A birdie putsch

Sunday 12th September, Joseph Hood Recreation Ground, Morden. St Anne's Allstars (160-3) beat Stumps CC (159) by 7 wickets.

By James Terrett

Despite this being a home fixture, St Anne's played this match on a virgin ground for us, in the Raynes Park/South Wimbledon area, far, far away from Barnes and civilisation. The opposition, too, were new to St Anne's and we took to the field keen to get amongst their batsmen and get some more wins on the board. Wins don’t mean prizes, but they do ensure that the working week can be enjoyed with our heads held high, and Monday’s traditional 'show and tell' with our colleagues about our respective weekends doesn’t involve the words 'we were crap' and 'cricket is shit.'

The Tristan-Devers traditional opening bowling partnership got the match underway, with early exchanges about honours even. Tristan regularly beat the bat, whilst Devers kept his line and length on the spot. Stumps’s openers, however, pushed the scoring on with the number three batsman regularly charging both bowlers, with the innings on around 30 for the first wicket. When the wicket came it was a gift of a run-out, with the Stumps number two batsman chasing a good length ball off Devers and looping it high towards Chris Hipwell at deep-ish cover. The ball fell short but the batsman had had already decided to run. Chris’s bionic arm did the rest, with the batsman a good three yards out of his crease.

There then followed a period of relative calm with batsmen playing themselves in before falling to good deliveries. Tristan bowled the number three batsman, before Devers picked off the next with a generous LBW. The runs still flowed, however, before Tim Ford pegged back the innings with a spell of extremely accurate bowling. After having an edge dropped, he bowled the next through the gate. All this time Stumps number five bat Jerry Bingham had been progressing to his fifty at the other end, but St Anne's fielded well, and after another suicidal run taken on the arm of Paul Nicol, the Stumps innings was starting to falter.

With almost a year out of the hub of St Anne's cricket, Garreth Duncan, one of our founder members, returned to turn his arm over and see what happened. Quite a few wides unfortunately. In amongst them, however, he beat the bat on several occasions, giving the ball plenty of air and making it difficult for the Stumps’s batsmen to time the ball. Unfortunately, Bingham had decided to push the innings on and took it out on Garreth’s bowling. His figures were not pretty. In the time off before his next visit, Garreth will spend time with Troy Cooley to recapture his old hostility.

Hostility was much in evidence at the other end, with Tony Grant fizzing the ball through from approximately 17 feet (possibly a slight exaggeration), and many of the balls whistling past the Stumps’s batsmen's chins. Despite a succession of edges, Tony amazingly didn’t take a wicket, and had to settle for causing many a tight sphincter to the batsmen.

With the Stumps innings gaining momentum, Paul Nicol charged in and took a caught behind and then ripped out the stumps of two tail-enders in one over of exceptional bowling. With the innings suddenly demolished it fell to Chris Hipwell to eke out the troublesome Bingham, with Maxie taking the catch at mid-off with uncharacteristic ease. Special mention must go to Amy’s teas, prepared very well in high winds and arctic temperatures.

Chasing 150, the innings got off to a good start with Tristan and I putting on 47 for the first wicket from the first 20 overs. Sky-ing one to mid-on, I had barely got my pads off before Tony Grant had edged one and Tristan cut the ball into backward point’s hands. Was this going to be another infamous St Anne's batting collapse? Judging by the tantrum Maxie threw at the loss of Tristan’s wicket it looked a formality.

It was, however, the last of the St Anne's wicket’s to fall. Chris Hipwell produced a collection of magnificent innings last season, but they have been few and far between this year. This knock, in my opinion was his best. Despite having to coax Paul Nicol at the other end (who won’t mind me saying doesn’t always concentrate 100% of the time!), and deal with Paul’s runner - "I make all the calls mate, listen to me, just me, and we’ll fucking do it alright?" - he was still able chase down the total with ease and win us the match. His running between the wickets was exemplary, especially as two different runners had to be used, after Chris had tired out the first one, Tony.

With only 20 more runs required, the local 'yoots' decided to hit golf balls on the pitch, culminating in a ten minute argument and a complete stop of play. The gang of kids said they were going to get their mates with guns and shoot us. Not something England have to put up with at Lord's on a regular basis. We knocked off the last runs with Chris getting 75 not out and Paul with an equally invaluable 30 not out, both making batting look easy. Well batted both of you.

However, you’ll be surprised to hear that Monday’s show and tell at my office centred around my outstanding wicket-keeping and Viv Richards-esque innings. Well, I do work with a few birds...