Brilliant, the cricket season is finally upon us, the smell of cut grass and the thwack of leather on willow, some things will never change, well, err apart from the fist bumps instead of the usual start of season hearty handshake between reacquainted team mates, the changing room pre-match banter swapped for players turning up already kitted out, the persistent smell of hand sanitiser and some would say, most importantly of all, the inability to retire to a cosy pub for the post-match debrief.
However, this is the new normal and who needs a cosy pub when we have the new and improved/still improving Riding Mill club house, complete with telly, pool table and most importantly a massive fridge full of beer! Old friend and team mate Jon Rob would definitely have approved so it felt fitting to kick off the season with the first of 2 Jon Robinson cup games against Genetics, an early chance to get our hands on some silver ware!
Skippers Buckley (usually of this Parish but this evening in his other Captaincy role for Genetics) and Butcher walked out to the middle bathed in sunshine and after pretending to inspect the pitch in a vain attempt to convince any onlookers that he knew what he was doing Butcher duly made that irrelevant by losing the toss. Mallards were invited to bat first and with nearly a full compliment of players already arrived over15 minutes before the scheduled start both skippers agreed to try and get in an ambitious 20 overs a side.
Ankush and Kenty opened proceeding and Ankush obviously had somewhere else to be as he knocked off 33 off 10 balls to retire with the score 41 after 3 overs with young Edmundsen taking most of the punishment. McCaffrey was next in and was soon on his way back to the open air changing room for 1. Coxy joined Kenty and the scoring slowed a little as both played watchfully against some decent bowling from Gardner, Richardson, the evergreen Taylor (Brian not Gareth!) and then Bennett and Tarbuck as Genetics chose to give everyone 2 overs. Kenty fell on 25 in the 10th caught at mid off (or was it on?), 82 for 2 off 10. This soon became 93 for 4 as a couple of wickets then fell in friendly-fire action, firstly blue on blue as Bennett won the Riding Mill bragging rights by bowling Thacker for 1 and then green and yellow on green and yellow (doesn’t work as well!) as Cox was caught off the bowling of Mallard loanee Latif for 25. Butcher was left to steady the ship and promptly called Beacock through for a second run that was never on leaving Beaks to be run out by nearly half a pitch! Watson(A) was then bamboozled by what your reporter will generously call a slightly over pitched ball by Bully that Andy somehow under edged on to his stumps, I think it is fair to say that had DRS been in operation he may well have called for a review on the basis of height! At the other end Butcher managed to get a bat on a few of Bully’s (slightly) straighter balls and eke out a few more runs as the light began to fade. Once Stone had fallen to Bully (who finished with the remarkable figures of 2 for 17) and last man Cleaver strode to the crease (with Ankush still padded up – he’s played for Mallards before!) both skippers agreed to cut the innings short to 18 overs in attempt to complete the match. TC hit a lovely leg glance for 2 which left him as 5th highest scorer with Butcher finishing on 24 not out and the final score 130 for 8 off 18.
A quick turn around saw Cleaver (who else?!)and Watson open the bowling against Genetics openers P McCarthy and veteran Gardner. TC’s second over got a little punishment but 26 off 4 was a tidy start with Watson going for just 6 off his 2 overs and denied a wicket by Butcher grassing a simple catch at mid-off! Following on from Genetics lead, Mallards spread the bowling round and Cox and Browne then took over bowling duties with differing fortunes, Browne struggling to find his length and going for a few while Coxy bowled beautifully accounting for both openers and finishing with 2 for just 1 run off his 2 overs. 59 for 2 off 8 became 59 for 4 off 9 as Stone (AKA The Flashing Blade) replaced Cox and bettered Coxy’s wicket maiden with a double-wicket maiden, bowling occasional Mallard Greenwood and then exacting some revenge for Coxy by trapping Mallard regular Latif lbw, both for ducks. However the wickets now dried up as new batsmen Edmundsen and occasional Mallard (there’s a theme here!) Bennett made light of the rapidly fading light while the fielders made harder work of it! Stone finished with 2 for 5 while McCaffrey went for 16 off his 2 leaving the score 94 for 4 after 14, 37 required off 4, surely defendable? However with 2 good batsmen well set and Butcher still to bowl 2 overs after his specialist death bowler Kenty declared himself unfit to bowl, it was in the balance! Edmundsen retired on 33 but there was no respite for Mallards as the young eyes of Richardson coped very well with the poor light and continually clipped Butchers best efforts to long on where ball magnet McCaffery did excellently to save the boundaries but couldn’t stop the young’un running a succession of 2s. Ankush and Liam kept things tight but after 17 overs the score was 123 for 4 (Mallards were 123 for 8). It couldn’t be tighter, the scorers desperately began searching for the rules, were we in for a super over?……… Were we F***?! Even if we did have a rulebook no one could have read it by then and there was no bloody chance of getting another 2 overs in! Genetics proved this to be a moot point anyway by knocking off the runs with a ball to spare. Disappointing to lose such a close match but as always the game was played in a great spirit and after handing the John Rob cup to Buxom with only slightly gritted teeth, the skipper and the rest of the Mallards got their hands a couple of bottles of excellent beer instead! Roll on the rest of the season and Jon Rob Cup part 2 in August.
Cheers Jon, sleep well.