Australia Day – a public holiday Thursday just seemed too good an opportunity to pass up for a game of Lords Cricket. Originally the idea was to play a “Test Match”, but that would involve too much effort so we settled on a morning game followed by a BBQ. And what a morning it turned out to be.
The drama began before play when both captains lost the toss. Literally. I tossed the coin, Glenn called heads, and we both watched it land and disappear into a pile of grass clippings. It took us a full bewildered minute to locate the coin, despite both seeing exactly where it had landed. And when found – sure enough it was standing on its edge. Surely not another tie…
Having won the toss rematch, Waugh2000 sent Bradman1948 in and quickly regretted the decision. Partly, only partly, this was due to a change in pitch length. For the last couple of summers we have played on 12.5m pitches (crease to crease), and noticed that very rarely did any team bat out their full 25 overs. When the first 4 innings of this summer failed to reach triple figures, we decided to lengthen the pitch a little and see if that made a difference. January 8th’s game seemed better, played at 13m, and today’s game at 13.25m. Combine this with a hot day and just 5 fielders, and the result was heart-break for bowlers.
Murray Wood picked up where he left off last game, watchfully getting his eye in by taking 14 off the first over, on his way to 58 off just 27 balls. Returning later to plunder another 45 off another 27, he came within a whisker of being the first player to make two 50s in one game. He is in rare form, racing now to 3rd place in the Batting Strike Rate stats and within sight of #1. He just needs to watch his 27th ball closely.
A.Turner also chipped in with 51 and 32 as Bradman1948 set a record 218 runs off their 25 overs, losing 9 wickets along the way. Dixon was the best of the bowlers with 3/38. Other highlights? Mmm – D.Lang went one up on Dixon by not only tripping on the boundary rope but also breaking it. There was a lot of ball-fetching today – 34 fours and 20 sixes were hit in total.
Waugh2000s chase was worthy of Australia Day honours. They went for it and came remarkably close. Stars with the bat were Eric Love (62* off 33) and Dixon (57), assisted by Seglenieks who notched up his maiden 25 (27) and a late handy 16 not out. A great highlight was the aggressive running between wickets by the whole team, most notably E.Love and D.Lang who turned 1s into 3s somehow. Yes, you read it right, there were at least FOUR 3s. All run. It was Bevanesque. They put the fun in fundraiser and the ran in Maranatha Health. Best of the bowlers were W.Turner, A.Turner and Spencer, who got wickets, and M.Wood who conceded less than 10 runs per over. Fielding highlights were led by Andrew Spencer who managed two dropped catches in a single delivery – dropping a difficult skied ball in the deep, then diving to attempt the one-hand-one-bounce and grassing that also. Cough up Maranatha Man.
All in all it was entertaining, and we raised a bit of money for the excellent Maranatha Health. Fines and donations are based on an honour system and can be paid here. Especially those who lost tennis balls, set personal bests, endangered the fielders with a flying bat, took drinks breaks between balls while batting, dropped catches, held catches, bowled John-Howard-balls, many-happy-returns-balls, drew blood diving in vain, tripped on the boundary rope or bowlers crease, played the reverse sweep shot, bowled with a dodgy action, hit consecutive sixes, ignored children stranded on the top of the climbing frame due to focus on batting, bowled a bouncer, ducked under a bouncer, wore shorts with “In case of emergency” details sewn into the pocket, used questionable equipment for batting, including GLOVES, ran over-over-throws, lost balls in trees, turned up after all the setting up was done, drank ginger beer while fielding, got bowled or run out by a 7-year-old, wore Port Power clothing, or most hideous of all, did none of the above by not playing. Cough up.
Thanks to all who came out, especially to Cathy – once again top scorer – and to all who helped with the BBQ lunch and brought salads etc, and even joined in the mini-working-bee at the end. Proud to be friends with crowd. Check out the stats – there are a few comers and several PBs today. Next game is just 10 days away – Feb 5th – so if you’re inspired, sign up here. I think we’ll go back to a 13m length pitch.
Finally, after two consecutive tied matches, the deadlock of this season has been broken! And rather comprehensively. Indeed, it was a little lopsided – a David versus David encounter!
The first shock of the day was Waugh2000 winning the toss and electing to – wait for it – bowl! Totally unaccustomed to batting before 3.30pm (it’s a childhood thing), A.Turner was quickly out for 2. Dixon, on the other hand, was immediately in his prime-time and plundered early runs to show Waugh that wickets don’t automatically fall in the first half hour, just usually.
Dixon became the first in memory (I’ll leave it to others to trawl the stats or make personal claims) to score two 25s in one innings – 31 off 21 at the start and 29* off 21 at the death. All up he hit nine 4s and two 6s, proving the difference between the sides from a batting perspective. Other solid contributions from debutant David Albrecht, Murray Wood (28 off 21 and an entertaining 10 off 5), Eric Love (14 & 14*) and Turner II (27) enabled the first substantial team total for the summer – an ominous 179.
Second shock of the day was that Bradman1948 batted out their full 25 overs – it’s been a while since any team did that. No shock, however, was the standard of fielding. Illustrative of this was when a visiting interstate family came out to watch for half an hour. Their 12 year-old son was immediately invited to field (any excuse for a rest) but was mortified to immediately drop a skied outfield catch. The poor kid’s mood soon improved when he saw just about every other fielder drop a catch in the next few overs. How kind and hospitable of us to consider his feelings. Lord’s Cricket is all about priorities.
Against this background of aggressive batting and very poor fielding, David Priest’s bowling figures – 5 overs, 1 maiden, 4 for 7 – is more than impressive. It’s the advantage of us older players to – from time to time – conjure up the memories of glories past and deliver something we usually only talk about.
A special mention also to the other debutant – Adrian Nickols – who looks like he will fit right in. His maiden Lords Cricket wickets was, ah, yours truly, getting the nickol through to keeper Priest. Sorry.
Chasing 180 for an unlikely win, Priest opened the batting and played the anchor role for Waugh that Dixon had for Bradman with scores of 15 and 16. Unfortunately his team-mates were not able to give him the same level of support, leaving a lot of single-figure scores in the batting column. The shining exceptions to this were Steve Albrecht, who, batting at 5, “carried his bat” for an unbeaten 24 (stranded short of his maiden 25) and Matt Gray who threw caution to the wind for 23 off 10 as the Required Run Rate demanded. But the wickets steadily fell and whilst gallant, Waugh fell like that old giant, 66 runs short.
The decapitation was done by slinger D.Albrecht, who almost matched Priest figures, with 4 for 9 off 4 overs. Two of those wickets were star batsman Matt Gray, who, to be fair, may have been suffering from myxomatosis…
All in all, though, it was yet another very fun afternoon and who cares about the scores? It’s the stats that matter. Speaking of which…
An examination of the individual statistics brings out some interesting phenomena:
The other Davidian struggle – between Davids Priest and Lang. Both are now on a career total of 63 wickets. They are number 1 and 2 in the best bowling figures list. They are 3rd and 4th in the list of games played. Both have now taken 3 wickets in an innings 8 times. Lang leads Priest by 1 in fielding dimissals.
Dixon has now entered the Top Ten for batting average, and jumped up two places to be 5th in 25s scored.
Murray Wood has leapt up two places in the batting strike-rate list.
Matt Gray has scored his 1000th Lords Cricket run.
Andrew Turner has taken his 100th Lord’s wicket, with a flipper of course.
Stephen Lang, by not playing, jumped into the Top Ten for bowling economy, as Matt Gray jumped out.
Dixon is the outstanding fielder amongst current players, clear into 3rd place in all time average fielding dismissals.
David Albrecht, if he plays two more games, will be 10th for best ever bowling figures.
David Priest has snuck ahead of brother Craig in bowling economy: conceding 3.26 rpo to Craigs 3.27
Un. Be. Liev. Able.
For the 2nd consecutive game this summer, we have a tie.
And it was a brilliant afternoon. Beautiful weather. Hilarious moments. And the stats, oh, the stats!
Having won the toss, Bradman1948 did what Bradman1948 does – they sent Waugh2000 in, looking for the early breakthroughs while the bowlers still have energy. And the breakthroughs sure came – once Dixon snared S.Lang at 1 for 7, the top order collapsed as only Australians can, and in a blink the score was 8 for 35. Only D.Priest gave a decent account for his wicket, scoring half of those runs.
The most memorable moment of the innings – and since I’m writing a month after the event, you’re only going to get truly memorable moments – was when Steve Albrecht played the shot of his albeit brief batting career, timing the ball beautifully and slamming it to square leg. Slamming it so beautifully, that Murray Wood at short square leg didn’t even have time to get a hand to it before it crashed into his shoulder. Slamming it so perfectly, that it had the energy to balloon up into the air all the way back to the bowler (Turner) for the easiest and most remarkable of caught-and-bowleds. Yes, auto-correct, bowleds is a word. When our numbers have been low we’ve played an “automatic square leg”, a soccer goal known affectionately as “Whitey”, and catches there have been statistically attributed as caught-and-bowled. (And you wonder why I bowl on leg stump so much.) Ironically, on a Sunday when we had plenty of players, we still had a pull-shot caught-and-bowled. For those concerned, Murray’s shoulder and our sides have all since recovered.
Cometh the moment, cometh the men. Two of them, since 8 for 35 is really quite a moment. Two of Waugh’s most experienced players, captain and immediate-past-captain (if this sounds eerie, almost like plagiarism, then remember that we played this game first), Matt Gray and David Priest. Each (conveniently thanks to a scoring mix-up) made 25 as they set a new Waugh2000 record partnership for the 9th wicket of 55. A semi-respectable score of 97 had been eked out.
For those of you who analyse the scoresheet (and you know who you are), you’ll notice in the bowling figures a column labelled “M”. Many over the years have asked what this is for and whether it is not completely redundant. You’ll notice in this game, however, if you look closely enough, that the figure “1″ appears. In fact, it appears six times! No less than half of the bowlers in this game bowled a maiden, which is what the M stands for and you can look up its obscure meaning.
Chasing 98 for the win, Bradman1948 lost Murray Wood without troubling the scorers, but avoided a batting collapse by instead losing a steady stream of wickets. Clearly the best of these was that of talented debutant Les Parsons. Facing his 7-year-old son Oliver, also on debut, he attempted to show Generation Z what’s what but only managed to sky the ball to 7-year-old Will Turner for his first catch in Lord’s Cricket. Plenty of us have got out to 14-year-olds, but not to a pair of 7s. Soon after the game Les Parsons left the continent on the nearest ship and hasn’t been seen since. Off to play county cricket I presume.
Still, at 6 for 80, Bradman1948 seemed quite comfortable before a mini-collapse saw them suddenly 9 for 88. Cometh the hour, cometh the men. The two men. Incredibly, the same two men – A.Turner and D.Lang who squeezed out a tie in the previous game. Aiming for almost an identical score, they once again pushed singles, nicked nicks and even conceded maidens as they patiently scraped out the last 17 runs. Bowlers Gray, S.Lang and D.Priest threw everything they had (and subsequently are under investigation for a suspect action), including the final over by Priest which was all but unplayable. Turner knew his wicket was just a matter of time away, and so with the scores providentially level, he decided to “go for it” off the final ball of the over. And connected beautifully, if I may say so myself.
Unfortunately, there was a Southerly breeze, known to us as the Ferguson Ave Physician, and famous for holding up straight hits at GOPS Oval. Complicating things further, the ball hit the foliage of a large tree at long off, almost hitting a kite stuck in it. We had joked before the game that hitting the kite would be worth ten runs, and some speculated that this is what Turner was attempting. But rules are rules at Lords Cricket (whether they are followed or enforced or not), and the rule in this situation is that we decide what would have happened had the interfering object not been there. In the previous match, this took quite some thinking, as the on-field object hit was the groin of the scorer. What would have happened had he not been there? It would have been a 2, but with no-one to record it. Mmm. But in this case it was more straightforward. It was agreed that the ball would not have reached the boundary, set very deep that day, but would have held up in the breeze and been caught 1-hand-1-bounce-and-therefore-the-second-half-out for Turner. And thus was the match tied in delightfully controversial circumstances.
Murray Wood went home that night claiming 4 catches for the day, 2 of which he never got a hand to. If that’s not Lord’s Cricket, what is?
Next game is on January 8th – can the deadlock be broken? Can a team score more than 100? Will there ever be another maiden? Will Les Parsons return from exile? Find out the answers to this and other questions you weren’t asking in the next exciting episode of Bradman1948 versus Waugh2000.
Postscript: Oh, the bowlers. Forgot about them. Credit where credit’s due. Apart from the maidens, M.Gray 3 for 9, L.Parsons 3 for 9, G.Dixon 3 for 12, A.Turner 3 for 12, D.Priest 3 for 14, S.Lang 2 for 9, O.Parsons 1 for 8
Waugh2000 (98) tied with Bradman1948 (98) Scoresheet
Wow! What a classic way to kick off another Lords Cricket season – a tie! It was a brilliant game worthy of a far wittier write-up than this is going to be, since I am exhausted!
Thanks to everyone who came out – for the first time we had more spectators than players. Special thanks to the injured Dan Harbottle who still came out and scored.
Bradman1948 won the toss and after much prevarication sent Waugh2000 in. With only 7 players, Matt Gray invited Will Turner (age 7) to make his début as a full player. What a timely decision that turned out to be. And what an interesting partnership was formed between them. Invest in youth.
Perhaps it’d be nicer to focus first of all on the “friendly” game played after the official contest was
over. It might not have had much in the way of runs (in fact, the aggregate was probably somewhere
below zero), but it was memorable for a number of reasons. Firstly, Andrew Turner unveiled his
new “flipper”: a delivery so well disguised that not even the bowler knows it’s a flipper until after
it has hit the stumps. Secondly, Chris Seglenieks piled bucket-loads of repute on the game (shame,
shame) by taking an extraordinary catch at point. And finally, it was rumoured that the mysterious
Murray Wood (batting with the less mysterious Stephen Lang) hit lots of runs and won the hit-out.
But more on this shady character later…
At 517 metres, there are those who question whether Mount Barker really deserves to be called
a “Mount” at all. But had the so-called Mountainous Men climbed a metre for every run they scored
last Sunday, they wouldn’t have made it even a sixth of the way up the slopes of their beloved
Mount Barker. In fact, they wouldn’t even have made it to Glen Osmond Baptist, but would’ve
collapsed with exhaustion just past the corner of Fisher Street and Fullarton Road (elevation = 84
metres).
Either Mount Barker hadn’t done their research or they wanted a challenge. Their first mistake
was in losing the toss. Their second mistake was in naming not one, but two Smiths in their team.
Nothing personal, but the last team to field two Smiths were bowled out for 31. And in Lord’s cricket
history, the three previous Smiths to play had scored just 9 runs between them at an average of 1.8.
But in this game, the Smiths proved to be the heroes: Damien Smith because he topped scored for
the match with 38, and Kieran Smith because he was the only Mount Barker player not to be bowled
out by Stephen Lang. That’s right, the other five Mountainous Men all demonstrated an apparent
lack of trust in the Glen Osmond fielders and chose to lose their wickets in the simplest way possible.
The middle of the innings was the highlight for the Mountainous Men, with Dan Harbottle and
Damien Smith putting on a 47-run partnership after the top order had been reduced to 3 for 14.
Smith worked the quick singles, while Harbottle carefully laid the foundations for what I’m sure
would have been a massively mountainous innings, had Stephen Lang not returned to the bowling
attack after drinks.
But return he did, and the latter part of the Mount Barker innings echoed to the musical ding of
tennis ball hitting stumps. The scorecard was filled with audacious colloquialism (“bold slang”) as
Stephen Lang picked up his best-ever figures of 5 for 19, and Glenn Dixon also “dinged” in with 4
for 16. The Gentle Glenn of the Gentle Men of the Gentle Glen almost picked up a hat-trick, and
no doubt would have if his name had been “David” or “Lang”, and if Mount Barker had had the
assistance of hat-tick specialist Chris Seglenieks. Alas, Dan Harbottle went for glory by aiming some
catching practice behind the stumps, but (not for the only time that afternoon) did not make contact
with the ball. Oh, and then Chris Seglenieks, who has picked up at least one wicket in every single
Lord’s game he’s played, decided to pick up one more here as well, just to finish things off. It’s fair
to say that the other Chris (Beames) didn’t have the best of games; he only faced three balls, and
was bowled out by two of them. Talk about bad luck – Lord’s cricket isn’t exactly renowned for its
accurate bowling… or maybe that’s just your scorer talking…
The Mountainous Men hadn’t exactly left the Gentle Men with a mountain to climb, but 86 was a
defendable total. All it would take was a few early wickets, and early wickets in Lord’s cricket are
like… well, like early wickets in Ashes cricket. Just ask Matt Gray (or is that Simon Katich?).
But it was at this point that Andrew Turner and Dave Priest tipped the universe on its head and
didn’t lose an early wicket!!!!!! Maybe the Smith power had worn off, or maybe the ball had
changed, or maybe it was the switch to plastic bats. Either way, the Mountainous Men can consider
themselves to have been victims of the most outrageous and irrational bad fortune which flew in the
face of all probability.
It must be said that there was a chance… William Turner took an absolute screamer of a catch while
simultaneously fielding at short fine leg and talking to Yannie and not watching the cricket. You
had to see it to believe it: a flashy paddle-sweep swatted the ball out of view only for it to suddenly
reappear without explanation in Will’s outstretched hand. Unfortunately it was a different ball.
But then, as if the laws of the universe had not already been totally screwed up enough, Mount
Barker made a dramatic and nonsensical comeback. The opening partnership of 74 – a new Lord’s
record – was finally broken when Andrew Turner turned the strike over to Dave Priest in order to
let him score a 50. Priest, however, was having none of that, and Dan Harbottle (the Mountain’s
Most Reluctant Bowler) snared the breakthrough wicket, thanks to Joe Kupke reminding people that
fielders are allowed to help get people out too.
What happened next is somewhat of a mystery. Legend has it that a bloke named Murray Wood
came out and blasted two consecutive sixes to seal the game. But the tennis ball evidence was never
recovered, and the chief witness (D.Harbottle) absconded to Melbourne. And as for Murray Wood…
who is he?
As we all know, Lord’s cricket is all about the stats. So all I can report is that, according to the
database, there is no such player as Murray Wood, and that after the last ball had been entered into
the scoring program the fateful message popped up on screen: MBCC win by 9 wickets.
I hand over now to chief investigator Andrew Turner.
(David Lang)
[After an extremely short but thorough investigation, I can confirm the existence of Murray Wood. The "print area" on the Career Stats sheet has been reset - and behold I found a few others as well. And hence the final scoreline is confirmed:]
Glen Osmond Baptist Defeated Mount Barker Baptist by 9 wickets. Scoresheet