Back row, left to right: Canon, Spinach, Badger, Cuddy, Baron von Runkel, Felix the Cat. Front row, left to right: Botty, Motty, Tiddles, POB, Pepper Potter (12th man), Groundskeeper Willy.
Outwood are one of our oldest, friendliest and favourititist fixtures.
They’re one of those clubs who appear to be village - a beautiful wooden pavilion with a handsome pitched roof is set back from a slightly wonky square with one comedy short boundary and ringed by native cherry, chestnut, elm, lime and oak trees, all set in National Trust ancient woodland. Too beautifully bucolic for a league club.
Outwood’s beautifully bucolic ground.
Pre-pint net. All very unfamiliar.
In fact, they’re a very well organised and high-quality cricket club with several league teams and a thriving youth, women & girls section. They straddle these sometimes opposing philosophies of club cricket admirably and it always makes for a great Sunday.
We’d retained only three from the club record run chase at Banstead last Sunday, so this was the end of The Wait for eight of us. Some of those eight, eager to not have another Long Wait thanks to some sort of tweak or knack, arrived early for a gentle net to warm the muscles and warn the body of the oncoming exertions.
“A net? a NET? Before a pint? Before LUNCH??!” Let me explain.
The Bell Out, more like.
The Bell Inn, our traditional warm up at Outwood, is still shut for covid reasons. It’s a busy jewel in the crown for Fuller’s so something must be up for them not yet to be open. Your correspondent was despondent, to say the least.
A native Canon, in more familiar surroundings. Notice the elaborate plumage, a sure sign of a longer than expected winter.
Back at Outwood, well the bar was shut when we got there so we had no option anyway.
When the bar did open the net session had found it’s natural endpoint so we stopped short of a pulled hamstring and headed in for our more familiar pre-match tradition. Pilgrim Brewery's Surrey session pale or Hogsback TEA, both bottled - no barrels yet. Most of us opted for the Pilgrim and weren’t disappointed, light and refreshing.
And so, to the cricket. Was the toss lost, or thrown? Keep the oppo happy is Patrick’s approach and it works well. Given how abysmal we all were in the nets I think batting first might have been a complete disaster, better to stand around in the field for a bit, slowly getting used to the movement of the balls, your legs and your arms.
In any case, we were in the field. The morning drizzle had passed and by 2pm the day was brightening, and we were on for an enjoyable 40 over day.
Spinach and Motty opened up. Spinach gambolling gamely down the hill and extracting away swing from the off. Motty groaned grudgingly up the hill, extracting no swing at all but not embarrassing himself (yet) which made him happy.
Spinach struck first, a delicious outswinger pitched on middle and leg and quite politely relieved James Malley of his off bail. This was Malley’s second duck of the season already, having been stumped 3rd ball by his opening partner today at their intraclub game last Sunday. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.
That brought Matthew Norman (League 1st XI captain) to the crease to join Ash Middleton (League 1st XI vice-captain, opening bat and very good wicket-keeper), who’d already smote a succession of 6s and 4s with some ease. We tend not to face such good opposition, even if they are using this as a practice match.
Matthew’s confidence would have been done no favours by the absolute peach sent down by Spinach three balls later, taking his off bail having pitched even wider outside leg stump. With the 1st XI captain gone our Peckers were up to say the last, although Middleton kept smoting away at the other end.
But when he middled a leg-side full bunger to the Cat, a lone figure at deepish square leg, it was a turning point of the game. Luckily for us, Felix has locked-down very well and had enough gut to catch the ball once it had gone through his hands. It was, in the end, a very good grab and swung the game in our favour. Spinach had wilted the best batsmen in the club with a match-changing spell of swing bowling (with a little too much butter in the case of Middleton).
Both bowlers eventually tired though and after one or two loose overs both Espinachio (6-0-41-3) and Motty (6-1-29-0) were rightfully replaced with the score at 83-3 from the first 12 overs. Despite the run rate, we were definitely in the game.
The Baron von Runkel, or ‘Prince Ralgex’ as he was once known, preparing himself for battle.
What followed the best two batters in the club was a succession of callow youths, all high elbows and squeaky pads. Great if you’re playing against other callow youths at independent school cricket-level, but not if you’re facing a wily old Baron bowling the ball so slowly you can play every shot in your repertoire and still have time to do your Latin homework afterwards.
In another match-changing spell, the Baron (8-1-16-3) took out their strong middle order, ably supported by Felix’s assortment of absolute jaffa’s and utter pies from the other end. It was left to Tiddles (4.3 -2-8-3) to tidy the tail which he did with devastating efficiency and excellent lockdown whiskers. A good catch and sharp stumping from Botty made us look all the more professional and your editor can’t think of a serious misfield and certainly no drops.
Outwood Sunday XI – 134 all out from 29.3 over in 131 minutes.
~
Tea
Tea in lockdown is a BYO affair, with only ales available at the bar not even a cup of char was spotted all day. The Peckers brought along a selection of treats which said more about their hangovers than anything else. Motty, having recently taken an allotment, brought along a dozen or so courgette fritters which were scarfed in no time. (most delicious they were too) A few more ales, some arguing about who would open and cards for 9, 10 Jack and we were ready to get out there.
Batting
Having chased down a club record 270 the weekend before, at Banstead, there was a confidence to our batting line up, eager to emulate our team-mates’ success and continue the run.
Without any recognised batsmen at the club since Life President Brian Scovell retired from playing around over a decade ago, POB was left with the familiar conundrum of which pinch hitters to ram up the order in the vain hope they wouldn’t get out immediately a trigger a massive collapse.
Canon and Badger, on debut, were this week’s chosen cuts and what a pair of cuts they were. Full of confidence and pale ale they looked the part and strode out to face the callow youths (see above) who were had been warming up energetically and somewhat impatiently waiting for them to finish their pints.
Can you guess what happened next, dear reader?
You weren’t completely wrong. Yes, Canon did heave his bat across the stumps first ball and yes it was quick and accurate from Talbot, the 1st XI opening bowler. But the end result was four through mid-wicket. After a play and miss (this Talbot was pretty good to be totally fair) canon clipped another pair of fours for 12 off the first over. In a low scoring game, this was Advantage Peckers.
Badger had a little less of a confident start, sniffing and prodding around outside his sett for a few balls before finding the bat with a four of his own. Matthew Norman (1st XI captain and opening bowler) didn’t like this much and started bending his back, only to find bowl Badger the next ball, but from a no-ball. He didn’t like that much either and the next three came down even faster, to no avail. 19 off the first two overs.
This isn’t a fairytale. Another boundary for Canon (17 from 10 balls) and Talbot finally got his satisfaction, clean bowled. Any Peckers captain would take 25 for 1 from the first three overs though, so the lads did fantastic.
Out strode Botty, with all the confidence of a man who’d played and missed 90% of his balls in the net earlier on. Botty is newly fathered to the wonderfully named Alfred Charles Timothy Mott and evermore wonderfully nicknamed Alf-A-Botty Spagotty, congratulations from all the Peckers.
A lot was riding on Botty, one of the very few recognised batsmen in the side. Having spotted that Middleton was a handy keeper the two struck up conversation about technique etc. Botty, feeling kinship, remarked he’d probably get out now he felt comfortable, “a long hop, I think I’d pop it to cover”. Out strode Botty (9).
The least said about Groundskeeper Willy’s innings (two ball duck) the better, I missed all four minutes of it fetching some more ales .GW is lovely bloke though and a born Woodpeckers, even bringing two packs of baccy and a lovely dog. We hope we see a lot more of him in the future.
Cuddy came in at 4. His blue helmet gleaming in the summer mist. The game was surely in the balance at 55 for 3. Badger was looking good at the other end but when he went for 22 to a very sharp Middleton catch a glance back to the pavilion would have seen our designated area in utter disarray. We’d lost three wickets for four runs in seven minutes. I was still in the bar. Thigh pads and gloves were being tossed in the air as five specialist number 11s peeled jockstraps out from their dark, winter nests and picked cards to see who would be in after POB, the captain of the Titanic striding stoically to the middle as if to keep us on course for a nice big iceberg / collapse.
Captain POB and his Coxswain Cudd did steady the ship and saw off a number of overs, including the opening bowlers and other assorted callow youths. Cuddy, in particular, was a picture of concentration, your correspondent has been playing cricket with Cuddles for around 25 years and has never seen him play and miss with such consistency. But the runs kept ticking over and we all calmed down a bit.
Then the Titanic lurched for the iceberg again. By Titanic I mean POB’s seat and by iceberg I mean the dusty floor behind him. A failed late cut to a wide-ish ball from Blease saw him lose balance just at the moment he realised there was a proper wicket-keeper behind him. He swung the bat down to make his ground but this only served to send him further off balance. The right foot went out in a desperate last-ditch attempt to save his wicket, but he should have already been sending the women and children to the few remaining lifeboats. With everything in slow-motion, apart from Middleton’s hands, you could make out the haunting violin of ‘Nearer My God, To Thee” echo across the ground as POB (13) made contact, dust flew up, and his bails were whipped neatly away. The partnership of 31 was match-changing, however, and the hilarious dismissal shouldn’t take away from another key innings from POB. We were now within 40ish of the target and with Cuddy set, all he needed was someone to stay with him. Hmm.
The queue for the lifeboats became a much less dignified death scramble as Felix (four-ball duck) did ‘The Opposite’ of that and Motty (1) could only nick one to Middleton. 90-4 became 98-8 within ten minutes. Why do we keep doing this?
Erm Spinach, aren’t you in next? (Badger looks on)
In came Spinach, fresh now from his earlier match-changing spell, to defend a target he should have not been asked to by his batsmen. He had a look, the bowling was still good and Cuddy was still scoring. Outwood were now on top, for the first time in the game really, and their ground fielding was sharp. Out of nowhere, Spinach went down on one knee (not yet Avocado) and whacked Talbot (now bowling off-spin from the other end) for a huge six over deep mid-wicket to roars from the pavilion. He did the same in the next over to bring us within three runs. Spotting his chance to be a hero he tried a third time from the bowling of Malley, but completely missed it and was bowled for 17. Another match-turning performance though.
Tiddles went in at 10 with Baron refusing to pad up yet, such is the confidence / laziness of the man delete as appropriate. Tiddles played one nicely back to the bowler - rapturous applause. Then he clipped one straight to cover. Luckily for us the fielder lost the ball in the trees and fumbled once, twice, and it was down…
He saw out the over and Cuddy played a lovely square drive to bring us our second successful run chase and W of the season.
Heroes of the day, Cuddy and Spinach.
Cuddy’s innings of 42 not out from 66 balls should go down as one of the best of the season. But for 3fer including club captain and club vice-captain, a ship-steadying quick-fire 17 and for bringing such a crucial Badger in at the last minute who contributed 22 with the bat and in the field, Spinach is our man of the match!
Full scorecard on Play-cricket: https://woodpeckers.play-cricket.com/website/results/4285811
Well done everyone, a great day.
Motty x