For me, the National Village Cup draw in February is the first sign that summer is on its way. After Simon Hughes once again butchered the name Great Totham ("Great Toe-tham" this year, somehow worse than 2020s "Great Tooth-ham") we found out we would be playing Thorpeness Cricket Club in the Preliminary Round. The first challenge was getting 11 blokes to agree to play on what would be the earliest fixture we've ever played, but with the opportunity of a Lords final in September, it wasn't too difficult!
As expected when the draw was announced, it was a cold, windy April afternoon. One of the newly purchased gazebos blew over and snapped before the game even began. As we were playing at Braxted - the first job was to win the toss and bowl, which I happily obliged. Olly Kendall cracked open another pair of hand warmers, and Chadders pulled out a white bobble hat. DQ and Baron opened up the bowling and soon made inroads into the Thorpeness batting line-up taking two apiece. Neither bowled a poor ball and we couldn't really have asked for a better start to the match. Olly was brought on downhill with the wind and we continued taking wickets as the Shell took 4-19 in a classy spell of bowling. We had them reeling at 67-8 but a patient and determined partnership between Alex Mair (67) and Henry King (20) first past 100, and again past 150.
It could have been much worse. I'd saved 2 overs from DQ, but they saw him off when I brought him back to break the partnership. Baron bowled through at the start, and Olly's spell was so good it flew by. Joe D bowled well without reward, while I took some tap from my two. Really I was forced to bowl Big-O as I had run out of options. He showed why I should have bowled him earlier and finished off the innings with 2 wickets in three balls.
BYO Teas - mine was smashing, thermos hot chocolate, and a bacon and halloumi sandwich, with a pesto, pepper and babyleaf salad combo. Top-work Thorey, 10/10.
What happened next was the classic Totham collapse. John got a questionable LBW; Joe D was plumb; I smacked one at square leg; Pidgeon kept trying to hit the ball harder and harder before eventually missing a straight one and we were 28-4. I had planned for this scenario, Olly was promoted to 6, and he was in fine touch until he was bowled by an absolute beauty swinging back in. 38-5.
The collapse continued and we also found ourselves at 70-8. Muttly and I were reminiscing of days when Baron won batsman of the year, and agreed that now his strengths lie with slow, wide balls just as he dispatched one over long-off for four. Muttly and I also agreed he might have more trouble with slow and straight ones, and the bowler proved us right by bowling him off a loopy full toss the next ball.
81-9 and the game looked over, but Two-Byes Logue and the Strobot kept us interested as they calmly accumulated. I looked up the stats, we needed our biggest tenth wicket partnership ever to win, but as the partnership ticked past fourty, and Two-Byes dispatched a drive (holding the pose) over the bowlers head for a one-bounce four, the team started believing it might be possible.
No sooner had those thoughts entered my mind, Strobot middled one behind and made his brother give him out. The walking AI clearly yet to be installed. We lost by 31 runs.
In hindsight, 153 was probably 60 more than they should have got. While we didn't drop any chances, or give them too many easy runs. We had the opportunity to kill the game at 67-8 that we didn't take. However, it was the batting that was most disappointing with nobody in the top four making it past 5! Clearly we didn't fancy staying out in the middle in the cold for too long!
Our Road to Lords is over, we try again in 2022! All credit to Thorpeness CC for their 9th wicket partnership, disciplined bowling and energy in the field. We look forward to a potential friendly in the future. We wish you the best of luck against Woolpit in the next round.
For now, I'm hibernating until May. I don't ever want to play cricket this early in April again!
Star man - Olly Kendall for a timeless display of spin bowling (4/19)
