A good game of country cricket does banter, drama and comedy in a way no other sport can.
This weekend The Birchgrove Maddogs took on the Friendly Inn Pub team from Kangaroo Valley. Well we played most of them. It turns out that about half the side had double-booked themselves to play football the same afternoon (Football Association that is). So unfortunately their captain began the match with only 4 players! Additionally, what he didn’t know was that we had drafted a pair of local “ringers” for the match, one of whom (Cameron Belshaw) was a 1st Grader. The same thing happened to us once so we thought it was the go. Two years ago we played a team in Goulburn and their first grader at one point entertained himself by smacking four balls in a row high into the air and down the throat of one poor boundary fielder who dropped all of them - understandably. We were soundly thrashed. So we did feel for their captain, Hugh – who fortunately enjoyed the funny side.
The setting was spectacular – amid one of only seven fully enclosed valleys in the world. For anyone that has been, you will agree its a very special place. For those that haven’t: do. And when you do, a beer and pie in The Friendly Inn is a must.
Obviously, after some furious telephone work, he was able to draft in replacements and their ranks swelled to nine. But you have to assume it wasn’t his first choice team. It wasn’t our’s either – numbering only ten...but we did bring a secret weapon. The first over saw the opener, Denver, get a direct hit off the second ball – right on the jawbone off Cam Belshaw's second ball. The cheap ball our Captain bought was coming off the astro crease at a horrible speed. It was changed. The second over – from ringer #2, Paul Hodges – saw the ball regularly dance around the off stump, hitting it on two occasions. The mis-match already looked stark. We wondered how long we would be in the field – it didn’t look like more than a couple of overs. We also wondered if we would get out of Kangaroo Valley alive if it carried on like this.
Thankfully it didn’t, and while it was a blatant and unfortunate mis-match, the Friendly Inn Team – by name and nature – made a stand and made a match of it. The number three batsman made a half-century. We had to drop our two opening bowlers for being embarrassingly accurate and fast – however we put them back on again towards the end when we realised we could even be in trouble! Ringer #2 had to refrain from his usual action though and was forced to attempt spin bowling. It took about two overs before he got the hang of that and the wickets fell again. I managed three overs, one of which a maiden, and one of which saw the comedy of three dropped catches – one of them by me! Another comedy highpoint was Seamus Collins (taker of a very good catch) and his never-ending over which extended to about 10 balls after wides and no-balls. He got much better after that.
Our other bowlers put on a thorough effort and we felt like we were playing cricket. The fielding was relatively tight, with the exception of the moment when almost every member of the Maddogs team ended up involved in a bizarre double over-throw incident that saw the batsmen almost unable to run for their laughing. There were some impressive catches – two of which from Charlie our captain leading from the front - and not unusually none of them from me. At tea (well, beer) 133 was the target after 30 overs.
The run chase was brief and rapid and actually quite noisy with sixes and fours a common theme, and included one batsman hitting his mate's car for delightful comedy value. The target was chased down in about 15 overs at the cost of only one wicket. Naturally the secret weapon hid a rapid 50 and we retired him so our wicket keeper could have a go and we retired him after he made 42! The final denouement was omething of an anticlimax and after some jolly hand-shaking, everyone hit the well-named pub from which the local team derived their name where it was joyfully agreed that this would be an annual fixture!
On the way home we researched a new venue for next season: The (hallowed) Bradman Oval.