Somerset Evergreens Vs Venturers, Sunday June 30th

Venturers 123, Somerset Evergreens 108-9

As last year against this team, the rules for this match were as specified by the Laws. It was further agreed that eighty overs would be bowled, and that no one bowler should bowl more than eight. So the side batting first could bat as long as they wanted or were able to, and would then have the remaining overs, whether forty or more or less, to bowl the other side out. If they didn’t, and the other side didn’t make the runs, it would be a draw. People who (mistakenly) pay no attention to Test cricket seem to have great difficulty with this concept. If you do, or if you think there is something strange about it, look at the scorecards and reports of Cardiff 2009; Lord’s (E v SL

• not drawn but very nearly) and Leeds 2014; Manchester and The Oval 2005; Brisbane 2010; Johannesburg (SA v I) 2013; Lord’s 1963; The Oval 1979, and many others. Look up the batting records of Monty Panesar and Fidel Edwards. Do not confuse a draw, even with scores level (Bulawayo 1996; Mumbai 2011) with a tie (Brisbane 1960; Chennai 1986).

The day was windy, and cool compared with the day before, which had been extremely hot. Matt S had decided to play football that day, and of course his ankles had melted so he wasn’t available. Maybe Ashley Giles has a point. Or maybe one day Harry Kane will miss an England match because he busted his knee fielding in the covers on the ice on Christmas Eve. Ian G never showed up either: probably childcare, but he may have simply got lost trying to find the ground, or perhaps the suit that he has to wear at work had spontaneously combusted and he was busy extinguishing it. This all left us rather short of batting, and made Simon if possible even more determined to field first. Bruce at 7 is not an encouraging sight on a scorecard. Simon lost the toss, and we batted.

To begin with it went well. Charlie was solid for the most part and Ollie, once he had got used to the pace of the pitch or rather the lack of it, was even fluent. One of the opening bowlers had a very poorly disguised slower ball and after a while Ollie, who must have picked it, decided to hit it anyway. He missed, and we were already in trouble. Simon and Charlie accordingly played carefully, with few alarms except when Charlie was saved from the consequences of getting his pads in the way of a perfectly straight ball by a thin but definite inside edge. In the twentieth over, just before the drinks and bits of fruit interval, Charlie got bowled. Josh didn’t get going, so we were down to Simon and Muhammad, and then the bowlers. They did a reasonable job, but Simon did what Charlie had done but without the edge, Muhammad ran himself out, and James R’s useful aggression didn’t work for very long. The opposition put some friendlier bowling on. Bruce chopped a friendly ball into his stumps. Gregory and Steve D somehow added twenty-five, though making only about ten between them, and eventually the opening bowler was brought back and we were all out for 123 in the thirty-seventh over.

James’s first ball sailed eight feet down the leg side and about five feet off the ground. Josh reached it somehow, and James barely bowled another loose ball in his eight overs. Nor did Ollie from the other end, and they removed the openers between them. The number 4, though, made a dozen runs very fluently and clearly intended to finish the match quickly; but with his very last ball, James bowled him. This was critical, because Evergreens didn’t have very much batting either. Probably their best remaining batsman swept a low full toss from Gregory and top-edged a catch to James: another who looked capable of scoring runs played back to Mohammud when he should have played forward. The others were obstructive rather than dangerous, and Muhammad and Gregory worked through three more of them, helped by a competent catch by Steve. Then, with eight wickets down, they ran out of overs, leaving the last eleven to be bowled by Bruce and Steve. This was a bit worrying. We had forty runs to spare, but needed the wickets. Bruce’s metier is death bowling in 20 over cricket. He gets wickets, but needs people to attack him. Steve’s style is similar, and both of them do occasionally go awry and leak runs. Neither of them did it this time, and with a few overs to go Bruce broke through.

The number 11 was Maurice, who runs Evergreens. He is getting on a bit. When he was young, sabre-toothed tigers roamed the Quantocks, and men and women yet living could remember a time before Marcus Trescothick opened the batting for Somerset. Moreover, last week he was briefly unwell and was told by the doctors that he mustn’t run. Of course that wasn’t enough to stop him playing cricket, but it did mean that the only way they were going to score any more runs was by the other batsman hitting boundaries off Steve. He did that once, but Steve gave him no other opportunities. Bruce, meanwhile, had fourteen balls at Maurice. But Maurice can bat: he’s only at 11 because he can’t run. We surrounded him, the close fieldsmen crouching to avoid casting shadows on the pitch; and he calmly moved into line and, with a straight bat and sound technique, gave us not the smallest chance.