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Everyman are double trouble 

By Jon Idle

Eleven-a-side cricket presented a double challenge to the Fallopians on Sunday June 22:  to bat for more than 16 overs,  to work a little harder to hit the ball away from fielders. 

We rose to neither challenge, and a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the park ended in the ignominy of a 100-plus run defeat. You could argue that, more fundamentally, 11-a-side cricket challenges you to find 11 players. This too we failed. 

Before the start, half the team had an extended warm-up while the other half battled traffic. 

At this point some very pushy young boys wanted to join in and, with hindsight, maybe we should have let them. They can’t have done much worse than the carload who eventually rolled up.

I thought the suggestion of heavy bails was because it was windy. I soon realised it was to stop them flying across the square twice an over when Hodson felt in need of aerobic exercise. Or attention. Well, whatever, they can’t have been run-out attempts, can they?

Everyman’s innings started with an immediate catch by Clark, who later caught two more. Wickets fell regularly as catches were taken and bowling was tight.

This was only our opponents’ second match in their short existence; there seemed no attempt to push the run rate along; surely Fallopian defeat was about as likely as a Stebbins misfield.  

Overall the team effort was near faultless. Greg Clifford bowled an early maiden. 

Rooney bowled his man out by not taking his eye off the spot where he meant to pitch the ball for a full three minutes beforehand. Hobson continually shouted encouragement. 

Muir fired a sophisticated repertoire of wides to destroy batsmen’s concentration at a crucial time. Idle used both feet to stop singles but reluctantly brought his hands into play to take a catch. Greg Clifford fetched most of the boundaries as he can throw further. 

The Everyman scorer told us the score was between 177 and 193, but generously settled for the lower total as the more reliable. Even with 9 batsmen this looked well within reach, especially as the Sultantian willow made merry in our opening overs. 

Then Greg Scobie gave an LBW to the slightly unusual appeal of “Howzthat? ..... Oh come on umpire, middle stump!” Everyman were thereafter as good at taking catches as we had been, despite being faced with a string of expletives from Rooney even before the ball reached the fielder. Boy, that man does not like getting out. 

An efficient start became a shocking collapse, with Stebbins frustrated on 16 not out after Sultanti’s 34 being the only innings worthy of the name. 

Whilst we must be encouraged by our tight performance in the field, a little more left hand and a lot more discipline will be required in the return match if we are to make our opponents respect the great Fallopian name as much as they are intrigued by it.

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