5.33
4	James Leech	2	0	17	0	8.50
5	Josh Leech	6	0	35	1	5.83
6	Eddy	2	0	23	0	11.50
7	H. Bostock	2	0	17	0	8.50
8	Jahangir	3	0	17	0	5.67
9	K. Bostock	2	0	16	0	8.00

MOTM: I. Howarth Champagne Moment: M. Bullock sharp catch at gully Buffet Award: M. Bullock’s sausage barbeque (flour buns and extra cheese) MAD Moment: R. P. Turner comedy fielding on the boundary (shit)

Opposition: V103 / 01 Ground: G095 / 01 Captain: C027 / 02 Match No: 35 / 164