Remnants vs. Coton

Report by Daniel Mortlock:

Remnants and Coton have been playing each other for more than three decades now, and one constant in all these matches has been the sense of genuine village cricket: competitive but good-spirited, and more canny than cultured, with plenty of dibbly-dobbly bowling and hoiks to leg in evidence. Certainly that's what we were bringing to the table, and it initially seemed that Coton would be doing so as well, with the toss rendered moot by the fact that they had just six players present at the arranged start time. The captains thus agreed that Coton would bat first, although before there'd been time for anyone to pad up they'd assembled their full side - it seemed that a 4WD full of juniors had been waiting around the corner for the call to come in that they'd be batting - and so in the end they conceded the point and agreed to field . . .

. . . at which point we suddenly found ourselves playing a very different game from that we'd been expecting. Coton's decade-long effort to encourage local juniors had suddenly (at least from our point of view) paid dividends, as they were packing a mean bowling attack, with plenty of pace and run-ups every bit as long as those of the University Thirds' bowlers last week. And when the ball wasn't whizzing past the bat, the other youngsters were pouncing on the ball and firing in flat throws, the first two of which were direct hits. The situation was probably summed up best in the moment that Grant Kennedy, returning after one of the best batting seasons in Remnants history (592 runs at 98.67), got beaten a couple of times and was then bowled trying to get off the mark. After 3 (eight-ball) overs we were punch-drunk on 7/2 - and it would have been 3/2 but for some wides and no balls. Chris Badger and Tom Serby then spent the next few overs just keeping out the good balls and being thankful for the continued supply of extras (which, in the end, totalled an incredible 30). We - well, really Chris and Tom - gradually managed to turn things around and with a few overs to go had even got back to a run a ball when Tom was caught off a waist-high full toss (that most of us watching wanted to call a no ball) for a vital 36 off 41 balls. The innings then ended up with some foolish run outs, although at the calm centre of this mayhem was Chris, who finished up on a near-chanceless 52* off 44 balls.

Our total of 125/2 represented a great comeback, but it felt no more than competitive, at least until some tight early bowling by Daniel Mortlock (2/19, including a lead-off maiden), Alec Armstrong (2/36), Faruk Kara (0/10) and Chris Clarkson (0/19) was enough to make the run rate a serious issue. After 7 overs Coton were just 38/1, meaning that they needed 88 off 56 balls, with the visibility now less than optimal. A major reason for our newfound ascendancy was some excellent fielding, and this became even more important when a couple of Coton's youngsters got together and revealed themselves to be just as good with the bat as they had been with the ball - we certainly didn't seem likely to bowl them out. The only problem (at least as far as they were concerned) was that they had to run on everything, and we - well, really Michael McCann with help from Grant Kennedy behind the stumps - effected two vital run outs. Some more tight bowling by John Moore (0/14), along with some more excellent fielding by the likes of Martin Law, Tom Serby and Michael, meant that we began the last over with Coton needing a surely impossible 28 runs to win.

It was obvious that the honour of bringing home the victory should have been given to Faruk, having joined the Remnants 300 games club, but a brain-fade by the captain meant that the ball was thrown to Alec instead. Still, this was a perfectly reasonable decision tactically, and even though the first half of the final over went for 1 2 2 1, that meant Coton were surely done, now needing needing 22 off 4 balls . . .

• 13.5: Armstrong to Fitzhenry: Having had only limited success with conventional cricket shots, the Coton batsman decides to go for broke, switching his stance while the ball arcs towards him and connecting with a reverse sweep that eludes Paul Jordan's "dive" and scoots over the boundary. The ball is retrieved by one of the Coton players while the rest of his teammates manage a rather anarchic update of the scoreboard, which eventually reveals that they now need 18 off 3. 108/5.
• 13.6: Armstrong to Fitzhenry: Having gotten his eye in with that last shot, Fitzhenry goes for another reverse sweep, this time making such good contact that the ball flies flat and hard into the clubhouse - presumably the first thing the scorers knew about it was the crash as the ball hit the wall on the full. Two more shots like that could see Coton steal a win - and some maimed spectators. 114/5.
• 13.7: Armstrong to Fitzhenry: All the pressure is on Alec now, and it shows, as the next ball is several feet outside leg-stump and duly called a wide. Grant Kennedy does well to move across and prevent any byes. But now a four and a six could tie the game for Coton. 115/5.
• 13.7: Armstrong to Fitzhenry: Another reverse sweep, but this time the contact's not so clean, and Paul makes a good stop, keeping the batsmen to a single and surely finally finishing the game. 116/5.
• 13.8: Armstrong to Johnson: All Remnants need now is a legitimate delivery, which Alec manages. Johnson connects with his pull but the ball sails out to Michael McCann, who comes forward to complete an excellent catch in the gloom. Kind of an appropriate ending to the game, given that Michael's energetic boundary fielding saved many more runs than the eventual 9-run margin between the teams. 116/6.

The match was sufficiently exciting that looking forward to the two teams' next encounter in June evidently wasn't enough, and a "decider" was hastily scheduled for mid-August.