ICC - The Mighthy Ightham (cont.)

ICC. Here is the pav. It is over a hundred years old, made of wood and if it ever catches fire, a deathtrap. 

Right where was I. Ah yes.

Pete Fryer aka Pete: Yes, we simply have no nickname for Pete. 'Deep fat' might work. Though when the nickname is roughly the same length as the actual name it defeats the point a bit:
A stalwart of the club where, apart from a 4 year sojourn to France where they don't play cricket (Typical French) Pete has been gracing the squad for many years. A versatile player he can bat at any number in the lineup with equal effectiveness. ie 20-24 runs in under 18 deliveries and then he gets caught down at third man (for non-cricketers 'third man' is a place on the field where the ball rarely comes and as such is a place greatly desired by the less athletic cricketers, especially if it is a) in the shade b) near the toilets c) near the cakes or d) near a seat).
He can also be relied upon to bowl occasionally with similar results. ie 20-24 runs in under 18 deliveries. That's right. In a game in which he is called upon to bowl, he more or less cancels himself out.
Fielding is very Ighthamesque. In other words Pete puts on a display of fielding that varies wildly between brilliant, shin-sacrificially dangerous and hilarious.
But it is to his batting we must now turn. Pete finds it impossible to hit the ball anywhere but down to third man. His wagon wheel (I sense I have lost my one American reader - don't worry. I'll be ranting about wheelie bags again soon) only has one spoke. A very thin one that extends behind him and to the left a bit.
Which explains his consistent batting scores. How so? Well it usually takes the opposition captain about 3 overs (there's the 18 balls) to realise that no matter what they bowl to him and no matter where he aims to hit it, the ball will fly in a lazy arc to the third man boundary where, due to its completely unexpected arrival, it will trickle over the boundary for four. At which point he usually sends all but the two of his players who can actually catch, off for a cup of tea. Then puts those two next to each other down at third man where one of them invariably catches him next ball.
In this Pete is the batting equivalent of the bee.
How? Physicists have determined that, aerodynamically, it is impossible for a bee to fly. Yet fly it does ( I know this because I was overtaken by an airborne one when I was out on my bicycle last summer).
Similarly physicists have determined that some particularly wide leg side deliveries are impossible to hit to third man without dislocating one's spinal column. Yet Pete does it with the ease of the master. And they're not all off the edge either. Many is the fast in swinging yorker aimed at leg stump we have seen Pete dispatch nonchalantly to third man OFF THE MIDDLE OF THE BAT.
These so-called physicists have deduced that just before the bat makes contact with the ball at the point in his shot when Pete usually shuts his eyes, his bat achieves light speed, slips through a tear in the very fabric of time itself, jumps the event horizon, picks up some Higgs Bosons near the handle end and shifts the fucking leather down to third man.
Pete Fryer. Cricketer. Man. Bee.

ICC - The Mighthy Ightham

During the summer, such as the one just gone, I play cricket for a small village in Kent (England's doorknob - located at the extreme bottom right of our wonderful island) called Ightham. Why is it spelled funny? No idea. Anyway here is our logo (designed by my own fair hand).

Note impaled rabbit on the sword. The date at the bottom is possibly inaccurate as I simply made it up.

And here is a photo of the Sunday team that was putting on a display of textbook cricket last Sunday (As long as the textbook is entitled "How to be shit at cricket.").

Left to right. Top row : Howard Mills, Matt Leggett, Steve Dawes, Sean Ashfield, Pete Fryer.
Seated: Andy Moodie, Richard Bridge, Me.
Front row: Joe Adam, Joe Austin, Tom Bentall.

Here's a lowdown of the team in picture order:

Howard Mills: AKA Millsy (Nickname arrived at by using the highly imaginative British expedient of adding a "y" on to the end of someone's name. :

Infamous throughout the length and breadth of the Kent Village Cricket League Div 2 for his hilarious bowling run up. It all starts smoothly then when he nears his delivery stride he embarks on a frankly bizarre series of very small, very fast steps. What would take a boringly traditional bowler one medium to medium/large stride can take Millsy as many as twenty six tiny little steps, his feet a positive blur. It all makes for marvellous entertainment for the batsman and wicket keeper (usually me) as we wonder when, if ever, the ball will be launched towards us. Two or three times a season the steps get so small that forward progress can be only be measured in microns and it dawns on him that at this speed it will take three weeks to reach the delivery stride. Thankfully, in these instances he gives up altogether and starts again. Known as a refusal. The groundsman is delighted as the top end gets a good scarifying from Millsy's boots.

Matt Leggett: AKA Leggett (but pronounced as if you are French. No one knows why):

Remarkable for only ever catching difficult catches. Matt inspires much mirth in his teamates (and a sweary despair in his skipper) by finding ever more comical ways to drop easy catches that my Mum could take, followed by open-mouthed dumbfoundedness when he holds onto ones that would test a professional. There's no explaining it. You just accept it.

Matt uses the little known (outside Ightham) "Confusion" method of bowling. ie the first 5 balls in an over will be a motley collection of wides, no balls, aerial wides, double bouncers, refusals, beamers and ones that actually bounce on a different pitch to the one we're playing on. Then comes the masterstroke. A straight one. By the time this highly unusual delivery has been brought into play, the batsman (and, indeed, everyone - including Matt) is so confused, the last thing he is expecting is what is known in the trade as "a good ball." It will then either clean bowl the hapless batter or be gently lobbed directly to a fielder who is often so embarrassed they are reluctant to take the catch. But who's the mug we have to ask ourselves? The batsman, that's who.

Steve Dawes: AKA Steve (Mysteriously he isn't known as Back, Front or Patio - again, nobody knows why):

Known as a limpet like opener, Steve gives his wicket away dearly and occupies the crease, doggedly seeing off the shine of the new ball and running out the rest of us willy nilly. He got me this season by confidently shouting "Yes!" at which point I hurtled (a relative term - when hurtling, in reality I achieve a speed only slightly faster than just standing) down the pitch. When I reached halfway down the pitch, only then did Steve perform a risk assessment of this run we had so lightheartedly embarked upon. Sadly for me he assessed it was too risky. He then informed me of this assessment by yelling "No! No! No!" and strolling back to his end. In years gone by I would have stopped on a sixpence and darted back to safety. These days, however, more practical emergency measures must be brought into play.

Now, there was little point in stopping because:

a) Rather like an oil tanker it takes six nautical miles for me to come to a complete standstill.

b) Once halted it takes ages to gather enough momentum to escape the gravitational pull of the earth and achieve forward motion again. 

So, while maintaining top speed (again a relative term), I attempted what, in naval circles, would be termed "hard a'starboard." However in real terms, was a long, slow turn of a radius that, if completed, would have taken a full minute to execute and would easily have encompassed the pavilion, the church and some detached housing. The result? Run out by three feet. 

Admittedly I nearly got him later on in the season by contrasting, enthusiastically setting off on a run, with confidently shouting "No!" His face was a picture of confusion matched, I suspect, only by my own.

To be continued.....

Sean Ashfield: AKA Shozzer, Wides, The Seanado (to rhyme with Tornado).

Though Sean is a member of Ightham Cricket Club and, indeed, was its Chairman for a few years, he actually plays for Underriver Cricket Club. Eh?  He used to play for us and still occasionally does (see picture) but in the all important Kent Village Cricket League Divs 1-6 he prefers to ply his trade for Underriver (currently promoted to Div 4) rather than Ightham (Mid-table mediocrity in Div 2). Why? The seeds of this conundrum lie in notoriously fragile mental makeup of the fast bowler. That's right. Like many members of this elite group of finely tuned athletes Sean is both fragile and mental. How does this manifest itself on the field of honour (cricket pitch)? Wides that's how.

I am the wicket keeper. In the normal run of things a wicket keeper's lot is thankless drudgery, enlivened only by chatting to 1st slip about important topics (who's doing the tea, who's got quite big tits, agreeing that the catch we have just contrived to drop probably didn't carry anyway). So we don't take kindly to bowlers who bowl wides down the leg side. To anyone who isn't au fait with the "Art of wicket keeping" as I like to term it, allow me to explain what you have to do when someone bowls a "wide down the leg side."

1. From the crouched position you have to rise. This happens every time a bowler bowls but you have to get up a bit quicker than normal because, frankly you're going to be busy.

2. Set off for the leg side. Best at this stage to overestimate rather than underestimate just how wide it is going to be by the time it gets to you. You won't regret this.

3. On your journey down the leg side your view will be temporarily obscured by the batsman. In the kind of circles we pay cricket in, players are not renowned for their sleekness of frame. So this blind spot is usually pretty big and consists of two great big fat arse cheeks.

4. Emerge the other side of the batsman and pull away from his gravitational field, hoping vainly that your next view of the delivery will reveal it to be "not too bad." 

5. Depending on wideness either dive full length with left arm outstretched hoping to get some glove on it, hurtle after it hoping not only to catch it but be able to arrest your accumulated momentum before you hit the fence, simply catch the bastard.

6. Glare at the bowler.

7. Mutter at the mirthful antics of the rest of the team.

All it takes is for Sean to pop one down the leg and he gets the yips. Then every succeeding delivery follows it. Why don't I just stand down the leg side and wait for it, I hear you not unreasonably ask? Because usually he will over compensate with at least one delivery by bowling a massive wide down the off (the other side to leg) that if I didn't catch, would clunk sickeningly into third slip's kneecap.

Mysteriously this doesn't happen when he plays for Underriver for whom he bowls very well and is the terror of the tail, intimidating 14 year olds, OAPs, and the blind with spells of devastating fast (relative to a bee in flight) bowling.