Mystics vs Erratics at Teign Valley, 6th August 2022
Cut-throat victory. The wolf that any Erratic is bound, in John Lloyd's name, to keep from the threshold since 1934. To serve the Erratics, is to protect the opposition at all costs from the depredations of the competitively overager within one's own ranks. An Erratics captain only ought be appointed if they have sufficient courage and understanding to ensure that: a bowler who has already built up a head of steam in their two overs, has claimed three victims with winding swiftness, is about to choo-choo through the rest, and who has developed a gleeful look akin to the sailor who has just heard the barrel being rolled out, must absolutely have the cricket ball prised from their grasp before their third over can begin.
These days it is typical that an Erratics side are derangedly sympathetic to such concerns from the get-go. They will in strategy, body language, and general on-field laissez-faire, place a dutiful emphasis upon the countervail, positively inviting the scales to bow heavily away from them. If this makes victory difficult or impossible, so be it, desperate last ditch attempts to reconstitute competition notwithstanding.
What happens then, when big friendly giants meet? For the Mystics I have always held, to be far, far, worse in these aspects. What happens when two dogs refuse to eat each other, but instead merely sniff at each others back-ends year-on-year (Salamanders butt-sniffing Unicorns). And, if they choose to gather in such places as the cricket field at Teign Valley -- a place that, if it needs to exist for anything, exists for the total abolition of ill-feeling?
The Erratics have been given the keys to caretake Eden. And while I shall not now be drawn into some flagrantly saccharine prolegomenon vis-a-vis Teign Valley, I must express my surprise and delight at this development. My girl Laura says she built half a causeway of stones across the river Teign on the day. Water sprites and nymphs prevented full completion of a bridge back to reality. In the same way, if one even attempted to skin up the steep escarpment, beyond the far fringes of the cricket field, they would meet only with the iron palisade of trees above it that fence out the damned world. Teign Valley is trippy: a bowl for happy insects, girt but unconfined. Every emerald strand of grass feels close, like the first that ever sprung. Some of us would go on to bathe in the river, and camp under the stars after the game. And I want my ashes scattered there when I go.
But my point is this. When at the close of this cricket match, I heard Mark Hailwood, Erratics Captain for the afternoon (and sympathetic Mystic sympathiser), utter those memorable words -- something, I think, if remember correctly, along the lines of “wonderful occasion” - which is all well and good - but then one of the great games!?, and close until the last!? The blood rushed to my extremities, and I scarcely managed to stifle a violent cry.
Was this some strange spasm on Mark's part? He being one seldom known to err in matters of good judgement. Surely he was referring to some other game in living memory that followed, in any conceivable sense, the narrative he now wove?
Can you imagine then, my horror, when I saw the gathered crowds, like the followers of christ at the sermon of the mount, or the nodding dogs in the backs of cars, meeting this flapdoodle with unanimous, even enthusiastic, agreement! After this I had to have a heavy sit down, with the intention of cross-examining the doubt that had now begun to wreathe my own analysis. After mere moments I emerged with renewed conviction I was in the right, everyone else in the wrong: The Erratics should always have won this game, and any other assessment was blether of the highest order. But, I hear you say, the Erratics did win. What are you talking about? I simply mean, they should have crushed us. Yes, you heard it. It should have been a ruddy cakewalk.
THE ACTUAL CRICKET REPORTING STARTS HERE IF YOU CAN'T BE ARSED WITH OVERLONG INTRODUCTIONS
It was agreed the Mystics should bat first, with Duncan and Matthew Borley opening the innings. Between them they managed to negotiate the first three overs probing pincer of Cammack and Grant. The former, like a long-haired saxon king who after a gallivanting run up at angle, thrust his spear towards his target, the latter, following a deceptively gentle tumble to the crease, unspoodling the ball from his left arm and tailing it in fiendishly towards the base of the stumps -- bowling five maidens in the process.
One of Lee Grant's early deliveries did for young Borley who smashed it to Anuj Tiwari. This was the indication I needed to take the crease.
I observed over the course of the first six overs (four of which were maidens) that Duncan was tentative on sundries and struck singles. This combined with his frequent welps of pain, his crooked stature at the crease, and an admission of pre-match medication led me to the suspicion that Duncan was not entirely fit. Stiff as a board after the week, I was more than usually sympathetic, and when it came to running singles, we developed a strict concord -- do not run singles. Our innings then, though greatly more enduring than either of us would have at first believed, seemed to hang by a thread throughout -- pressure to be seen to be working towards a score and all that. Once the intensity of Cammack's five overs had receded in waves, (saved yet again by sensible rules for young bowlers) Anuj reminded us of the quality and depth of the Erratics attack. Together with Grant, he managed to keep things very tight for some time as Duncan and I took an occasional four, (Duncan's ritual was to smash huge and straight, immediately crumple in agony, offer a light chuckle, then resume) but we otherwise scratched around.
It was a decent partnership, with Duncan now only asking for oxygen at the end of overs. But like the farm animals nearby, all I could supply him was methane. (I'm no inter-over philosopher, nor do I understand game management). So doing, we limped on. Anuj by comparison was a beacon of immense cricketing energy -- competitive, in the best way. It felt his lively fielding and whippy bowling could have done for us at any moment, with the careful field settings of captain Mark purring the Erratics on. When Grant ended his ten overs an impressive 1-28, my dad popped on at the pavilion end for a spell.
The trouble with being someone's dad is that they quickly learn your weaknesses. It has taken me forty years, but I like to think I now know what my dad's bowling is about. I rode my luck, it's fair to say, along the way -- Anuj took a fine catch off one of my slogs only to realise that he had then stepped over the boundary. Dunc and I had emerged from our shells and were upping the rate, Duncan finally succumbing to captain Mark for 63, myself to Yarde- Buller for 71 (or was it 80?). In reaching our total of 193 there was still time for Ian Hooper to make a rapid-fire 22 largely in quick singles (almost entirely making up for all those Dunc and I had declined).
By the end newcomer Ben Yarde-Buller, bowling hard-breaking leggies from the dead-tree end, had 3-31.
Both he and his son had made an impression on me; Joe, taller and possibly more serious than his father, was straining to absorb the unique occasion when I spoke to them before the game. He was playing in his second ever game of cricket, the other being the previous week in which, it was noted by some wise old Erratic heads, that the lad has some natural predisposition to the sport, and was a picture of focus.
During our brief conversation, in which, to discover they had spent years as a family in Germany, I was intrigued. I also misidentified Ben as a cricket newcomer. This was just based on his appearance. He was wearing a crinkled white shirt with breast pocket, a fine leather belt and flannels, and I judged books by covers (As a publisher and author, I'm sure Ben would be dismayed to hear of this).
Ben was what they dub in automotive circles, a sleeper -- a ferrari with the exoskeleton of a morris minor. He seemed to be on his heels in the field initially, and I thought of someone like Matthew Leigh, who few Erratics now will remember, hands-glued-in-pockets, routinely letting the ball pass through him.
However, having chased gingerly after the ball, I noted how BYB wung it smoothly in. Then came these loopy leggies that were so effortlessly delivered. But it was during the Erratic chase that Yarde-Buller showed how classy a cricketer he really was.
Matt Crawford and Richard Lindsay opened, and batted sensibly, Matt taking opportune singles, Lindsay punching a four per over, which meant that from the off the Erratics were up with the rate, and the Mystics would need wickets. At one end, Matthew Borley piled in, at the other, club secretary Jim bowled a few rare and promising overs. Eventually young Borley's persistence paid, and he bowled Crawford for 12 -- the first of six clean-bowled dismissals during the Erratics innings.
The duel that followed between my dad's bat and brother's fiery off-spin was just about won by dad, making 24, before Mat Ogley castled him in what turned out to be the most impressive spell from a Mystic perspective, taking 3-23 from his initial six overs, all clean-bowled.
But the Yarde-Buller/Anuj partnership was the most exciting batting. Anuj took plenty of quick singles throughout, and hit a few clean ones through mid-wicket. Ben playing probably the best shot we had seen all tour, an extra cover drive off Fraser that couldn't possibly have been more elegant. It really was special.
It is also this partnership that I feel almost justifies my absurd ranting in the introduction. I never felt either batsman would get out unless by their own making. In Ben's case it was allowing a glowing respect for Fraser's remarkable Erratics bowling achievements to get the better of him. Aside from excellent accuracy, I am sure that many of Fraser's wickets are delivered to him by his unassuming good nature.
In Anuj's case, a mistake never came -- and thus he became the central figure of a successful chase. Fraser went at 5s for his ten overs, but we really needed those three wickets. When Lee Grant came to the crease and thumped four blistering fours, I think we Mystics realised we were dealing with a very talented Erratic batting lineup. One of the dismissals that did, I admit, crank the tension up a mite, was an astonishing over-the-shoulder catch by Matthew Borley, who had been waiting for such a moment to make himself known. I suppose, in the end it was fitting that Mr. Hailwood himself (batting well down the order) should hit the winning runs, and make the speech he did, as an Erratic captain ought. I've a craving to disrupt the beautiful reverie that held us then, at the end of this game, in case we remember it being too perfect.