The Bacchus XI vs the V&A CC

MATCH REPORT –The V&A CC vs The Bacchus XI – Stonor Park – 7 August 2022

The hardships and privations which we were called on to endure were of a very minor order, the dangers which we ran were considerably less than those to be encountered on any arterial road during a heatwave; and if, in any part of this book, I have given a contrary impression, I have done so unwittingly … beyond the completion of a 3000 mile journey, mostly under amusing conditions, through a little known part of the world, and the discovery of one new tributary to a tributary to a tributary of the Amazon, nothing of importance was achieved.
-- PETER FLEMING, Brazilian Adventure

Human vanity is such that I rarely hope for much interest in the prefatory material to the res gestae of the XI. Readers, I know, glance casually over the tortuously lyrical scene-setting, in search of the details of Dominic’s opening stand, Freddie’s big score, or [insert your own favourite Thing That Doesn’t Happen].

Nevertheless: Long after I ought to have been in bed with a warm drink early in the week of the match, I began reading the V&A’s match reports, and communicated some of the more alarming details to a member of the servant-executive which leads our plebeian cricketing collective by its example. The information prompted the following exchange:

ESTL: Shitting hell.
PHH: This could be a rough, rough day.
ESTL: Jesus Christ their website is so legit.
PHH: I misjudged this whole thing very badly indeed.
Very badly.
ESTL: Their match reports discuss half-centuries as if they were no big deal.
PHH: Oh fuck.
I really should have twigged this.
They’re all really bloody young as well.
Oh fuck.

This proved to be one of the more emotionally turbulent periods of our lives. The V&A talk ye Merrie Coarse Cricket talk, but walk the sort of walk that scores over three hundred in a thirty-five over match. Last year, in a fixture called off due to rain that never materialised, we had planned to face them with a side composed of not much more than Good Club Men and their dogs, with surplus lukewarm tins our contribution to refreshment. I have grown quite accustomed to the dreams in which that weather forecast proves clement and the match goes ahead, and now only occasionally wake screaming in the small hours.

Another peculiarity of our relationship with the V&A was a product of our disturbing research. This gave us a weird familiarity with individuals we had never met. In between exchanging pleasantries and pleading miserably with their doughty captain Rob Taylor, I had to feign surprise at details of his teammates’ characters when in fact I knew all their names, averages, and inside leg measurements, and could make a fair surmise of which of them weren’t loved as children. I certainly knew more about them than about the assembled Bacchants. I had woken that morning on the floor of a strange house full of cardboard boxes.

I did not disclose to the worthy Rob that until eighteen hours ago we had been planning to dissolve the XI and flee to Chile with the club assets. Prior to that, Cubitt had been summoned away by political events and SU had fallen into the sea; the team was looking like last year’s outfit, minus the dogs. It was only the promise that Ben ‘Dark Satanic’ Mills had opened the batting for his school – the School of Hard Knocks, I believe – that postponed our flight.

Rob fielded the usual lies with tact, as if he really believed that the coach carrying our sound middle order batsmen and brilliant spin attack was trapped in a ravine, but they all led to the blunt truth: that we hadn’t won a match for a calendar year and please could they bat first? I overheard him repeating these facts to his teammates and deeply resented him for it. But resented or no, the deed was done and the V&A openers were padded up, two geezers described by Rob as “dead white males”. The Bacchants took to the field, with the exception of Ramsy who was simply Not There, getting on for two hours after the (fraudulently) advertised start time; I had not realised that he was travelling in the fictional ravine-bound coach, but then nor had I realised that he was a sound middle-order batsman.

Larken was to skipper (hoho); Catwater and Mr Gee were to open the bowling; I was to keep wicket, with no more tears than were dignified. The V&A openers were pleasant fellows who took my awkward sledging in good heart and did not smirk excessively at our employment of multiple backstops – if only because the need for them was made clear by my ropey handling of Catwater’s first over.

Then, in Charlie’s first over, he found some lovely movement off the seam and took an edge, and without any dexterous contribution from me the ball stuck to the gloves. A simple take for a competent keeper – a bloody miracle in present company. I went and apologised to the other dead white male for an excessive celebration.

Now we had avoided the ever-menacing but never-achieved feat of not taking any wickets, the Bacchants could enjoy the sun and the scenery, and I spent the next half-hour trying in vain to stop Seb from singing. Their new man was worryingly alive-looking and able to despatch the bad ball down the slope, over the road, through distant foliage and very possibly into the ravine. Ben Mills was sent to the leeward boundary to deploy his howitzer of an arm when the ball was periodically thumped into Hertfordshire. This was threatening to become habitual, but Charlie and the ball have an understanding and he coaxed another to nip back and the fiery one was out leg-before, playing on, and any other way you like. I even claimed the catch.

Their next man was in fact a boy, which alarmed a side still twitching from a thrashing by juveniles. He seemed jumpy at the crease, and Bacchants who really do not have a fucking clue made snide remarks about orthodox technique; he was also chastised by his partner for calling the run too late, and Larken did not even prostrate himself in shame. As often happens when batsmen seem nervous (though also when they seem confident, and also at myriad other times) the Bacchant bowling faltered and the youth’s wicket defied us. This was depressing, so we changed bowler and Ben earned his Blakean soubriquet from the V&A umpires, an effete poetic-type reference which left the Bacchants nonplussed. The only literary embellishment that had occurred to us for Mills was ‘& Boon’.

With or without this learned baggage – though almost certainly with dark, satanic assistance – he dispatched the surviving opener with some superb late swing to knacker the off-stump. Their number five looked tired and frail. He complained of a hangover as one would of a seasoned and respected adversary; he moaned about split finger webbing like a frog; he thrashed us to all parts. In the continued absence of our fictional spin attack, Larken put himself on and packed the backward square-leg boundary.

This provided the spectacle that devotees of the Bacchant game have learnt to savour. The V&A’s report even extends to the indignity of his bowling figures: 4-0-53-0. Opportunities for catches were not lacking, but the fielders always managed to find excuses to be elsewhere. One high swipe went straight down Charlie Gee’s throat, but he had the bad grace to move his throat out of the way.

Mills bowled the kid three overs before lunch, and a Vitruvian-looking player did some beautiful forward defensives before we broke for grub, the score 154-4 off 24 overs. Having lunch is an excellent idea and we ate splendidly under the eyes of circling red kites, who threatened to snatch George away if he was left unsupervised. He was making a gradual recovery from the previous night and probably wouldn’t have put up much resistance.

Anyhow, I had a terrific lunch, wildly enjoyed a Lancaster fly-past, drank lots of wicket-keeping juice (many gamely assumed that Chapel Down had a branded ‘Bacchus’ range just for us – and why the hell shouldn’t they?) and chatted with the V&As – none of whom, incidentally, are officially connected to that rather baroque Kensington café – about the merits or otherwise of starting and running a travelling cricket team. It was a finely balanced debate and I returned to the field unsure.

Lunching, as noted, is an excellent idea. So good in fact that one wonders why we ever do anything else, like cricket. Bacchus shared my uncertainties, and the V&A score for the post-lunch session was an unjolly 124-1 off eleven overs. Our non-players, meanwhile, had an exceedingly jolly time.

The pertinent features of the narrative were Ramsy’s readmission to the field (he had arrived during the fifth over and been sent to the nets to think about what he’d done) and his remarkably sound contribution the bowling. One of the batsmen was particularly keen that we give him a go, which sounded fishy to me, but Larken saw through the double bluff and ‘Michael’ Polding as nobody will ever call him kept a good and inexpensive line. This was not the only occasion that I demurred with our fine captain’s judgement, and there are judgmental sorts who would suggest that it is poor form for a keeper to argue bitchily about the position of mid-on, but I am uncontrite: if Larken wanted deference he should have written this bloody match report.

I was given a bowl much as one gives an irritating toddler an electric fly-swat: in the full knowledge that any momentary amusement it affords them, or relief in brings you, will be rapidly outweighed by their mounting frustration and possible injury. I was promptly amused when some dross miles wide of off persuaded he of the split webbing to take a straight-batted swing which he top-edged to point where – glory be – Seb took the catch.

Then dross resumed, and their new batsman who really did seem to be named Pilchard tore it to shreds for the remainder. Everybody very decently howled vicious appeals when my last ball hit his pads, but as the hirsute umpire fairly observed, he would have given it as a wide had the Pilchard not stepped a couple of yards outside his leg-stump to have a swing at it. I call this ‘variation’.

There was no leisure between innings, because there never is. Mills donned his pads and looked convincing; Larken was stapled into his and looked twelve. The usual cry went up: ‘Does anybodyelse know any of the rules?’. Somebody smarmily said: ‘It’s laws.’ But nobody did. Seb and I went out to umpire and I felt sick at the prospect of another ringside seat to a Bacchus opening partnership – but Mills thumped three fours off the first V&A over.

This run rate would have won us the game in 24 overs and was giving Larken a nosebleed. Normal service resumed when he left every ball of his first over, and the next half-hour followed this pattern of fine attacking play at one end and shuddering defence at the other. After a particularly ropey bit of blocking from Larken, the V&A square-leg ventured to me that to a full and straight ball he’d be a goner. ‘You might well think that, Mr Square-Leg,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’

Larken was promptly bowled by a full and straight one. Ramsy came in at three, apparently keen ‘to get some runs under his belt’ before a match for his old school – which confused us, for surely hadn’t Bacchus taught him everything he knew? We didn’t have long to ponder the question, as he sent his second ball high over their kid at point, who leapt like he’d trod on an anti-tank mine and took a staggering one-handed catch falling backwards through the air. It was a hard not to admire, but somehow I managed it; Polding gone for a Gate, to be succeeded by yer man himself, was a worry.

If ‘Freddie’s Big Score’ sounds like a Ladybird book title, it belies the length of his innings, which could be told in far less than the statutory twenty pages of alternating illustrations and text. Two lovely fours – his first boundaries for Bacchus – and bowled. Then the child came on to bowl. He had been nice about our kit during the interval and I was inclined to treat him with respect; Mills disagreed, took a dark, satanic swing at a ball miles outside off, nicked it and the keeper held on. The phrase you’re looking for is ‘Fuck’.

It's always hard to determine the precise point when hope dies. Is it as the wicket falls? Or as the runs falter? Or six hours, or days, or months before the match? Suffice that by the time Catwater and Seb were the partnership, hope was not showing any of the seven biological signs of life.

This allowed spectators to savour Riley’s shots – beginning to betray the symptoms of strokeplay – for their own pure worth. It did not relieve them from the agonies of Seb’s batting, very much from the catching practice school. Somehow he made 22, but his most impressive feat was inducing violence among the fielders: one of several balls wafted up was about to be easily taken by short cover, until a sprinting mid-off made a two-footed sliding tackle on him down the hill. It was glorious, but it was not cricket. Seb had to go for 22.

During the tea interval, Catwater requested a plan. In the absence of prospects, we told him to enjoy himself. Where Riley really gets his kicks is getting out leg-before to misjudged long-hops: gone for 32. Hope was moving along the crematorium conveyer belt with ‘My Way’ playing.

Brief cameos followed from George and Charlie. I strode on in a manner I hoped looked buccaneering, and buccaneeringly top-edged my first ball into my face. Once it was confirmed that no teeth were lost and my nose no further off centre than is becoming in a poet, I set to a match-saving partnership with Adele, who did an admirable job of defending her stumps but eventually nicked one high which was taken by a tumbling thespian. Jeffers – who else? – thumped two glorious fours, or in the V&A’s more lyrical description ‘slapped them to the boundary like a ginger stepchild’, and I was bowled and we all went to a pub called the Golden Ball and drank beer and ate chips and for some reason we were carrying all of the ham from lunch and we drank tawny port on the train and went home. Any questions?

SCORECARD

V&A CC
V Grantham c Hudson b Gee 3
R Hayley b Mills 20
J Tetlow b Gee 22
N Scott-Ram b Mills 29
N Constantine c Taite-Ellis b Hudson 78
L Nieboer not out 74
A Pitlarge not out 14

Extras 38
Total (35 overs) 278

Bacchus XI
B Mills c Taylor b Scott-Ram 34
E S T Larken b Pitlarge 5
R Polding c Scott-Ram b Pitlarge 0
F Gate b Constantine 8
S Riley lbw b Grantham 32
S Taite-Ellis b Scott-Ram 22
G Jones c Nieboer b Scott-Ram 1
C Gee b Grantham 0
P H Hudson b Nieboer 10
A Schiff c Nieboer b Grantham 0
W Jefferies not out 11

Extras 7b 6lb 2w 15
Total (27.1 overs) 141

V&A WIN BY 137 RUNS