Chair V President Game

President’s XIII 181-8 (D. Jones 39*, T. Armiger 39*: R. O’Hagan 3-34)

beat

Chairbird’s XIII 179-8 (D. Adams 49, J. Sempill 42: J. Fryer 3-21)

by 2 runs 

The long weekend saw the unusual sight of cricket being played at Penn Street on a Monday. The massed ranks of PSCC gathered for a special T20 match to commemorate Jane Fryer’s retirement as Chairbird after over a decade in that hot seat.

Sod’s Law dictated that not only would this be the week that the long dry spell of weather broke, but also the one that the Ground Manager would be away sunning himself on a beach. Matt Reavey nervously took on the task of finalising the pitch for the match, but despite his excellent eAorts the strip still looked greener than Chris Loftus after a night out with the President himself.

Jane having declined to captain her own team (probably wise for someone who still boasts of never having watched a complete game of cricket) or indeed to have any of her own family on it, the burden of captaincy fell upon Big Al Cossins. Calling successfully at the toss, and noting the lusciousness of the wicket, he elected to bowl first. 

The Chairbirds consisted of people who held, or who had held, an official position within the club during Jane’s tenure. This criterion meant that, whether by accident or design, her husband and sons had to play for the opposition. The speed with which she received volunteers to play was in marked contrast to the enthusiasm shown whenever she mentioned the words ‘committee meeting’.

The Presidents, by contrast, were a XIII drawn from a mix of players old, new and somewhere in between. In fact, more people volunteered to play than could be selected, thus proving that the desire to put one over on the club’s overlords is never far from the thoughts of most members.

Dave ‘DJ’ Jones came sashaying out to open the President’s innings to the sound of “It’s Not Unusual’. Accompanying him was the President himself. Everyone’s favourite Mexican, Asif Teja, gamely took the first over - and immediately saw his first ball deposited over cow corner for six, the viciousness of the blow meaning that that particular ball was not seen for another four hours (i.e. until Jonty Adams turned up and, as usual, found it even though the adults claimed to have looked ‘everywhere’ for it). 

Big Al decided that he was not standing for that sort of thing (or, at least, on Jane’s behalf he wasn’t going to stand for it) and sent for Dave ‘DA’ Adams. The President promptly sliced the ball skywards in the direction of point, where Matt Hewlett reprised his St Lucia heroics by taking another excellent catch running away from the wicket. He truly is PSCC’s safest pair of hands, so long as he is going in the wrong direction at the time.

Tyler arrived, burdened by the knowledge that scoring runs would not only please his mother, but disappoint her as well. He chose the path of disappointment. At the other end DJ was still merrily blazing away, apparently unaware that just because he forgot to tell anyone he had married Jane until a year after the wedding, it didn’t mean that he was still immune to being divorced by her. Eventually the pair of them were retired out by their captain, as everyone was getting bored by the sight of the ball being clouted to the boundary, despite Tyler’s comedic attempts to play the ramp/reverse sweep/switch hit (we are genuinely uncertain as to what he was trying to achieve). 

Did we mention that the President’s side were not being led by the President, but by none other than Jamie Fryer? We’ll pause to do so now, just so that you can imagine the level of domestic tension that decision must’ve caused.

The replacement batters were Caitlin Macken and Archie White, one clad in pink pads and the other simply hoping to get through the first run without injuring himself. All went well until Caitlin skied the first delivery that she really connected with and sent the ball into the very safe hands of James Sempill, thus marking the fifth time that she’s been caught by one of her former teachers during a cricket match. 

Enter Vishal Goundar, a man who, before the game, was awarded not one but two achievement caps, and yet was wearing neither of them. Faced with the prospect of boundary-hitting the like of which has not been seen on any occasion when this writer has picked him as their fantasy captain, Big Al decided to unleash the weapon of last resort – The Secretary. 

Any suggestion that Vish and Arch are The Secretary’s bunnies is, of course, complete gibberish. The important thing, though, is that they both believe it. Vish aimed a hoick across the line at the first ball, which took an edge and flew up in the air…before landing anticlimactically between three fielders on the leg side. A relieved Goundar rumbled to the non-striker’s end. Arch faced the second ball, skipped down the track and cracked a beautiful drive through extra cover for four. Emboldened, he tried the same thing to the third ball, completely missed it and was stumped by the remaining 50% of Sam Martin. 

The wicket brought in the rarest of birds, the Lesser-Spotted Herriott. He may have spent all of one afternoon on a cricket pitch in the past decade, but a player of this level of skill, with this sort of reputation, was never going to stand for any of The Secretary’s nonsense and he promptly hit him for 16 in three balls.

Vish became the third batter to be retired by his captain, who then sent Pete Lofty in to bat. Eyes grew misty at the sight of two veterans of the PSCC scene batting together once again. Unfortunately it didn’t last long, as Cherriott took a big swipe at another piece of Secretarial filth, didn’t quite middle it and Big Al took a stunning catch, running and diving towards the boundary at cow corner before insouciantly rolling over, standing up and wandering back with the ball in his hand. 

A lovely moment then followed, as Rob Sutherland finally got to walk onto the pitch to the strains of ‘Noises for the Leg’ by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band – a mere 13 years, 4 months and 13 days since he’d expressed the wish to do so in Off The Peg (whatever happened to, etc). With a sentimental eye, Big Al called up Sensei Steve Smith to bowl to his not-quite-father-in-law. This turned out to be an inspired stroke as Steve managed to drop Rob twice off his own bowling before, in the confusion over the second instance, DA ran Rob out instead.

Disconcertingly, Ady White was the next batter. Before you read too much into that, the disconcerting bit was him walking out to ‘I’m Too Sexy’, which most of us thought he saved for Thursday night aqua aerobics. He was greeted with a field which featured the entire Chairbird team stationed on the leg side in deference to his favourite pull through midwicket. Needless to say, he then deftly dabbed his first ball through the gully region for a couple of runs. Big Al countered such audacity by playing the family card, throwing the newly-peroxided Sam Cossins into the attack – much to the delight of 50 perCent behind the stumps, who unleashed a string of Eminem-related observations, the final one of which (‘Hey Sam, is your dad also a drug dealer?’) so distracted Ady that he hit the ball straight to the (definitely not drug dealing – Libel Ed) parent in question. Marshall Mathers/Sam then accounted for the now barnet-less Jonny Barnett, clean bowling the owner of PSCC’s most impressive moustache. 

Elsewhere, The Secretary was now engaged in another epic battle with Lofty. We’ve mentioned his possible bunnies, but Pete is definitely his nemesis. In almost two decades of trying, he has never got him out. Fortunately the very loud expletive that he oAered during this spell was actually due to slipping in his delivery stride rather than the consecutive balls that bounced over leg and then middle stump. He didn’t get his man.

Jamie came in to play a captain’s innings at the death and indeed some of his hitting was sumptuous – right up to the last ball of the innings. At that point he inexplicably decided to try to reverse sweep. Ordinarily that would be a fine idea, but it does rather need to be played against a bowler who will put the ball in a given spot. He was facing The Secretary, a man who has never knowingly put a ball anywhere twice in a row. As a result neither ball nor batter were close to being in the right place to play a shot like that, Jamie fell over and somehow both landed on his back and hit his own stumps. Nonetheless, the President’s XIII closed on a very respectable 181-8. 

There was a rare occurrence at the start of the Chairbird XIII innings (and we don’t mean the sight of CMAC bowling to five slips). The team’s opening pair were the Sensei, and Cally. Cally spent almost all of the first innings fielding at fine leg, presumably because there were scorebooks over there and she wanted to be close to them. Steve set the pace of the innings by biffing four boundaries from Caitlin’s opening over, but when he called Cally through for a leg bye in the next over it marked the first known occurrence of someone telling her what to do in public and getting away with it.

In some ways, it wasn’t destined to be Cally’s day. Not only did that happen, but then she was denied her first ever run for PSCC by – of all things – a diving Pete Lofty, after which she was then bowled by a great delivery from Jamie. Only later did we discover that she was batting with a bat so heavy that even Ajith ‘Six Bats’ Pillai would baulk at it. Still, she did win it from Greg James and James Anderson, so who are we to judge? 

Who should come strolling out to bat next than Mr Paul Goodchild himself, reinventing himself as a top order batter now that he can no longer get his arm over. He sort of dug in for a long innings as wickets tumbled around him. The Sensei went for one drive too many and was bowled by Jonny. Enter 50 perCent. Exit 50 perCent, caught by Jamie off Jonny. Enter the Mexican. Exit the Mexican, caught by Archie off Cherriott.  

This brought DA to the crease, the only man spared the walk-on music (no-one picked up The Secretary humming ‘Scatterlings of Africa’, we presume?) but definitely the man for this sort of occasion. He swiftly struck three sixes and four fours, and was well on the way to the first 50 of the game when Lofty intervened once again, grasping the ball at deep cover as DA attempted to lose another ball in the woods.

Goody was still there, though. He wasn’t scoring many runs, indeed he wasn’t hitting the ball that often, but there was one sumptuous drive for four and a number of nurdled singles. Could he be the unlikely hero of this chase? Indeed, could he stay awake long enough to be the unlikely hero of this chase?

Sam Cossins doesn’t have a run-up. Or at least, he runs up, but not necessarily from the same place each time. It’s a technique which reminds one of another (more naturally) blond tearaway, Jeff ‘I just run in and go ‘whang’’ Thomson. But what Sam Cossins has, and which even in his prime Thommo lacked, is the energy to bowl and field for both teams. The upshot of this is that Sam Cossins ran in, went ‘whang’, Goody swung, and skied a catch to Jamie at mid-on. At 110-6 with only five overs left, the Chairbirds were out of the game. 

Or were they? Enter two-thirds of the PSCC vice-captaincy in James and Matt. In four overs they managed to bludgeon 67 runs, James even deigning to hit a rare six in the aid of the cause. It was without doubt a thrilling passage of play, with some great shots, some brave running and very little luck. Sadly, though, it ended with the first ball of the final over as Jamie, again taking the responsibility as captain, bowled James.

Chairman-elect Nick Loftus was next to the crease. On the sidelines there was some mild panic. Big Al still had to bat, but Parag and The Secretary were engaged in a hearty debate over which of them wasn’t going to bat after him, both refusing to put any pads on – or, in Parag’s case, any shoes either.

Ultimately, none of this mattered. Nick needed three off the last ball to win the game for the Chairbirds. Instead, Jamie scattered his stumps. The President’s XIII had won by just two runs. 

It would be remiss not to mention Bobby Fryer and Richard Spooner, who umpired the entire game with skill, great humour (tolerating the DJ’s habit of playing ‘Three Blind Mice’ every time he disagreed with a decision) and a wanton disregard for the rule about not taking pint glasses on to the pitch. Thanks also to Ray Sippett and Jillian Armiger, who not only scored through the rain showers, the crowds and the knowledge that they were scoring a game that Cally was actually playing in, and to Tilly Cossins for stepping away from the scorebook and assuming the mantle of photographer for much of the game. And a special word for Parag Wartak, who flew over from India, bowled beautifully, and only got shoehorned (almost literally) into the narrative at the end.

The player of the match award went to Pete Lofty, who won a bottle of something acceptable donated by the very generous Ian Jones. The duck hat made a reappearance and was awarded to Sam Martin for his sartorial elegance (and for not scoring any runs). 

Teams

Chairbird’s XIII: Steve Smith, Cally Sutherland, Paul Goodchild, Sam Martin (wk), Asif Teja, David Adams, James Sempill, Matthew Hewlett, Alistair Cossins (capt), Parag Wartak, Richard O’Hagan, Sam Cossins

President’s XIII: Dave Jones, Matt Reavey, Tyler Armiger (wk), Archer White, Caitlin Macken, Vishal Gounder, Chris Herriott, Pete Lofty, Rob Sutherland, Ady White, Jonny Barnett, Jamie Fryer (capt), Sam Cossins

Officials: Robert Fryer (umpire), Richard Spooner (umpire), Jillian Armiger (scorer), Ray Sippett (scorer), Tilly Cossins (photographer)