St Mary Bourne braved the weather and came to Oakley yesterday, joining in an game that only went ahead because the Sunday Captain, Ian Bennett, is essentially a rugby player, and in his mind the pitch was in great nick, despite a fork going into the strip as if though it was made of butter.
Ian felt the pitch was in great nick despite circumstantial evidence to the contrary
Still, such each is the stoical nature of the standard Sunday cricketer, ahead the game went with the pitch, remarkably, at least taking a little bit of bounce, despite a fortnight of perpetual rain or showers tearing through our summer and morphing it into a premature autumn.
Oakley batted first and to be fair, they batted well, with Bob Lethaby’s well-crafted 11 the pick of the bunch. There were also cameos for Clive Welsman who made 50 and Alex ‘Flake’ Brundle who made 99 before getting cleaned bowled when going for a late innings heave at thin air.
The Oaks finished on 239 on a pitch where a total of 25 had looked about par, so the assumption was a dominant victory and an early finish for these crazy mavericks of the Sunday game.
However, no one told the boys from Bourne that, and a dogged response made it a competitive and enjoyable game, particularly when Brad Compton -Bearne utilised the dancing skills he has honed in ‘Fever’ nightclub, a place where he is a perpetual hit with the fine fair maidens of Popley 2.
Brad went to take a catch, lost his bearings and was forced into a late somersault over the boundary fence. Coco the Clown couldn’t have performed a better moment of comedy, which is now becoming synonymous with the man they call BCB…well I do anyway, it makes life easier. I hate having to write Brad Compton-Bearne all the time, the hyphen really pisses me off and knocks me out of my stride.
In an eventual score of all-out for 185 which gave the Bourne identity (see what I did there) the real star of the show was emerging sensation, Ian ‘Fred’ Bennet, who took an excellent four for.
Well I say excellent but I should really say awesome, as that is how Ian describes everything. You could hand Ian a Rich Tea biscuit, a copy of ‘Knitting Weekly’ and Gary Barlow Greatest Hits album and he would still say…. That’s AAAAAWWWWWSOME mate!
So what did the trick was an awesome combination of pies, half-trackers and long hops that had Bob Lethaby writhing with bitter envy, safe in the knowledge that his best days as the worst Oaks bowler since Maureen ‘Seamer’ Sedgewick, the retired tea lady and left arm quickie, were over.
Steve Savage’s Book of Oakley records shows Maureen’s best figures as 3-17-10 against Whiteditch Rams in a rain affected match back in late September 1963…oh what a night that was.
Every player got a game of sorts yesterday and two catches for Ben ‘The Cat’ Allum summed up a day when it wasn’t just Bob’s 11 runs that grabbed the headlines in one of mostly hotly contested and quite possibly, the only contested fixture, on yesterday’s cricket calendar.
It was one of those days that will live in the memory bank for minutes, possibly hours, to come.
