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Cricket report 8th July 2001 - Lounge Lizards
Salmagundi Beat Themselves at Their Own Game
Another Sunday and another victory for the Gardeners. How did they beat themselves? By allowing three of the opposition to bat twice and then supplying them with four fielders. This was brought about by Lounge Lizards putting so much emphasis on the Lounge, they turned up with only six players. Salmagundi will admit to having cancelled a game this season through only having six (plus one unwell), but the expectation would have been to have had an earlier notification than having only half the opposition arriving at the ground at a quarter to three. After all, some people like to cut their losses and play a round of golf, or actually spend some time with their spouse, but that's how it happened and it was up to us to make the best of it - which we duly did.
After a short discussion about whether it might be better to play some kind of batting and bowling competition, it was decided to play as close as possible to a normal game and Lounge Lizards were invited to bat, this seeming to be the best way to arrange the loan of fielders - after all, one doesn't want to be catching out a team-mate, and then rubbing salt in it by overtaking them on their long trudge back to the pavilion because you're next in and need to pad up.
Lizards made 101 off 35 overs, 32 coming from the bat of men having a second innings in the first innings. This target looked to be well within Salmagundi's range, although being one man short ourselves might have proved crucial. As wickets steadily fell - speeded along by contributions such as Mike Fox, fielding for the opposition, calmly taking a skyscraping catch to dismiss Tom Monahan (having declined to catch an easier chance in the Lizard innings) - it began to look as though 9 year old Louis Monahan, who had fielded expertly at fine leg, might actually have to be sent out to stand at the other end just so we could squeeze out a few more balls for the last man. Thankfully it never came to this, largely to the assured batting of Jim Monahan and Martin Carter, who saw us home with 3 wickets and 10 overs to spare.
Martin, afterwards, put his success down to the new stance he has adopted, a kind of open-toed readiness not unlike that of Peter Willey. (Mention of Peter Willey makes me want to somehow work in that old gag "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey," but I can't see how this could possibly be relevant.)
Details:
James Tait produced a sumptuous tea of verve and cunning, vegan and vegetarians expertly catered for. It's hard to know which he would have chosen, had he been given the choice, but what actually happened was: 1. he did not carry his bat. 2. he did carry home what remained of the tea.
Adam Wood's catch in the covers was one of the best I've seen, moving quickly forward to take a high driven ball which was fading on him, he stuck out a hand at the last moment and brilliantly took it one-handed, inches from the ground - thus making the rather smart England cricket shirt he was wearing look wholly inappropriate.
Mike Fox caught & bowled one of their openers. (Let's just take a moment to review. He catches for the opposition when it's one of our batsmen, he catches when it's off his own bowling, but...)
Let's move quickly on to the stumping executed by Tait. The slow-motion action replay... is, as usual, indistinguishable from the real-time (but it has to be said, any kind of replay, and he'd have had a second stumping to add to the first and his catch behind.) There was one other chance, and being the man with the gloves, he might have been first to it - but we have fielders like Tom Monahan for that, who sprint in from gully to take athletic catches those closer are watching in rather the manner they do the Guardian Saturday quiz - in that they convince themselves they were close enough for it to count.
There being little (legitimate) to criticise in the team this week, I include a special request from the vice-captain to draw to the attention of the captain the win-loss percentage of each. One does not need the expertise of a PriceWaterhouseCoopers accountant to translate these figures into a meaningful presentation.
Other figures worth the typing are: Chris Wroe 2 for 17 off 6; Jake Wood 2 for 11 off 7; Mike Fox 2 for 13 off 7
| J Tait 24 | caught, tired |
| C Packham 5 | caught (evidently gets tired much more quickly) |
| M Gilkes 2 | can never keep his head (and can't even play the lovely shots) |
| T Monahan 23 | (played in a shirt of spearmint green. Words...um...fail) |
| A Wood 4 | probably a great injustice (correspondent absent, sulking) |
| C Wroe 12 | played down the right line, just should have done it to a different ball |
| M Carter 8no | faultless, but perhaps shouldn't retain his new stance while running |
| J Monahan 13no | kept his head (always said he could) to bring home victory |
| M Fox DNB | doesn't happen often |
| J Wood DNB | does happen often |
| L Monahan DNB | will happen for the foreseeable future |
© Covent Garden Community Association, 17 July 2001
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