2026 Dorset Tour

The Racqueteers vs Kingston Lacy CC

Saturday 5 September, 2026

 

You would definitely call Kingston Lacy bucolic – a village green without much evidence of a village, fringed by hedgerows and mature oaks, the only off note sounded by a line of pylons. You get four if you hit an oak tree. What happens if you hit a high-voltage cable is less clear, but it would presumably involve a new ball.

 

“Everyone got a game”, was how the Skipper summed things up. He’s always looking on the bright side. Almost everyone had a bowl. Only OC (keeping wicket) and Maris (feeling a little delicate) did not step up. Almost everyone got a wicket, too, with the President, the Baron, Flighty, Paddy, Flipper and the Bard all taking one. Head of Trout (4 for 29), however, took four. Not the lion’s share but definitely the trout’s. Also worthy of praise were our legspinners, who at one point in the game we had coming in from both ends. Yox (0 for 10) was unusually economical for a leggie while The Baron (1 for 39) put in an exemplary over, turning it first this way, then that, then dropping it right under the bewildered and baffled bat of their number 5. He looked almost relieved as he stumbled dizzily off the pitch. 

 

We fielded well too. OC nestled one in the gloves, on the very last ball, and Bardy took a decent running catch, but the memorable fielding moment was Paddy’s amazing slide to stop a four at long off – and that on turf that had been setting like concrete over the longest, hottest summer ever. It will long be remembered. By Paddy’s trousers. So will the Skip’s dry comment: “Two hands please next time, Pads…”

 

Still, Kingston Lacy’s 194 was perhaps a good total on a wicket that looked less bucolic than rustic. We started unpromisingly – our openers both succumbing to tempting full tosses, and OC (14) falling earlier than he deserved. Kingston Lacy’s bowling was good, too, led by a tall, lithe, tumbling-haired chap who his teammates called Big Hands and Paddy’s girlfriend Anna christened The Adonis. “I thought we were getting rolled for 70”, the Skipper said, afterwards – but it was he himself who turned it around, putting in a considered and classy captain’s innings before being caught, unhappily, on 49. He was ably partnered by the President (14), who took control with a flow of boundaries and a delight of a pull-shot past square leg. Flighty (11) too batted cannily, pulling off late cuts that were so late that the fielder, retrieving the ball from the boundary, inspected the seam as if he thought it might have a second-class stamp on it. 

 

The latest thing of all in the match, though, was the late, latecharge of Yox (28) and the Baron (8 not out). They battedwith freedom, ambition and sheer swing, taking us to within touching distance of the total. We ended short, though, on 182. When the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote of “ten or twelve, only ten or twelve strokes of havoc” and (with all respect to Yox’s and the Baron’s technique) how we “hack and rack the growing green” he was surely imagining just such a scenario. 

 

A loss, then. But yes: we all got a game. 

 

 

The Racqueteers vs Martinstown CC

Sunday 6 September, 2026

 

Sunday began with brunch in the perfect September sunshine at Weymouth’s Café Oasis – where, as their website puts it, “the music is mellow, the food is excellent, the wine is outstanding and the staff are memorable”. I don’t remember the staff, to be honest, but the sausages were succulent, the coffee uplifting and the seaside setting absolutely wonderful, with benches right on the shingle. There was a bracing dip for the hardy few (and a serious swim for Claire, aka the Head of Head of Trout), but we were soon wending our way inland along the Dorset lanes to Winterborne St Martin. 

 

If Kingston Lacy is lovely, Martinstown – as it is known – is lovelier still. It nestles in an archaic-feeling cup of land, backed by a swathe of steep chalk down on which there is a perfectly sited bench that affords what must be the best view in cricket. The hill climbs up and back to Maiden Castle, and some of the Racqueteers speculated as to what on earth the iron-age hillfort’s occupants would have thought of cricket. Not enough spears, perhaps? It’s a well-groomed ground, too, with a smart pavilion and a good track – and a good-spirited, welcoming Sunday team. 

 

We made the most of it, batting first and batting beautifully. The Pope (50, retired not out) and President (24) made the most positive of starts. It was followed by another substantial partnership between a fluent Skipper (37) and an effervescent OC (50, retired not out) – the latter cheered on by not just fiancée Laura and dog Buck but by his mum and prospective in-laws, proving he can perform when it really counts. 

 

If we had thought the opposition were not the strongest, we were quickly put straight. This was a batting side, and they raced away from the outset. Bardy (0 for 32) and LT (2 for 40) opened the bowling. LT took a perfect wicket in his second over – just lifting off the bail at the corner of the off stump. The only target Bardy struck, alas, was the wicket-keeper’s helmet. Head of Trout (0 for 19) and the Pope (0 for 18) were tight and accurate but, still, we toiled away in the Dorset sun from the 5th until the 23rd over without succour. 

 

Eventually, the Skipper (3 for 28) came on and the catches started coming. All three grabs deserve note: Bardy’s for being unnecessarily one-handed; OC’s because he was still putting his gloves on as the ball was bowled (and still putting them on when it went up in the air. and even while he was shouting “gloves!”); Maris’s because it was just so incredible. Fielding at cow corner, he ran forward to get under a skied one then dived to his left, taking the ball at full stretch, rolling like a Duke of Hazzard and coming up, somehow, with the ball. He confessed that on tour he’d had more pints than runs – but his catch was the champagne moment. 

 

Martinstown passed our total in the 30th over but the Racqueteers were maybe less saddened by the result and more by the fact that it meant the end of a wonderful tour. We owe so much to our welcoming opposition, the Skipper and the President, Shaun-the-tour-shirts, our travelling supporters, the Dorset countryside and, above all, our own lovely OC, who organised everything in the middle of dealing with the terrible aftermath of his flood. OC: thank you.