“Tour – Day 1: Charge of the Twatted Bemused Brigade”

Match: 22 / 574

Lost by 133 runs

Team	Total
Newport CC XI	260 - 6
I. Howarth 2 - 32
FFTMCC	127 - 8
R. Turner 32*, J. Bateman 25

At precisely 8.22am on Thursday 28th July, under clear blue skies, the recently self-hedge-trimmed Andrew Darley nosed a minibus containing the following men out of Oxford railway station’s carpark and out onto the Botley Road: Mr Darley himself, Gary Timms, James Bateman, Ian Howarth, Chris Williams, Russ Turner, Jake Hotson, Geoff Carter, Mark Rundle, Matt Bullock and Jan Webster. Pausing only to pick up a San Francisco-fresh Mike Reeves on route, the vehicle was then pointed towards Southampton. Another van, piloted by Dave Shorten, and also containing David Emerson, James Hoskins, everyone’s cricket gear and spare pants also headed south and to the ferry terminus for The MAD’s first ever overseas tour. To the Isle of Wight.

In the back seats of the Darley-driven vehicle, the Guardian’s quick crossword was swiftly dealt with, in the central area fine wines (or cheap lager) were being quaffed and in the front was mainly swearing. The only real constant was the nodding head of a rather smug Mike Reeves who had somehow managed to make sure the bloody awful These Were The Days by Mary Hopkins was on constant repeat on the van stereo. While on the motorway, we were delayed by what Mrs Google described as ’objects in the road’ – other cars, presumably. However, Shorten et al, missed all this and found themselves ushered onto an earlier crossing and were rewarded with an extra hour in which to sit in East Cowes’ Waitrose short-stay car park.

The rump of the team huddled at the pointy end of a Red Funnel ferry until Cowes was reached and then sped past Queen Vic’s summerhouse on the way to Newport, our base for the weekend. There it was discovered that the Premier Inn was sans air con and was consequently only marginally cooler than a sauna. However, the Beefeater next door had an unexpectedly pleasant view of the River Medina’s estuary, while Timms mistook the nearby Newport Rowing Club for an outpost of the NRA.

The squad decamped to the nearby Bargeman for a drink, a bite to eat and a colossally complicated selection process involving a pack of club Top Trumps and much coin tossing. From this session three things emerged. One, today’s game would see Ian Howarth reprise his old role as skipper. Secondly, Messers Bullock, Shorten and Reeves would dodge a bullet by not playing (while Rundle was travelling as a non-playing living miracle). Thirdly, it became apparent quite how pissed some of the squad already were.

Taxis then bore The MAD off for a first look at the Newclose Ground, occasionally host of Hampshire County Cricket Club. It is enormous. From the vast pavilions, and given the drought-like conditions, it looked like a scene from Lawrence of Arabia. Most of us couldn’t see the far side of the ground, but wouldn’t have been overly surprised to see a slow moving fleet of camels silhouetted miles away against the fierce baking sun.

Unfortunately, the oppo, essentially Newport CC, had not taken our pre-tour bid that we were a fairly amiable social team at face value and had put out a first team mainly comprising of giant men who bore bats the size of tree trunks and knew how to use them.

Our pickled skipper was in belligerent mood and his opening gambit was to growl at the opposition, ‘That’s a 400 pitch that is, you’ll need at least that to beat us.’ When what he should have actually said was, ‘Lads, anything over 130 is pure jam. We are an ailing body of fragile men. This ground is as big as Texas, the air temperature is like the Gobi, and some of us are very, very drunk. Please have mercy on us.” It didn’t help that he also lost the toss.*

[*BREAKING NEWS – upon receipt of this report our shameless skipper pointed out that he had actually won the toss, inserted Newport and told them we’d outstrip anything they could make ‘without issue’….]

Mr Pickled.

When we took the field, Howarth just wobbled, cursed and waved his hands around a bit. So, we scattered, and in some cases weaved to the four corners, covering probably three or four post codes. Timms was fielding at midwicket and needed to go a little squarer so a telegram was sent. God knows if it ever reached him.

Darley opened the bowling and his first three balls were dots. However, at the end of first over Newport were 12-0, starting with an unnecessarily heartless all-run four that instantly destroyed the hopes of every MAD man. And from that point onwards it was bloody carnage.

David Emerson (1-38), a man whose body is held together by blu-tack and good will, did bowl well, taking the first wicket, bowling the opener as he attempted a pull, 26-1. However, the next wicket didn’t fall until 198 was on the gigantic first-class electronic scoreboard, which gleefully announced every run to the world in neon. This was then in the 20th over. In between times was a whole lot of basic slapping as a succession of islanders biffed, blatted, swotted, nutted and whoop-assed the bowling vast distances. Almost no-one one was immune. Timms and Hoskins going for 86 off 6 overs was probably the peak of Newport Fury, and there was even a slight sense that they took their foot off the gas a little after 15 overs as they started to run the odd single and Bateman and Williams went at slightly less than ten an over.

Chances were limited, but Hoskins could consider himself a little unlucky as from his very first ball one of the Isle of Wight giants top edged what looked like a reasonably straightforward looping catch to cover. Unfortunately, a beatifically wasted Williams merely dribbled a bit, turned round three times, said “argleflargleblfff” and fell over in a sprawling heap as the ball landed about 15 feet way. I think the batsmen ran three. If there is a MAD record for highest recorded blood ABV on the field of play, then I am convinced our Nuno would at least be good for a medal position.

Incredibly Howarth (2-32) bowled at least two straight balls which Newport batsmen missed, and possibly the best on field performance by a MAD tourist was Rundle giving the Newport keeper out lbw. I can confirm it looked plumb 150 yards away at Cow Corner.

Ian’s captaincy mainly consisted of cursing his own players at volume. It’s all too easy to exaggerate and cheaply reference a certain mittel-European dictator when emphasising the autocratic and despotic nature of some leadership. So, I won’t. It will suffice just to say that Ian is definitely worse than Engelbert Dolfuss, maybe even Kurt Schuschnigg. He’s certainly up there with Nasser Hussain at the Gabba in 2001.

Emerson dashing off for a quick pint or seven.

As the dust literally settled, Newport finished on 260-3 – the 8th highest score ever put on The MAD (and all the other higher score were in innings between 9 and 15 overs longer). So, nice to start the Tour with something for the record books. Our shameless tyrant-for-the-afternoon still contends that it was a ‘400 pitch’ so they, in fact, failed miserably.

Some notable performances should be acknowledged in the field. Geoff Carter manfully went from fine leg to fine leg each over, a distance of some 40 kilometres each time, and lost around 110% of his bodyweight. Russ Turner merrily scampered up and down the grass banks to the north of the ground every over like a steroid-driven Gladiators contestant, while keeper Hotson put in a solid performance behind the sticks while being only a whisker less hammered than Williams. Possibly one of the best things about playing on such a large field is that a most of us were a long way from the point where the batsmen actually hit the ball. Any closer might just have felt dangerous.

We were unable to enter the bar area between the innings and had to lurk at the backdoor for drinks. I am not sure what was actually happening, but it seemed to involve old(er) people and country and western music. It might have been a dogging session for pedestrians, who knows? The teas were unusual, sausages and chips served in chippy-van polystyrene boxes. Unfortunately, Hoskins was nearly killed in a hideous sausage accident shortly after we had finished fielding. Bangers cooked to the point of thermonuclear radioactivity made them semi-lethal and Emerson watched Hoskins’ face explode in a tsunami of burning fat with some amusement. Then promptly did it to himself with his own tea.

Hoskins captures the carnage.

Messers Carter and Williams headed out to tackle a target that demanded an initial scoring rate of 10.2. By the time they were both back in the pavilion at 6-2, the rate was 11.04.

Digger Bateman who must have been on one of the best runs of form ever enjoyed by a MAD batsman, simply carried on where he’d left off on the previous Monday (having taken Isis apart for a debut ton off). He smashed 5 boundaries through cover off some quite tidy bowling before belting a long hop to give mid-off a sharp catch. For a few illusionary overs The MAD cantered along at 7 an over and Webster and Bateman put on 50. Then reality slowly set in again.

The Kebab Kid giving it some umpty.

Regular skipper Russ, enjoying casting off the chains of authority, which were clearly giving Spam some kind of nappy rash, batted through to the end for a very tidy top score of 32*, but a series of MAD batsmen made a point of coming in, hitting one fairly glorious boundary then heading back to the pav like a mournful camel caravan. The coup de grace was eventually self-administered, by Hoskins who ran most of two while Russ ran one, then legged it away from the ever-advancing Hoskins who seemed hell bent on running someone out and didn’t mightily care who it was.

Pugwash Hoskins – the run out Diva.

David Emerson’s plan – to secretly decide on a more realistic score to chase then award ourselves the win privately if we achieved it almost came off. To this end we opted for 131 and failed by only 3 runs to secretly beat Newport. We ‘actually’ lost by 132, but on the upside we’ve had loads of waaaaaaay bigger losses in our history.

Hotson decided to take a photo of the final score on the giant electronic scoreboard, which was controlled by an electronic box by the pavilion. Somewhat inevitably as our spannered keeper sprinted the half a mile across the ground to get the shot, the impulse to wipe the board clean just as he got there was simply too strong for some of The MAD and his howls of anguish were heard echoing round the vast amphitheatre as the taxis arrived to bear us away.

Still and all, the ground was fab, and it was good to play on a county pitch. The teams were possibly not ideally matched but it made for a challenging start to the cricket part of the tour even as the social side was going swimmingly.

The minibus drivers on the island turned out to be excellent and very patient gents over the course of the weekend and took us back into Newport where we convened for an excellent session at Newport Ale House, where over the course of about 4 hours the team and captain was ‘selected’ for the following day’s match against the feral children of Shanklin & Godshill. This author had his first kebab for around 8 years and having lost the toss went to kip in his tiny, narrow bed while Geoff Carter sank into his 50-foot wide super imperial luxury cotton dream palace and slept the keenly smug sleep of the utterly jammy bastard.

“thefffeeessstttt nnnnnrrrgggglll.”

‘Kebab Kid’

*

Statto Scorecards

Far From the MCC versus Newport CC XI Played at Newport County Ground, 28 July 2022 Far From the MCC won the toss and elected to field Newport CC XI won by 133 runs Far from the MCC debuts: n/a

22 / 574 25 over match

Team	Newport CC XI
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	R. Young †	b Emerson	14	(11)	3	-	1-26
2	L. Payne	retired	50	(31)	8	1	-
3	A. Brett	b Howarth	48	(36)	8	-	2-198
4	K. Cooper	retired	51	(18)	5	3	-
5	A. Ball	retired	29	(20)	5	-	-
6	K. Winchcombe *	lbw b Howarth	16	(13)	2	-	3-238
7	A. Hartup	not out	37	(17)	2	2	-
8	J. Powell	not out	3	(3)	-	-	-
9	C. Charlsworth
10	G. Babu
11	M. Mohanan
		W3, LB3, B6	12
	TOTAL	(for 3 wickets, 25 overs)	260

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Darley	5	0	47	0	9.40
2	Emerson	5	0	38	1	7.60
3	Hoskins	4	0	56	0	14.00
4	Timms	2	0	30	0	15.00
5	Howarth	5	0	32	2	6.40
6	Bateman	2	0	25	0	12.50
7	Williams	2	0	23	0	11.50
Note: L. Payne retired at 99-1 (10.5); K. Cooper at 153-1 (14.1) and A. Ball at 198-2 (19.2)

Team	Far From the MCC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	C. T. J. Williams	c Winchcombe b Babu	3	(6)	-	-	2-5
2	G. Carter	c Brett b Babu	1	(3)	-	-	1-5
3	J. C. Bateman	c Cooper b Powell	25	(16)	4	-	3-58
4	J. vdG. Webster	c Brett b Hartup	23	(44)	3	-	4-74
5	R. P. Turner	not out	32	(57)	4	-	-
6	A. Darley	c Hartup b Payne	5	(9)	1	-	5-80
7	D. Emerson	c Cooper b Brett	7	(6)	1	-	6-99
8	G. J. Timms	c Brett b Powell	5	(5)	1	-	7-109
9	J. D. Hoskins	run out	5	(5)	1	-	8-127
10	I. Howarth *
11	J. C. W. Hotson †
	Extras	NB1, W13, LB2, B5	21
	TOTAL	(for 8 wickets, 25 overs)	127

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Charlsworth	4	0	29	0	7.25
2	Babu	4	0	33	2	8.25
3	Mohanan	3	0	12	0	4.00
4	Powell	4	0	18	1	4.50
5	Hartup	3	1	5	1	1.67
6	Cooper	3	3	0	0	0.00
7	Payne	2	0	12	1	6.00
8	Brett	2	0	12	1	6.00

MOTM: D. Emerson Champagne Moment: D. Emerson wicket (bowled) Buffet Award: G. J. Timms’ home-grown suet pudding (extra sides) MAD Moment: C. T. J. Williams’ addled tumble under catch (dropped)

Opposition: V125 / 01 Ground: G112 / 01 Captain: C007 / 68 Match No: OT / 036