It is not often, in early May, in England, that the outfield is so dry that even a delicate leg glance can skip away for four. But then the sun had poured down on us for a good month and the Holt is perched on a patch of Hampshire chalk downland fully 120 feet above the Preshaw valley. The drainage must be second to none.
The Holt could well be second to none for picturesqueness, as well. It is ringed by trees through which the cricketer’s eye is afforded glimpses of Hampshire in the blue distance, seemingly far below. Squint your eyes and you could be in anIron Age hill fort. Squint harder – between overs, of course – and you could be on a ridgetop maidan in the foothills of the Himalayas. Although neither hill fort nor maidan typicallyboast a 22-yard strip astroturf and 11 Hampshire gents in electric pink polyester sportswear.
That astro strip proved troublesome – more troublesome to the Racqueteers, alas, than to the Milburys. We fielded first. Farmer Chris (1 for 27) dismissed their opening bat, clean bowled, but his replacement proved hard to contain, and by the time Rupert (1 for 27) came on, their batsmen had their eye in. Two perfectly reasonable deliveries went high into the oak tree behind deep midwicket – although Rishi took a good catch off Rupert’s second over.
The Milburys’ numbers two and three both retired, having reached their allotted 25. Thereafter, the inconsistent bounce – occasionally high, and quite often startlingly low – began working more in our favour. Leo (0 for 15) found his left-arm, inswinging groove and the Milburys had no answer to the pace and accuracy of Rishi (4 for 10), who was flying down the hill like an angry gazelle, and OC (3 for 15), who came storming up the hill (like an irritable egret, perhaps?) and found an unplayable line and length. Their figures bode well.
So do the stats for extras: one bye, four leg byes, two wides and one no ball.. Those are good figures, especially given the pace of the outfield. The Racqueteers are lucky to have G, and he was in particularly athletic form. Special mention must also be made of Lol, nobly standing in as eleventh man, and Shaun, playing his first game after years out of cricket. The ball seemed to chase them around the field, and yet they neither faltered nor fatigued. The barrel of enthusiasm wasted not, as the prophet Isaiah (almost) put it, neither did the cruse of commitment fail.
A target of 120 looked challenging but not unreachable in 18overs. Unfortunately, Leo (10) and the Bard (6), opening, were strangely and fatally attracted to their own stumps: they were out hit wicket and played on, respectively. Leo said it was the first time it had ever happened to him; the Bard was not able to say the same. Mike (11) was just starting to find the boundary – there were two elegantly stroked fours – when he lofted one to extra cover. Then, in the next two balls, both Rishi and G succumbed to that low bounce. ‘I just watched it roll over my foot’, Rishi lamented, in the pub, later.
That gave their spinner, Ben, a hat-trick, and the mood in the Racqueteers camp now darkened along with the quickly declining sun. Fortunately, we had OC (22) who did his best to get our run rate back on track. The fourth delivery he faced was roundly chastised and sent off for six to consider its behaviour. Head of Trout (13) and Farmer Chris (12) offered a final, welcome flourish. Their partnership was gloriously positive; they seemed to surprise even themselves with their running. Scampering like hares, they restored some pride to our innings. Farmer Chris brought things to a gleeful close with a reverse sweep off the last ball which sped to the boundary for four – and would have done so even if the outfield had been less generous.
We ended on 86 for 7. It is no great hardship, however, to lose to such an amicable and able opposition. The Milburys are a good team, and a welcoming one. Cricket, as Mike was later heard to observe, was definitely the winner.
The Racqueteers Cricket Club 