Written by Simon Drewett and Tim Pollard
Saturday 17 Jun 2017
Seventeen things we learned when we played the Will Davies XI
1) Southwick sizzles
Fortress Oval basked in 30deg heat last Saturday, as the Strokers gathered to host the annual Will Davies tourists. Extra supplies of Hophead were reserved to quench thirst; ice baths were reserved in the Shucks’ chill-out area upstairs; and the wicket resembled a Soweto township square, all dust and danger only a deck-slamming delivery away. It was hot with a capital F.
2) We like teams who meet at The Ship
The visitors met at midday at Oundle’s most historic watering hole – a move approved of by all Strokers, whose preferred warm-up involves an elbow flex of pint-sized proportions. The pace rarely let up all day and it’s fair to say the banter and boozery displayed by the thirstier tourists (that’s you, Hicks) was a joy to behold. Had we found our Stroking equals at last?
3) When push comes to shove, we can set a competitive target
After some fine skipperly tossing (outcome unknown), the Strokers padded up and strode to the crease to launch one of their best starts in recent memory. Hill (28 retired) and Alcorn jointly added 40 before Donald hoiked one off his old schoolmate to be caught for a combative dozen runs. The hosts batted deep – give or take some mild buffoonery in the middle orders – with Drewett adding a tidy 21, Kisiel 14 and old friend Extras a stout 39, ticking the scoreline along handsomely to a competitive 141 off 20 overs.
4) Rebranding agencies put on tender
The Strokers© are seeking professional help after falling foul of the spam filter at Kier, where a couple of our more constructive members hang out by day. Skipper Potter has been variously testing Strocers and Strikers in his correspondence subject line, although some wag suggested that the Strokiers may be more appropriate to qualify for the group whitelist.
5) Hit the bails hard enough and they will fly
Bats hung up, the Strokers took to the field. Punched by a pumped-up Hill, the wicket of one hapless Davies player was sent flying backwards – the bail landing exactly halfway to the boundary. Hill’s figures were the pick of the first innings, taking a tidy three wickets for few runs, as he demolished the most threatening Davies mob, assisted by Venn and Pollard with a pair apiece.
6) Hit the balls hard enough, and they will implode
C. Thompson fielded like a true hero, leaping around the ground and generally throwing himself in front of danger like an early Evel Knievel prototype. On one occasion he jumped in front of a flashing blade, with devastating personal implications. It was worth it though, helping restrict the Will Davies XI to 125 all out before tea.
7) It was too hot to eat
The Shuckburgh turned into a waterhole at half time, as cricketers quaffed liquid and shunned food in the most ungreedy display of abstinence yet seen by 22 strapping middle-aged gimps athletes. If you squinted a little bit, we could have been on the African steppe, sun beating down on a dusty earth, vulturish red kites circling their prey overhead with a staccato coo.
8) The first follow-on ever enforced at the Oval?
And so, with a handsome lead of 16 runs and a glint in his eye, captain Potter politely asked the oppo to follow on. Already red-faced and melting from a 20-over stint in the heat of the day, the Strokers dragged themselves out from the shade of the Shuck into the glare of the sun once more for more punishment in the final 10-over thrash.
9) It’s hard graft bowling uphill in 30deg heat
Despite a big-hearted effort from the Stroker attack line-up, our oppo made a better fist of their second dig and proceeded to run us ragged in the field, managing 84 from their 10 overs without a single boundary. The relief was audible when our ordeal finally came to an end, not least from C.Thompson who’d taken three direct hits at short extra, and Hill who discovered that sprinting up the slope off a long run in 30 degrees immediately after tea is a job best left to younger men. Honourable mentions to T. Thompson and Hollands who both rattled the timbers, the former courtesy of a superb in-ducking yorker and the latter a slightly less impressive half-tracker that hit the base of the stumps (another ‘assist’ for groundsman Todd).
10) 911 drivers really are heroes
Depleted by the loss of Pollard and Alcorn (predictably) to society balls and with C.Thompson now operating on only one leg, the late-arriving Todd was welcomed as never before, like reinforcements might have been at Rorke’s Drift. Todd arrived in a plume of Porsche-fired smoke, skidding into the Shuckburgh’s car park and leaping into action like a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot turning up to knock the Hun out of an azure sky…
11) Brotherly love in the second innings
So we were left with a target of 68 from our 10 overs. Manageable but far from straightforward, particularly against younger, fitter opponents who’d had their feet up for the previous three hours (admittedly with beer in hand for most of it). And let’s not forget our middle order’s innate ability to collapse with gimp-like precision. With the batting order reversed, the Thompson Twins (sorry, brothers) created Strok(i)ers history by striding/hobbling to the crease together. More history was created moments later when they found themselves back in the hutch with a pair of ducks to their name.
12) A Stroking Collapse (not of the medical kind)
The neat line of blobs in the scorecard was curtailed by Potter who managed a couple, by which time our score had progressed to just 11 for 3 off 3 overs. Hollands was next to go, cleaned up by the classy-looking White (a proper MCC qualifier no less). At 28 for 4 and with half our overs gone, we were well behind the rate and bottoms were beginning to squeak beyond the boundary’s edge.
13) Cometh the hour, cometh the men
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Our vice-skipper Kisiel continued his fine run of form for the season and wrested the initiative back for the Strokers, retiring after a rapid 20. Atkinson was an unlucky victim of umpire Potter’s questionable knowledge of the no-ball rule, but Drewett gleefully latched on to a succession of full tosses and long hops before he too retired, leaving the final reckoning: 8 required off 12 balls.
14) A fine pair
Venn looked to finish things off in characteristic style but succeeded only in re-writing the record books himself by clobbering his second ball into the balcony at Boundary House, thus adding zero to the duck he had registered earlier in the afternoon… Surely the first ‘pair’ in the history of cricket at the Southwick Oval?
15) The scorebook never lies
Unfortunately your correspondents might, for the Bible was photographed at miserly 640-pixel width and with an impressive lack of focus, making interpreting any numbers trickier than playing bingo half-cut in Oundle Town Hall during a power cut. Still, you get the gist of it…
16) Strokers do know how to pull off a good finish at the end of a hot, sweaty session
There the drama ended, however. The risk of simultaneous cardiac arrest to both captain and vice captain subsided as the last pair of Hill and Todd coolly biffed a boundary apiece – we were home with an over to spare!
17) We’re unbeaten
Exhausted but elated, the Strokers’ 100% start to the season continues. You read that right. Do not retune your sets – we are undefeated and it’s nearly July! Turned out sunny again…