“Country Roads”

Match: 23 / 587

Won by 231 runs

Team	Total
FFTMCC	266 - 5
C. Williams 70, A. Darley 53*
Wantage & Grove CC	35
G. Timms 3 - 7, J. Hoskins 3 - 11

Cricket’s weird, innit? Last week The MAD couldn’t get anything right. This week, we couldn’t do anything wrong… it wasn’t the easiest C&B, John. Let’s rewind though. In many ways the game started the day before, with the news (or a reminder if you’re on the ball) that the A34 was closed for the weekend and an instruction from stand-in skipper Lee to cap Saturday drinking at 10 pints. When you spend your Saturday watching prima donna performers running around and artistically falling all over the place all to win a few points that’s not an easy limit to stick to. Hard luck Spurs. Eurovision was great!!! It warms me how much The MAD enjoy it. Or at the very least indulge my over-indulgence in it.

Mr Darley had a rip-roaring, lovely time with the bat on this day.

Anyhoo, drink limit firmly stuck to (3 pints of Amstel, 1 Thatchers, 1 330 ml of Camden Hells & 1 G&T) I awaited the chariot of our Commander in Chief, Russ Turner, to whisk me to the ground. The whisk was on a low setting. With the A34 closure necessitating the need to refresh the Google Maps route advice every 5 minutes and Russ’ water tablet intake requiring frequent comfort breaks, the journey through fifty or so of Oxfordshire’s lovely villages would take one hour and 35 minutes. WhatsApp updates provided news of the steady drip-drop of MAD players arriving at our hosts in Wantage. Jake made the pub beforehand. I assume he set off just after Eurovision royalty Loreen was crowned champ for the second time.

The games itself doesn’t require the atypical linear account of events. It just wasn’t that sort of game. Despite Captain Ainsworth having his pants pulled down at the toss, and due to a lack of elastic around the waist, many times more – the record-breaking win that The MAD sealed was lacking in any real peril or drama. There were half centuries, 2-fors and 3-fors, and safe hands. There was a highest ever MAD score in a 35 over game; 266-5. Which is also a second highest ever total in all formats. There was a record 231 run winning margin. A record low buffet award. FFS!! There was in many ways so much to record and regale, and yet in many others, not a lot.

Reeves (24*) cuts one away to add to the total….

To misquote Jimmy Greaves; cricket’s a funny old game. The MAD XI on the day have shared over 2,200 games between them – and that’s just for The MAD. Lucan’s no doubt played more for The Bodleian by himself. This season. I’ll wager decent money that the most memorable of those 2,000+ matches are the ones that came down to the last over, if not the last ball. I’ll double down on that and wager that every single one of us has been on the opposite end of this type of game as well. The ability of both sides clearly not represented by the result. Our leading edges skimmed fingernails or fell into gaps. Wantage’s looped almost apologetically to a MAD fielder with hands bigger than ever before. Our good balls beat the edge and clipped the bails. Theirs were jammed down on last minute or inside edged just past leg stump. Lego had the audacity to aim a throw at the stumps in the field and hit them. We got a boundary off a free hit. I didn’t lose a hat. Miraculous.

None of this is to say we were lucky or didn’t play well. We did. To a man. Just that this probably won’t happen again for some time. Nuno (70), Lucan, and Lee’s combined lightning start allowed The MAD to usurp this season’s previous totals of 70 odd and 90 odd after only 11 overs. A platform Lego, Mike, and in particular Mr Darley were all too happy to clamber upon. Darley’s champagne six to bring up his fifty off the penultimate ball of the innings, only his 33rd, a genuine highlight. Darley subsequently apologising to a padded up Timms and Roberts for doing as a batsman is supposed to and getting some runs also neatly summing up the feel of the day.

A large total on the board allows the captain and bowler to relax. As do early wickets. Bob and JMO both getting one a piece in their first over spoke to that. They would finish with 2 and 3 respectively before Harris, Shorten, and Timms added the gloss. Skipper Lee rightly mixing things up. With Wantage bowled out for 35 in 21.2 overs, allow me a (further) moment of self-indulgence to reflect on an historic buffet award. A buffet award that at 2.1 runs per over also reaps fantasy econ points. A buffet award gleaned from only one scoring shot (a four) off the bat. A buffet award started by a generous wide from a clearly amused R Turner at standing umpire. (Ta for doing the whole game fella, genuinely). A buffet award that contained 19 dot balls out of 23. A buffet award that wouldn’t have been so with two more dot balls before taking the last wicket. A buffet award from figures of 3.2-1-7-3. A buffet award for the ages, and my proudest one to date.

Stock footage of Timms bowling and most likely scooping buffet.

Wantage will no doubt have better days and we will have worse. Much worse. Maybe we’ll have better ones than this too. You just never know. One thing I do know – I haven’t had many better cricket teas than that. Chunky verging on doorstop ham, tuna, egg, and cheese sandwiches, cheeky sweet chilli bites, succulent melon, a delightfully light and moist Victoria Sponge. A prolonged doff of the cap, thank you! A couple of pints in the fading sun before grabbing a lift back with MOTM Andy Darley provided a lovely way to end the proceedings. Fuck you A34; Take Me Home, Country Roads!

’J. Denver’

An addendum.

Dear Jake,

I’d written this in my head on Sunday night, only to wake to an email from you eerily similar to what I had ‘written’ that night before. It’s good to know someone else sees it like you (I) did, and I promise I haven’t stolen any of this. I’d planned the Greavsie misquote you included in your email. The ‘we hit gaps, they didn’t’ line was stored away. This leaves only one question; who incepted who?

Regards,

’J. Denver’

*

Statto Scorecards

Far From the MCC versus Wantage & Grove CC Played at Wantage & Grove CC, 14 May 2023 Wantage & Grove CC won the toss and elected to field Far From the MCC won by 231 runs Far from the MCC debuts: n/a

23 / 587 35 over match

Team	Far From the MCC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	C. T. J. Williams	b Wood	70	(51)	11	-	1-62
2	R. J. T. Hadfield	b Walker	12	(21)	-	-	2-124
3	L. G. Ainsworth *	run out (S. Sparrow/Wong)	33	(47)	2	-	3-149
4	D. Shorten	run out (Walker)	32	(29)	6	-	4-153
5	J. Harris	c S. Sparrow b Baker	2	(5)	-	-	5-181
6	M. K. Reeves	not out	24	(30)	1	-
7	A. Darley	not out	53	(35)	4	3
8	G. J. Timms
9	J. D. Hoskins
10	C. D. Roberts
11	G. Carter †
	Extras	NB12, W22, LB1, B5	40
	TOTAL	(for 5 wickets, 35 overs)	266

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	S. Sparrow	7	0	66	0	9.43
2	Walker	7	0	69	1	9.86
3	Turnbull	5	0	31	0	6.20
4	Wood	6	1	24	1	4.00
5	Hodgson	5	0	35	0	7.00
6	Baker	3	0	17	1	5.67
7	Ratcliffe	2	0	18	0	9.00

Team	Wantage & Grove CC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	S. Bramley *	c Reeves b Roberts	0	(2)	-	-	1-0
2	R. Baker	b Hoskins	0	(2)	-	-	2-0
3	C. Rolls	c Darley b Harris	15	(43)	2	-	3-17
4	A. Wong †	b Roberts	7	(18)	1	-	4-22
5	P. Ratcliffe	c Timms	2	(13)	-	-	5-26
6	J. Turnbull	b Hoskins	0	(2)	-	-	6-26
7	T. Sparrow	c Hadfield b Timms	0	(7)	-	-	7-26
8	S. Sparrow	not out	1	(20)	-	-	8-26
9	C. Wood	b Timms	0	(1)	-	-	9-28
10	J. Walker	run out (Shorten)	0	(3)	-	-	10-35
11	J. Hodgson	b Timms	5	(17)	1	-
	Extras	W5	5
	TOTAL	(all out, 21.2 overs)	35

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Roberts	5	1	8	2	1.60
2	Hoskins	7	2	11	3	1.57
3	Shorten	2	1	4	0	2.00
4	Harris	4	3	2	1	0.50
5	Timms	3.2	1	7	3	2.10

MOTM: A. Darley Champagne Moment: A. Darley bringing up hi fifty with a maximum Buffet Award: G. J. Timms’ bitter cheesecake (sour cream side) MAD Moment: L. G. Ainsworth’s all-ran fours with wardrobe malfunction (trousers)

Opposition: V098 / 002 Ground: G089 / 002 Captain: C026 / 003 Match No: 35 / 217