FCO 2007: The Winning Streak Goes On 
For Forty Days and Forty Nights it rained. But still they came. Bright-eyed, shiny-faced, the true Strollers emerged from the gloom to greet their Captain at the Civil Service Sports Club Pavilion. These were men forged of true, blue steel. Not for them the comfort of their Parisian feather beds as certain others whimpered in fright at the sound of each thunder clap.
The toss was won – first blood to the Strollers. With a light rain still falling and standing water on the wicket, it might have been difficult for some skippers to have made the right call. But the Captain had no such qualms. He knew that with Tom Allen and Paddy McGuirk opening the batting, a huge score could be expected in their 35 overs.
The Strollers' opening pair took to the pitch, to a smattering of applause. Some of the fielding side donned scuba equipment to field in the deep. Tom Allen quickly established himself with authority at the crease. McGuirk at the other end was making somewhat heavier weather of it. At last a short ball sat up and begged to be spanked. McGuirk executed a mighty pull shot and the ball shot like an arrow straight up in the air and landed about a foot away. Shaken by this display of batting ineptitude, Tom Allen exchanged looks of telepathic insight with his skipper and promptly ran McGuirk out for 1.
Neil Tubman was next in and executed a graceful range of shots, all of which focused on trying to club the thing over cow. The ball went in all manner of places and a highly entertaining 8 set the Strollers well on the way. Youngy was in next. He looked the part, did Youngy, and warmed up nicely. But perhaps the pressure of the plotting in his mind to pinch old friend Macca's gloves got to him, as he was back in the pavilion for 6. A Captain's innings was now needed. Unfortunately the team got an Allen innings. No reverse drives, but a wild swipe at a straight one and he too was back in for 2 runs.
Tom Allen was still going strong at the other end, where he would eventually depart – run out – for 37. In now came the cricketing Fletcher brother to shore up the innings, with a well struck 18, until he smacked a ball hard about a metre to the right of point. Somehow he stuck out a hand and stopped it. With great Strollers spirit, Luke remained at the crease, refusing to walk, until given out by the umpire. Enter Macca. A flash of the bat here, an elegant glance there, and still he couldn't get off the mark. And then, on this wettest of days, with this slowest of outfields, the miracle came. Seeing his opportunity from a slightly shorter, wider ball, Macca swayed back, KP-calypso style, and lifted the ball delicately over the slip cordon with the deftest of late cuts. “Great Shot, Macca”, cried Fletch, to hysterical laughter from the field. He stuck around for some time and was good value for his 7, none of which were scored with the back of his bat. Guy Winter was next man in this inspired batting line-up. He adopted an unusual stance, described variously as “crab-like” and “like a dog sniffing the carpet”. A well-played 6 was his reward, with a number of batting tips from Hollers who had come in at the other end.
Hollers was disappointing with the bat. A man with a three-figure average, he scratched around for his 19 off 7 balls and got himself out at a time when his team and his captain needed a big performance from him – sand wedge to mid off. With Hollers gone, we needed a big stand by our last pair, and Alex Finlow obliged with a pair of clubbing fours and a swiftly run 2 to finish on 10 not out. Bristow managed a career highlight 1 not out off about 30 balls, before rain led to a sprint to the pavilion, giving the Strollers CC Supporters Club an opportunity to stock up on pints of wine.
Over a samosa-laden lunch (ah, the joys of cricket in west London ), both Captains agreed to reduce the game to 32.2 overs a side. And a break in the clouds got the teams back out there, raring to go. Alas, the break turned out to be short-lived, with persistent drizzle, no let's call a spade a spade, pretty serious rain lashing down. This at least gave Rick a further excuse for his woeful bowling. First he claimed that the risk of trenchfoot and sliding halfway down the pitch meant that he could not come off his long run-up and bowl fast and accurately. Hmm. Then be blamed the driving rain for misting up his glasses. As Rick himself would say, the scorebook doesn't lie. And his 3 overs went for 22 runs, half of which were wides. He did get their tailender out (who opened the batting as he had to get off to another do), caught by Finlow at mid on attempting to hit a big 6 off Rick's bowling – it says something for the weakness of his batting that he could not do so. From the other end, Hollers decided to go for glory with some seam bowling. 3 overs followed, with a speedy first ball that did a bit moving down a steady downward curve to a slow 18 th ball that did nothing except ask to be spanked and Hollers retired from the attack with a bad back. Following the fortunate early breakthrough from the guy who thought that Rick's bowling was like all his Christmases coming at once, the Strollers bowlers failed to get a breakthrough, leaving their batsmen making slow but steady progress towards our total of 132.
Finlow came on to replace Rick, who limped off to fine leg to fine tune his banter, but could not get a wicket and ended with figures of 0-10. Luke Fletcher had a frustrating time, getting the batsmen to play and miss at a couple of good balls, before spraying the cherry down leg side or bowling a loose one. 5 overs from the cricketing Fletcher brother brought poor reward of 0-25 and he was certainly unlucky at times. As the rain came streaming down, certain wannabe strollers were heard to mutter about the rain and Hollers demonstrated again the endless conundrum for anyone captaining him – he's not a good slip fielder, but putting him anywhere else requires him to bend and run, which he's even worse at.
With the batsmen looking set and a lack of volunteers to try a couple of overs, the Captain decided to show leadership and bring himself on. For some reason loopy balls that don't turn seemed to worry the batsmen, and if the Skipper could only learn not to bowl two balls an over as full tosses on leg stump, he would have had decent figures. The Captain beat the bat on a number of occasions though and if Youngy had only been concentrating on the potential for stumping rather than playing up to the now-half cut Strollers CC Supporters Club on the boundary (who, slightly confused, were cheering opposition fours) he could have cemented his place as 1 st team keeper.
Spin was clearly the answer and the Captain had the courage of his convictions (based on a not inconsiderable pantheon of cricketing experience and knowledge, even down to knowing which arm his bowlers are bowling with) to bring on McGuirk from the Heathrow Flight Path End and Hollers from the Quagmire End to bowl spin rather than seam. Results were instantaneous. First McGuirk made a reflex diving stop to his left at gully and pinged the ball into Youngy who stood looking bemused at the pair of batsmen now at his end. Pausing to glance at the girls on the boundary, he first did his hair, then assumed a manly profile, before finally reacting to the shouts of his teammates to chuck the ball at the stumps at the other end. The slowest run out in history was therefore realised and the partnership broken. In his next over, McGuirk comprehensively bamboozled the batsman to bowl him all ends up.
It was now a question of wickets, runs and balls, and the Strollers field had to come alive like never before. Gone were the slopey shoulders and sloppy fielding of before; now with 41 needed to win off 40 balls and 4 wickets standing was a real challenge. Fielders dived all over the place (in Guido's case, mostly inadvertently). Wickets tumbled remorselessly. A superb run out by the Captain and Hollers (involving the skip picking the ball up cleanly on the run, something never before done) was turned down by the umpire on the grounds that he had his back to the play, although square leg gave his view that it was plum. Then the batsman advanced on Hollers, took a huge swipe and missed, 6 feet outside his ground. Youngy had clearly put some cash on the loss with John the Indian Bookmaker, as he first let it hit his chest, then picked it up and dropped it, before finally scooping it onto the stumps and putting heart and soul into the appeal. The batsman who had had time to walk dejected off the pitch, have a shower and be sent back by his team-mates was adjudged in and Youngy gave square leg umpire a hard time, who quite reasonably pointed out that some of the fault might lie behind the stumps.
Hollers and Paddy kept it up to the death, finishing with figures of 3-19 and 3-28 respectively. The breakthrough came with a crucial wicket as they needed 11 off 8 balls, then 8 off 5. Their ailing skipper needed 6 off the last ball. The Strollers sportingly put every man on the boundary. He hit one. The crowd roared. The Strollers celebrated a remarkable – moist – victory.
Man of the Match : by popular acclaim, Paddy McGuirk. A sharp performance in the field, with a run out that turned the game. A fantastic, accurate performance with the ball, taking three good and important wickets and bowling over after over where his Skipper wanted it. And frankly a brave bowling performance, given the great Cowden Contraceptive bowling experience.
Champagne Moment : Guido's inadvertent slide in the field, which left the groundsman wondering where the trench had come from.
Controversial Conclusion
Let me end this report with a question, slightly uncomfortable after the great Cowden controversy last season. Are we really about the spirit of cricket? We sledged the oppo albeit gently on Saturday; we questioned the umpire's decisions twice; and as we got tenser towards the finish, we certainly let both those tendencies increase. I wonder whether we don't need to put “nice guy” heads back on for the next couple of games. Nothing wrong with being competitive, on our toes and desperately looking to win; but let's lose these bad habits and become a team people want to socialise with after the game. I am as guilty as anyone but just wanted to say what I saw.