Collingbourne is the other far-away ground we’ll perhaps be sorry that the league restructure will keep us from next year. They’re a welcoming bunch lead by the very friendly but fiercely competitive Baz.
Another lost toss saw us bowl first, which we did pretty well overall, difficult to keep the runs down on a flat deck with a short straight boundary. We were joined by a young teammate of Robert’s, Gene, a young cricketer who shows similar promise, who stepped in last minute after a late drop out.
Our chase got off to a shaky start, continued badly and finished poorly. There’s really not much positive I can find to say about a batting performance that didn’t even get halfway on a deck that seemed to have plenty of runs in it. So I won’t dwell on it and maybe soon we’ll score some runs.
Let’s concentrate instead on the reinvention of Pards: The Bowler. We needed bowlers, and we have found one from within. His first league wicket came at Hursley on the first of June. His first league 5-fer came just 11 weeks later. What a transformation that is.
On the field it instantly, and perhaps a little unfairly, earned the title ‘the filthiest 5-fer you’ll ever see’. The first three wickets were perfectly respectable. A good ball inducing a regulation edge to gully. A self-confessedly borderline but perfectly acceptable LBW. A skewed drive producing a spectacular diving catch at point from Courtney. These were all good. And there were, as ever, plenty more good balls that went by without incident.
What produced the monicker of ‘the filthiest 5-fer ever’ on the field were wickets four and five, which both came from filthy long hops, doubtless the worst balls in the spell. The fifth was pretty filthy. A dragged down long hop that the batsman wound up to wallop a mile over cow corner, and succeeded only in top edging it into orbit, spinning furiously as it achieved re-entry towards gully.
The fourth was a village miracle. It is only competing as the most village moment of the year with Smithers being wheelbarrowed into a hedge full of brambles to retrieve yet another six. This time the batsman elected to slog sweep his filthy long hop, stretching well forward with his back leg almost flat along the ground. An athletic looking shot, which unfortunately for him he missed. It would have been a no ball, the ball bouncing twice before the crease, had its second landing not been intercepted by his own prone back leg, lying bang in front: LBW. Pards was apologising profusely to the poor batsman as he hauled himself upright, but he appeared in no mood to accept the apology at the time.
It was nevertheless a tremendous 5-fer, which are hard won in any cricket, let alone league, but it is destined to be remembered, by me at least, for that instantly hilarious and quite marvellously dismal dismissal.
Written by Si
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