Old Estonians vs. SYNT: A win, some lusty blows, and a pretty busted nose.

Good morning world!

It's been long over a year since I last updated this blog (I'm blaming the rather ambitious scale of the match reports that I set myself), and seeing as how we've just cycled back round the fixture list to play the See You Next Tuesday's again, I thought I'd give this a go.

A lot has changed in the last year, we've had a fairly incredible turnover of personnel. Henry, our frightfully nice all-rounder has moved to India, and was last seen pummeling an eleven year old legspinner over deep midwicket on the outskirts of Mumbai. Well how will they learn to pitch it up otherwise?

Golden arm Paul Arthur has taken his double bouncing yorker and scarpered, ditching 8 a side cricket for 5 a side football on Tuesday evenings. Mick Mistry was never seen again after his record of two games, two injuries. We can only pray for his ongoing safety. Andy Biggadike has retired from all forms of cricket to spend more time with his desk, which is an immense loss to yorker length fizzbombs, but a great gain for the fraud protection office of Barclays. If you're thinking about it, don't: he's lethal. Big hitting Welshman Steve Evans has also been consumed by work - albeit of a more artisan nature. He spends his Tuesday evenings less than a mile from us in the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, making sure their lighting rigs work. Sometimes I appeal extra loudly so he knows we're playing.

In their place though, the 2012 vintage of the Old Estonians have made some proper tidy acquisitions. Alexis joined us at the start of the season and has already recorded three 50s in four games, which definitely takes the pressure off the rest of the batting. Our pair of Toms, Godsmark and Martin, have returned like different players, the former now a trusted and economical wicket taker with great composure, control and consistency, and the latter a rejuvenated stroke-maker, batting with the technical flair and grit of his ginger heroes, messrs Collingwood and Morgan. Our bowling department has been supplemented by our sub-continental seam attack of Sid and Biranchi, who always offer something different with the ball and have a knack of picking up wickets at key times, and the twin Eds, Greig and Wright, have joined the ranks, always ready to provide classy English strokemaking to the top order, should one of the regulars not be around.

Adding these guys to last season's core of myself, Jim, Canadian Superstar Nick Ashwood and the best opening bowlers in the league, Dom and Clem, means we've really become a team to reckon with this season.

I'm going to try and do something technical now. Bear with me. Here's (I hope) a storified version of our match yesterday.



In my nose-bashed state yesterday night, I'm not sure I really gave enough credit to Tom Martin for his superb bowling (1/24 off 4, our best economy rate of the night) or Nick Ashwood for some criminally big hitting in the closing overs. His 35* off 14 balls rivals Scott Styris' knock last night for heavy hit after heavy hit.

You'll all be glad to hear that via a complicated process of prodding, poking, x-raying and more prodding, the nice people at Accident and Emergency have declared my nose and cheekbone to be fully intact, if a little bruised.

I asked them if I'd be able to hit sixes after this accident. They said they were sure I would. Which is great because I wasn't able to do that before. BOOM BOOM.

The scorecard from yesterday can be found at the following link: Old Estonians vs. See You Next Tuesdays.

Game 2: Old Estonians vs. See You Next Tuesday's

 
May 10th 2011
Success, however loosely defined, is a funny thing. Generally speaking, it keeps smiles on faces and egos ticking over and accounts in the red and all those other important things that make the world go round. Occasionally though, it loves nothing more than chucking a ruddy great spanner right in the works. Faced with a situation where previously you have found only triumph, you may now feel the artificial rush of confidence that is a product of your prior success. You stare the situation straight in the eye and feel confident receiving its gaze. Unflappable. Bullish. Ready to succeed again. It is in instances like this that you can put your absolute last shekel on the fact you are going to get out for a golden duck. On Tuesday evening, I am unhappy to report that success definitively showed me who is boss.

After last week's excellent result, spirits were high within the team upon meeting (on time!) at Regents Park. Morale was further lifted by the fetching light blue shirts that had eventually wriggled their way through a particularly rigorous effort on the part of the UK Borders and Customs agency, and were ready for their first appearance of the season. It was first come first served on the shirt sizes, and once Mick and I had snaffled the two available mediums, it was left for the unfortunate Paul and Henry to don the XXLs, giving them the unfavourable ability to catch the wind and tack gracefully towards the boundary, should they turn in slightly the wrong direction. Henry's oversized shirt was the least of his problems, however. Having been unexpectedly called in to work during the afternoon, he had somehow contrived to forget his entire kitbag, meaning he played the game in a pair of lightweight canvas lace-ups and a snazzy pair of grey chinos; a sartorial beacon in an ocean of itchy polyester.

The evening's opponents, the 100% Australian "See You Next Tuesday's" numbered precisely two when the toss was made, and won, by Old Estonians. Naturally, with the opposition having only two fielders, I did the sporting thing and made them bowl first, hoping to exploit the myriad gaps resulting from our batsmen having no one other than a bowler and a wicket keeper to negate. Unfortunately, my plans were quickly dashed with the arrival of six other strapping Aussies, and despite one of their order having some significant bother with the waistband on his shorts, SYNT were at full strength by the start of the game.

Last week's opening partnership Mick and James got off to a slow start, hampered by an outfield that had a higher sand content than most English beaches and enough grass to feed an entire herd of Bison. In addition to the slow outfield, they were also (literally) hamstrung when Mick energetically set off for his first single only to twang a muscle in his thigh and spend the next fifteen minutes hobbling singles that he would have normally made into twos. The first eight overs yielded only 40 runs and no boundaries and at this stage, SYNT were definitely on top.

Time to cast your mind back to the beginning of this entry. Imagine, if you will, my self-confidence as the water in a metaphorical goldfish bowl. After last week's innings which I quite honestly described at the time as "scratchy" but has somehow in the intervening week been elevated in my mind to be on a par with Afridi’s blistering debut century versus Sri Lanka and Chris Gayle’s fearsome heroics in this year’s IPL, you can imagine that there was barely any room in said goldfish bowl for the fish, such was it brimming with water. Or confidence. Or whatever the metaphor is. Anyway, when Mick was eventually bowled by one which kept suspiciously low, I took guard at the crease fearing nothing, especially not the slightly toothy Bruce eyeing me up from 30 yards away. Suffice it to say that toothy Bruce slung down a very tidy delivery which was much quicker than I was expecting and all I could do was feather it tamely to the grateful keeper. Such was the brevity of my innings, as I sloped off I practically caught up with Mick still making his limpy way off the pitch. There’s a lesson to be learned here everyone: always remember your limitations. Mine are evidently picking the length, and a grasp on reality.

With things looking somewhat bleak at 50-2 from the first ten overs, James quickly upped his scoring and soon retired 51 not out with only 65 on the board, which gave even clearer indication of how the runs had been shared around to that point. Somewhat unexpectedly, Old E’s started to get on top of the bowling attack a little, with Henry smashing ten off five balls, the highlight of his innings coming as two SYNT fielders, running for the same ball spiralling in the skies way above them, somehow conspired to collide with each other and miss the ball completely. It’s possible that they were distracted by Paul’s shout of “COLLIDE!” from the boundary, but we can’t say for sure. With Henry freshly departed having nicked one to the keeper, Paul and Tom set about getting the Old E’s innings back on track. Tom was doing his best Paul Collywood impression with bunted twos into the on side and some remarkably effective strokemaking from the shorter, sharper stuff, always keeping the scoreboard ticking over. Paul meanwhile was enhancing his reputation as Old Estonians’ loose cannon – after his tactically magnificent utilisation of the double-bouncing leg spinner last week, this week he dug deep into the batting textbook and pulled out the absolute gem pictured below (note ball spiralling off to backward point boundary). We can’t conclusively tell from the photo but we had a good chat about it and have agreed by committee that Paul’s eyes were definitely closed.

"The Arthur" - MCC Batting Textbook, Chapter 9, p212.

With 100 passed and Tom utilising the range of shots he developed on the testing nine yard wicket in his back garden (four to the fence, out if it lands in the shrubbery) things were starting to look a bit rosier and thoughts of 150 started to form in my head. Unfortunately, Paul departed to a sharp catch and Andy Biggadike fell first ball (“Too good for me, that one” – yeah, know the feeling), and it was left to Tom to galvanise a whippet-like Dom into ticking over as many runs in the last two overs as possible. The highlight of the closing spell being the single that Tom called milliseconds after the ball had left the bowlers hand and before Dom had even had a chance to think about hitting it. Luckily, Dom left it well alone, the wicketkeeper did likewise as he was surely confused to see Tom physically racing the ball down the pitch, and we picked up four byes as a result. Top tactics from Mr Martin. Dom eventually ran himself out for a heroic 0, and the innings closed with 129 on the board and Tom undefeated on an excellent 39.

After a quick turnaround, Paul took the new ball to try and recreate his double bouncing form of the previous week. Despite bowling a good line, they SYNT batsmen were able to pick up two early boundaries, so it was just as well that Andy bowling the second over was right on the money from his first ball, beating the outside edge of the batsmen with good bounce off the pitch. The pressure exerted by Andy took its toll in his very first over, one lifting off the seam and catching the outside edge before slamming into my gloves, meaning that despite the golden duck, I’m still yet to drop a catch this season (stay tuned next week folks!).

Paul’s second over was tighter but remained wicketless despite an excellent attempted catch at deep square leg from the airborne James, and so with Andy still scorching down lightning bolts in his next over, Dom came on to join the bowling party. The next four overs passed for just 16 runs with the bowling team definitely on top; these two really starting to announce themselves as the premier partnership in the league.

With Dom’s final two overs saved for the death, part time gravity-defier and full time run-machine Yandell took the ball and was unlucky not to take a wicket with his first ball, the ball hitting the same dead patch as had done for Mick in the first innings and skidding through at shin height below the hearty swish of Aussie willow. With the run rate rising, the pressure got to the batsman, and having swatted one of James’ flatter deliveries through midwicket, the striker immediately set off for two, with Tom chasing the ball down as it neared the boundary. Due to the somewhat arable outfield, the ball slowed up much quicker than expected, and a lightning fast turn and throw from Tom saw one batsman turn back and one keep going, meaning when they looked up, they were surprised to find they were stood at the same end, and I had the simple task of collecting the ball on the bounce and taking off the bails.

Henry took over the bowling from Dom and found immediate swing with the slightly older white ball, hooping it away from the batsman who so in the dark about where the ball had gone that they might as well have been wearing blindfolds and trying to pin some driving points on Chris Huhne. Despite beating the edge on numerous occasions, Henry strayed onto the pads too often and the batsmen began to tick off the runs they needed to chase the Old E’s total.

Some Yardy-esque spears by utility man Tom in his first over swung things marginally back in our favour, but with James finding himself unfortunate to get on the wrong end of a boundary lashing in his third over and a couple of skied chances which didn’t quite go to hand, we eventually found ourselves with only eight to defend from the last ten balls.

Never one to admit defeat, the newly returned Dom suggested bringing in a short fielder on the leg side, announcing he was about to deliver some “sweet chin music” to the batsman. With none of us any the wiser about what he was trying to do, the ball slipped from his grasp at the critical moment and flew, Harmison like, through the second slip area where the combination of my flailing right glove and a well-positioned Mick on the boundary at third man were all that stopped the thunderbolt disappearing into the undergrowth. Undeterred, Dom’s next ball was even quicker, but unfortunately sliced off the edge of the swinging blade and flew for six over the backward point boundary. We’d been beaten with eight balls to spare, and the nagging feeling that we were probably 20 runs short in setting a total had been borne out in the chase.

Still, there were a lot of good things to take a disappointing result; Eltham’s finest James and Tom had batted excellently to amass 70% of the Old E’s runs, Paul had shown a beautiful line in comic timing as he narrated the fielding blunders of SYNT, and Andy Biggadike’s excellent economy rate of 4.25 saw him rise to seventh in the league bowling rankings at the close of play. The best news of all however, was that after receiving two bonus points for our close defeat, Old E’s found themselves top of the league after two games played. With next week’s opponents Griffin Cricket Club firmly in our sights, we were looking forward to keeping it that way.

Stats from Game 2 are available on the Last Man Stands website - click here.

Game 1: Old Estonians vs. Fawkes & Reece

Back Row: (l-r) Tim Joyce (your author), Mick Mistry, Paul Arthur, Andy Biggadike (distracted)

Front Row: (l-r) Dominic Youdan, Henry Burrows, Tom Martin, James Yandell's Underwear

May 3rd 2011

6:15pm; Pitch 2, Regents Park. Minutes until start of match? 15. Total number of Old Estonians present? Two. Total number of Old Estonians in absentia? Five. Total number of Old Estonians just got out of a meeting half an hour away in Leicester Square? One. Total number of captains absolutely bricking it? One. But let's go back a few hours, shall we?

The morning of Old Estonians first ever game had finally arrived, following a bank holiday weekend filled with glossy commemorative magazines and at least 20 minutes of trying to work out why the nun on the stage next to Prince William was wearing Reebok Classics (honest, she was!). Our starting 8 was picked and I'd had a semi-sleepless night working out bowling strategies and trying to remember who knew which end of the bat was for holding. The usual fun and games of hauling an unfeasibly large kit bag across London in the morning rush hour had passed with a few rolled-over toes but largely without incident, and come 10am, I'd had four excited texts from Tom Martin, three questions about whether there were changing rooms, and paid the match fees in advance. So far, so keen.

Bounding out of work at 5:30 I put myself and aforementioned large kitbag on a 274, knowing I'd pass within a couple of hundred metres of Lord's, and could hopefully absorb some of the excellent cricketing fortune currently being enjoyed by Middlesex. Unfortunately, as we passed the home of cricket a somewhat hefty gentleman stood on my toe and I completely forgot to cast my eyes to the Hallowed Media Centre and pray for runs. Such is life.

So, 6:15pm. Tom and I are awaiting the arrival of our team-mates. Minutes ticked by, agonisingly. Dom was at Leicester Square and was definitely going to be late. Paul was lost on the Inner Circle and wasn't half having trouble with his maps. I was beginning to despair - Tom remained chipper. Eventually though, they started to arrive. James, looking resplendent in full body-stocking under his whites was next over the horizon, and Mick Mistry, who'd only bought a tee-shirt and was going to be a bit chilly followed close behind. Andy Biggadike was still in Egypt this time yesterday, so it was understandable that he was feeling the cold somewhat. Henry, ever industrious, simply put his work shirt on over his cricket shirt, and cut a quite dashing figure (pictured here).

Some nifty fielding drills were followed by my inaugural loss of the toss, and Fawkes & Reece chose to have a bat. With only 7 men, we were called into some creative fielding positions. Henry and Andy opened the bowling, and restricted Fawkes to a relatively slow start. Two overs in and a harangued looking Dominic Youdan was eventually spotted in the distance. Ever the consummate professional, Dom was bravely down to his pants and into his whites in a flash, and scrambled onto the pitch in time to bowl the fifth over, promptly wanging (technical term folks) down some 70mph frighteners which caught the Fawkes openers on the back foot. An excellent opening spell from Andy (4-0-26-0) and two tight overs each from Henry and Dom meant that after 8 overs, Fawkes were 50ish for no loss.

Paul was the next man into the bowling attack, coming on to showcase the darting leg breaks he had perfected in his kitchen with Henry batting in front of the bin, while housemate Tony tried to do the ironing at midwicket. Unfortunately for Paul, without Tony's kind words of encouragement, he saw his first four balls dispatched for 15 runs. The fifth ball was another loopy leggy, but this time the batsmen could only pick out Mick Mistry, fielding on the square leg boundary. Unfortunately for Mick, the ball was quickly lost in the setting sun, and so without knowing much about it, it hit him sharply on the sternum (the noise of leather on bone causing several car alarms in the local area to go off) and thankfully for us, settled safely in his hands. First strike Paul Arthur, and Old E's were up and running.

If we thought we had seen the catch of the game though, we were mistaken - for in the very next over, Tom Martin pulled off a piece of Collingwood-like acrobatics to pluck the ball from the air roughly four feet behind his own left shoulder, after the other opening batsmen had spooned a leading edge back to him off his own bowling. Showing blatant disregard for cunning, Tom decided to eschew the opportunity to run the non-striker out (who was halfway down the track gawping dumbfoundedly at the catch he'd just witnessed) and instead celebrated like Flintoff with a skeleton key to the Morrisons depot. Double-play or no double-play, it can't be denied that the catch was an absolute beauty.

Having made the initial breakthrough, Paul returned for a second over, and much to everyone's delight and utter confusion, somehow contrived to bowl three consecutive deliveries which bounced twice before reaching the batsmen, yorking him each time. The fourth delivery of his over was again the old double bounce special, this time evading the desperate swishing of a clearly frustrated batsman, and gently nudging the bails from atop the stumps. Arthur had two, and in all honesty, absolutely nobody least of all him, knew how.

With the top order seen off, it was left for James Yandell to come on and bowl four tight overs of fizzing off-breaks, seeing two good stumping appeals turned down and making a sensationally flappy attempt to take a catch off his own bowling which eventually dropped safe in no-man's land. F&R number 4 was eventually given out stumped Joyce bowled Yandell (though he had to walk; which tells you something about the honesty of the umpiring from square leg) and number 5 could only watch as his stumps were obliterated by a fierce inswinger from the returning Youdan. A well deserved wicket for Henry (courtesy of an alarming piece of juggling behind the stumps on my part) rounded out his excellent spell, but a bashy cameo from the number 8 batsman meant Fawkes ended 129-7 from their 20 overs.

Safehands Mick and James opened the batting with 130 to chase and the sun already low behind the trees. Mick was unlucky to fall fifth ball to one which rose steeply and he could only direct to third man. So, two overs in and I was straight into the action. Having played and missed at the first one and deadbatted a few back to the bowler (to encouraging shouts of "do something!" from the ever helpful Henry), James and I eventually settled into a rhythm of picking up singles into myriad gaps in the field, and where possible, dispatching the bad balls to the comically overweight fielder at fine leg ("RUN! RUN! DEFINITE THREE TO HIM JOYCEY"). With the sun now completely vanished, the score eased along to 120-1 and 11 runs needed from the last 5 overs, I was retired having reached 50* (them's the rules, apparently). I'd like to be able to describe my innings as classy but since at least 20% of my runs came from inside edges onto my pads and scrambled singles thanks to James' efficient calling I don't think that'd be entirely accurate. Hopefully I'm saving all my "shots" for later in the season (ahem). Scratchy or not, it didn't half feel good being able to leave the pitch without the disappointment of offering a soft catch or hearing the rattle of stumps behind you. After a very long wait as the square leg umpire, Tom Martin came in to finish the job and despite it being darker in the middle than the inside of a coal-miners kettle, he was able to swat the winning runs in style (well, so I'm told - I couldn't actually see what happened from the boundary). Honourable mention to James for a fluent 45*, and for knowing telepathically that when I shouted "waiting", I actually meant "run now please James". Thanks pal!

Hyperbole aside, it was an excellent team performance and I'm delighted to be able to say we not only won but won well. Despite today's inevitable aches and pains, I really can't wait to get out there next week and do the same again!

Full stats for the match are available on the lastmanstands website.

Yours, a delighted captain.

And then, at the last minute, there was Old Estonians.

I thought I had given up playing regular cricket when I moved to London three years ago. Spending ten hours each weekend stood in a field having spent a preceding spell of 40 sat in a chair in an office suddenly didn't seem like the most efficient use of my free time. Each summer I'd play one friendly T20 game with work, and the overwhelming desire to spend an afternoon patiently dead-batting delivery after delivery back to a set of increasingly frustrated bowlers would start to rise within me, but I always managed to supress it. "You'll never find a team as good as the one you left", I'd think. "You won't be able to play every weekend, no one wants a player who can only make one week in three", I'd reason. I debated until I could debate no longer. I decided to take the hit. I decided to set up a cricket team. Old Estonians was born.

I was introduced to the concept of Last Man Stands by Dan Jones (Dan on Twitter), part time cricket film-maker, full time right arm chinaman. The concept is simple: you know how 5-a-side has done wonders for people unable to play Saturday football? Let's do the same thing for cricket. 20 overs. 8-a-side. On a weeknight. Perfect. I got in touch with the organiser and booked a slot in the Regents Park league; Tuesday Nights. Brilliant! Regular cricket! Then came the hitch. Where am I going to find enough people to make this anything more than a very expensive mistake?

Without the time to organise a multi-million pound auction to rival the IPL, and having been forcibly removed, placards and all, from outside the houses of several county cricketers ("Ramps! Ramps! It's on a Tuesday night Ramps! Call me!"), eventually through a combination of new friends, old friends, friends of friends, people approaching me in train stations while I'm lugging my cricket bag up some stairs (really) and a bit of quite sophisticated emotional blackmail, I scraped together enough people to loosely refer to them as a "team".

We've had some nets (two). We've been to the pub and know each others names. We (just about) know the rules. Our first game is tomorrow night. I'm going upstairs to practise my dilscoop. I may be some time.