Far From The MCC

~ Est. in 1998 ~

 

“Paradise Lost Again

As Mad Go Down At Milton”

 

 

Sunday 28th June 2009

Result:  Lost by 28 Runs

Venue:  Bloxham

35 overs

Milton CC

159 ao

M. Reeves  5 - 29

FFTMCC

131 - 9

I. Howarth  74*,  T. Smith  21

 

 

 

Milton was a great poet by all accounts, though when I read Paradise Lost at university, shortly before dropping out, I frankly found it pretty boring. Promising story, however, all about this angel who gets sick of God and his goody-two-shoes ways and decides to become Mr Evil. So, after seeing one too many heavy metal bands and taking them far too seriously, the evil angel calls himself Lucifer and stuffs it up for mankind by tempting Adam and Eve with that famous apple. Should have stuck with Spinal Tap, I guess.

 

 

Pre-match training in Milton is never poetic.

 

But the point about poetry – and all works of art – is that they both reflect the great mind that created them, and speak in different ways to their audience.

 

Naturally, the same is true for cricket. No matter what the game, no matter who is watching, the play will unfold differently for all who see it, despite the result being the same for everyone. As in art, so in cricket: the game is in the eye of the beholder.

 

* * *

 

Winning the toss at Milton, the home side put themselves in to bat, keen to assert themselves and re-establish over the Mad their ascendancy of recent years. Striding to the crease with intent came the pair of Wilby and Quinney, both elegant and correct in their play, mainly offside, and in fact disdainful of anything that went leg, reasoning that it did not properly demonstrate the true glory of the batsman’s craft.

 

 

JP (top left) enjoys the Milton toilet facilities.

 

The pair prospered until Quinney (21) departed, looping a top edge back to Emerson (6-0-20-1), whose medium pace had finally broken through. With the diminutive Houseman going soon after for 4 via the left-arm inswing of JP Collins (5-1-19-1), the Mad looked cheered, but Fletcher and Wilby set about rebuilding, and the score had reached 103 by the time Hoskins (6-0-35-1) removed Fletcher with one of his fast yorkers from the Rickety Barn End.

 

There followed a collapse which, for a time, made the watching spectators (two cows and a banana cake) think that the teams had swapped sides and that now the Mad were batting. From 125-4 Milton slipped to 129-8, with Lambden, Hopkins, Bedward and Plumb all unlucky to be caught after playing so many of their previous shots along the turf. Unfortunately for the record books, Plumb was not out lbw. Finally it was the turn of the trim Wilby, departing for a pleasing 59 after top-edging a slow pie from Howarth (4-1-15-1) into the back pocket of Emerson fielding at fine man.

 

 

Ian Leggate would get far too excited watching M. Reeves bowl.

 

Main architect of this destruction? One M. Reeves (7-0-29-5), whose five-wicket haul demonstrated at last the potential which his promise had implied, and who had been sorely missed during his weeks toiling through South Africa on a skateboard. Bowling from the Big Top End, underarm with a parrot on his shoulder, the doughty Mancunian with the wooden teeth soon had the Milton lads in a pickle, and it was not long before they had surrendered up their wickets like so many virginities in the face of alcohol and charm.   

 

As the sun rose over the hay rick beyond the old WWII bomber, A. Darley (5.5-0-31-1) it was who chipped in with the last wicket, C. Houseman for 5.

 

 

All poker and no sleep makes Darley a tired boy, (repeat)….

 

With Milton posting a useful 159 on their home turf, freshly clipped with scissors and as smooth as a baby’s ice rink, it was a case of runs on the board, a total which the Mad would always find challenging – not least because of the strangely convenient change in weather conditions which occurred as soon as the Mad’s opening pair walked onto the pitch. With openers Howarth and the flamboyant Hebbes setting foot on the Miltonian sward, brilliant sunshine was at once replaced with a lightning and hail storm of such proportions that it was difficult for the players to see more than three or four hundred yards in front of them.

 

Hebbes (9) soon departed, leg-glancing to fine silly third who caught the ball in his trousers, and so the Mad procession had begun. The classy and experienced Leggate followed for 1, after which Dobner, oozing confidence as usual, went for an assured 5. T. Smith did eke out a useful 21 by dint of his conservative approach, but Darley (0) failed to cash in, apparently being distracted by a brace of rabbits in the outfield. The right-handed former Bodleian stalwart Reeves (5) departed thereafter, and next went the aggressive Hotson, retired hurt for 2 after top edging a boiling kettle into his jaw. Hoskins played straight for his 5, while the Aussie ringer Collins opted to bag a duck after confusing himself with Michael Atherton. Last to fall was Emerson, who had dragged himself away from a teetotaller’s meeting for the five minutes it took him to score a solitary run.

 

 

High-quality stump camera action of I. Howarth’s (74*) innings in vain….

 

All of which left opener and former Mad skipper I. Howarth to carry his bat in a losing cause, stranded on 74 while the wickets fell around him. Howarth’s innings comprised his usual doughty defence mixed in with elegant off-side play, as well as being an exact opposite of the famous Milton Bungle of 2007, in which the then-skipper had reversed the order and batted himself at eleven for reasons still best known only to himself. But not even this appeal to reverse symmetry could save the Mad from another defeat at the hands of Milton, who by now must be accustomed to seeing the Mad snatch defeat from victory’s gaping jaws. All out 131 was 28 short, with kudos to the wily Bedward, who took 5-16 with his slow medium pacers, and was thus rewarded with his best ever figures, the 141st opposition player to have that honour bestowed by the Mad.

 

For FFTMCC, paradise will have to wait another year.

 

 

‘Camera Obscura’

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

MOTM:  M. Reeves’ 5-for

Champagne Moment:  D. Emerson’s catch on the boundary

Buffet Award:  J. Hoskins’ jacket potatoes and homemade chilli

 

 

 

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