Played

Nick Hughes, Adrian Lightly^*, Jason Leitch⁺, Paul Rushforth, (The) Ollie Bartlett, Chris Territt, Bod Evans, 'Ath', Luke Sullivan

Report

May Day Bank Holiday weekend. What better thing to do than head for the river around Chiswick and practice your coxless pairs in the Spring sunshine. Failing that, how about a spot of croquet on a manicured lawn, sipping Pimms from crystal goblets. Or there is always the option of getting absolutely stuffed at cricket.

This third scenario is what loomed on the horizon as the weekend approached. An already tragically depleted team was being frantically propped up by some GRACC debutants and the 'That Luke Who Plays For Putney What Jason Knows'. As Saturday dawned, some last minute feeble excuse-mongers (yes, you know who you are) left us with a mere nine players to face the might of the Whalers CC who are, as you may know, the Relishers' as-yet-unbeaten nemesis.

Anyway, despite the best efforts of the ever pitiful Southern Railways and whoever-was-digging-up-the-A205-this-week, we arrived 20 minutes later than the other two-thirds of our team who had been warming up ("and drinking beer" - Bar Ed.) for some time. Myself and Whalers' skipper Dan quickly pretended to toss an imaginary coin and Whalers rather sensibly elected to bat.

We opened our bowling attack with Señor Hughes who was right on the money and unlucky not to get a couple of early LBW decisions (in my opinion, from somewhere near second slip). At the other end, Luke also started well and in his fifth over somehow managed to get the ball on a trajectory NASA would have been proud of to bowl their opener from space. The umpires conferred for ages and I'm still not sure how it hit the stumps, but we needed the breakthrough anyway. A wicket maiden for Luke and they were 21-1 off 6 overs. A few overs later he struck again with a plumb back leg LBW to make it 36-2 off 10. Tidy stuff so far from the Relishers.

Your humble skipper brought himself on first change and was generally tight, give or take a couple of leg side looseners clipped away for two. At the other end, Ath declared he had not bowled for "a few years" - sixteen, in fact. That didn't stop him luring their #4 into a rash shot in his first over which was neatly pouched by, er, someone leaving Whalers 50-3. Unfortunately, in his subsequent overs he would be the first to admit that the bowling yips got the better of him and the wides total progressed rather quicker than we would have liked (but thanks, Ath, you will be back!)

Up the other end, Adrian was having no luck at all and after four overs of beating the bat and missing off stump (as well as two dropped catches) he fired himself up and comprehensively castled their tall stubborn opener, hitting middle-and-off through the gate and sending him back for 34. Whalers 75-4 off 17 overs.

It was now time for the legendary “Twin Spin Attack” so Paul and Chris limbered up and almost immediately confused the hell out of the batsmen (and to some extent the umpires and fielders). However, the batsmen had their eye in now and the score ticked along quickly past 100 before Paul struck with a beauty which pitched outside leg and took the top of middle stump. Their chap was as baffled as Paul's victim to a similar ball last season away at Trafalgar CC; cue much looking at the wicket and grumbling on the way back to the pavilion for his tidy 21 (108-5 off 22).

At this stage, I realised that they had juggled the batting order a bit; the chap coming in at #7 was the very same guy that put us to the sword last year with 80+. And soon, that became the pattern again; solid defence, despatching the bad balls for four (or occasionally six) and not looking in any trouble at all (he ended up with 61 not out). Shuffling the bowling didn't help and the score accelerated up past 150 after a further dropped catch in the field (the sun may have been in his eyes, it says here). There was just time for a quick over from Bod and despite the last over from Hughes yielding a further wicket, Whalers finished on a very respectable 206-6 from their 35 overs.

Tea was taken in the pavilion and a lively discussion ensued. Admittedly it was about the location of that evening's forthcoming Young People's Discotheque Event, but we were at least awake.

The same could not be said for the Relishers' first batting performance of the season. Oh dear. Whilst I would be first to admit that Whalers are probably the strongest side we face annually, and that playing them with nine men was going to be tricky to say the least, the capitulation that followed was worthy of an Ashes whitewash.

Their skipper Dan immediately wiped out our first two with a double wicket maiden, quickly followed back to the pavilion by Adrian (dodgy LBW duck from Umpire Rushforth, if you ask me, which nobody did, wisely).

So 3-3 (with only one of those off the bat) which brought Hughes striding to the wicket, full of confidence and sporting a headband of which Bjorn Borg would have been proud. Paul and Ath came and went in quack succession (ho ho) and we were beginning to wonder if we would reach double figures. They took off Giles (possibly a relation of Ashley, King Of Spain; I never checked) and threw on a youngster who luckily chucked a few wides our way and, with some cheeky singles to an aggressive field, soon we were only(!) 13-5. With Jason then unlucky to be out to the catch of the season, taken about 1" off the ground, we were, as they say, 'struggling'.

Suddenly, there was an oasis of calm and poise. No really. Ollie, who had genuinely never batted before (but has clearly watched Cook and Strauss a lot) looked comfortable and hit a couple of shots through the infield to the point boundary which had the crowd on its feet. Hughes was patient but then flicked one square of the wicket and was unlucky to be caught for 5. In came Chris and left-handedly set about redressing the balance with some stoic defence punctuated by some fine attacking shots (one glorious lofted drive down the ground nearly decapitated the non-striker). Clearly, this could not last and with Whalers sensing blood, as well as one of them needing to catch a train to Stevenage, they turned the screws and finished the job. Even their generous offer of allowing the opening pair to bat again simply resulted in a hilarious golden duck for Skipper Lightly and a rather sorry Relishers total of 31 all out from 12.2 overs.

So we start with a loss; the only way is up. To be fair, Whalers were very gentlemanly about the whole thing and admitted that they hadn't bowled or fielded as well as that for about three seasons. They also mentioned that they had once been all out for 26, which made us all feel slightly better!

Tremendous thanks to all who played, especially the newcomers and last-minute call-ups. Hopefully it wasn't too disheartening; there are usually (a) the correct amount of us and (b) we generally play a lot better...

Result

Whalers CC: 206 for 6 (35.0 overs)

GRACC: 31 all out (12.2 overs)

Whalers won by 175 runs

Man of the Match: Chris Territt for bravely scoring a third of our runs (closely followed by debutant Ollie)

Champagne Moment: Tricky. Paul's leg break wicket turned quite literally sideways; Luke bowled someone from outer space. You choose...

Comedy Moment: I guess that's me. "To get one duck is unfortunate; two looks like carelessness" [Oscar Wilde]