The Bacchus XI vs Wytham CC

MATCH REPORT – Wytham CC vs The Bacchus XI – Wytham – 7 May 2023

We stood side by side, my cousin and I, and viewed the disaster with the gloomy, helpless ignorance of jurymen at a coroner’s inquest, and the mirage of tea that had risen before our thirsty eyes a few moments before, sank into the yellow sand in which wallowed our broken-winged wagonette.
-- E ΠSOMERVILLE & MARTIN ROSS, In the Vine Country

THE GOOD NEWS was the new wicket. When last we ventured the ridges and ravines of the Wytham playing fields, the cricket (for so it was) was played on a decayed rectangle of green mush – as dappled a thing as Hopkins ever said Glory Be To God for. To say that our batsmen found it unfriendly would erroneously imply that any of them stayed on it long enough to discern its amity or otherwise. We were bowled out for 68 inside 22 overs.

But this time… The fresh fake turf had been cut straight from the Telly Tubbies set, the early spring sun was high, the Protestant King was newly crowned and our batting order had a rich nougat centre of bona fide quality. Ramsy was even wearing trousers, so the man at the other end wouldn’t be distracted from defence by the sight of knees. By putting a bit of effort in, I won the toss; time, shurely, for the Bacchants to honestly and bravely pad up first? Less haste, my gallant cavalier – the season holds ample time for such stupidity. Charlie Gee and I would open the bowling.

Riley did not take kindly to losing his place at the top of the attack, even when it was diffidently explained that we were reserving his quality for the stronger Wytham batsmen. To his immense credit, he scorned this flattery, betraying a true Corinthian spirit that cared for neither individual nor team success, but only prestige. He has since asked in future matches to be allowed to bowl his overs and then retire from the field to rest, a suggestion of such outlandish naffness that I shall ensure it follows him to his Catwatery grave.

As it was, we were twelve, and I asked Herr Vittenklopp, the noted botanist, to sit out a few overs. He looked hurt, thinking this was done more out of scorn for his fielding than regard for his botany, but he didn’t have long to sulk as Ramsy announced that the weight of full-length trousers had already exhausted him and he subbed himself off. Herr Vittenklopp sullenly returned and we scattered amid the waist-high slurry-flecked grass of the outfield.

DESPITE SOME unhelpful shouting about “Gee-spots” on the wicket, Charlie bowled with superb parsimony. From the other end, I offered “variety” – an expensive taste, but the burlesque of wides and no-balls included a decidedly pedestrian wicket. The old Middlesex hand Jim Sims advised the youthful Mike Brearley: “A straight ball, Michael, has a certain lethal quality. If you miss it, you’ve ‘ad it.” Consider me a disciple.

This brought a small and rather angry man to the crease, who roared abuse at his partner for not joining him in suicidal quick singles. He scored a couple tipping a full ball past Jeffers at backward square-leg and I thought, “Aha! I shall pitch it shorter on off.” Instead, I bowled exactly the same ball, but yer man misjudged the same shot and was Inevitably caught at backward square-leg.

Catwater was now into the attack, joined by Dominic because I get in trouble if I don’t give him a turn. Fortuitously, they were bowling to the stronger batsmen. Cloud cover notwithstanding, Catwater bowled beautifully and leaked just four runs in his four over spell; Dominic offered little more. This taut, fascinating contest was giving everybody headaches. Worse, one batsman was left-handed so the short extra-cover where I was supposed to be kept hopping across the field, leaving me confusedly wandering around the wicket as if I wasn’t quite sure what anybody was doing here. Now and again I would attempt to polish the ball, but whatever my whites are made from seemed only to lacerate it further. I noticed it had “CLUBMAN” written on it, and pondered this in my heart.

Rob Truell was generously pretending I wasn’t senile while rearranging my nonsensical field placements. Spitefully, I gave him a bowl on a wicket watered with spinners’ tears. (This is a joke: artificial wickets don’t need watering, and Rob Truell doesn’t cry. We’ve tried.) He went for 16 in his first over and the contest lost some of its tautness and fascination. This period also featured an episode of Bacchic wit. The irksome left-hander loudly nicked one behind but it wasn’t given and he refused to budge; Dominic, now keeping wicket, hollered an unlikely appeal a few balls later.

LEFTY: If you appeal every ball, you won’t get anything.
DAH: Well, if you don’t walk when you’ve hit it…er…you’re a twat.

Like a punter slowly, awfully realising that the house always wins, we pulled more frantically on the one-armed bandit of Bacchus bowling. SU sent down a little bit of everything, and had it sent back as sixes and fours. We played the joker (this is not as sustained casino metaphor) and everybody came in for the Jeffers hattrick ball. Now: there are nasty, ugly, ill-mannered types who will tell you that the first three balls of Jeffers’s over went for two runs apiece – but the beautiful and wise people remember only a catch by Ben-who-is-Jake at mid-off and the times becoming happier.

With Mr Gee back to desiccate one end, Riley started rattling through the other, skittling the new man and then knocking over the twat two balls later. I resumed some lobbing of the Sims school, with two very gratifyingly caught and another bowled, and Riley picked up a third. We came agonisingly close to bowling out an eleven for the first time but were thrown off our mettle by their number nine scoring a very fast and ominous 33. (He was, apparently, more of a bowler really.) They finished on 205 – a little steep, but remember that nougat – and I had figures of 7-0-5-38: the mathematical proof that Shit Gets Wickets.

WYTHAM’S TEA includes, thrillingly, actual tea, and for once there was enough time to drink buckets of the stuff. More thrillingly yet, we had remembered ice for the crate of club assets. Everybody sat bucolically around the parrot and argued about the batting order. Charlie Gee and I ought to have wrestled for the No. 11 spot, but instead we did a coin toss which I frustratingly won.

AS MEMBERS OF the servant executive, Catwater and I had the solemn duty of umpiring our openers. The last time that Larken and Ben-who-is-Jake (whom we’ll refer to as Zwak for editorial purposes) had batted in partnership, the former had inflicted one of the most disgusting run-outs in his own sordid history. There is a mistaken notion that Bacchant umpires display hostile scrupulosity towards our own players. This is not true: our umpires spend the months of deep winter calculating how to deny even the most legitimate appeals, but our batsmen keep getting out too flagrantly. Catwater and I speculated bleakly on what variant Larken and Zwak were cooking up.

Their imaginations failed them, so they batted splendidly faute de mieux. Straight balls, with their certain lethal quality, were fended away; tempters were left; width was occasionally, and quite gently, punished. Larken was Boycottian as ever, while Zwak, mindful of that run-out, had reinvented himself as an enterprising rock. It was the Ali vs Foreman of Fuck All, a psychological contest between the batsmen to see who would be the first to have to play. Larken snapped, and asked me between overs if we couldn’t have a word with Zwak about kicking on a bit. He didn’t seem to register any hilarity in his remark.

Concentration scrambled, Larken played a series of booming straight drives and was bowled for his troubles, for 25. Herr Vittenklopp, the noted botanist, had enjoyed his unaccustomed overs of rest at the top of the innings and set about Wytham’s bowling with relish and other condiments. A couple more boundaries smote through the luscious greenery and the whispers about ‘big scores’ began… The 15 that Freddie was bowled for ishis biggest score, but not as much as we hope for from one of the all-time Gates. So confident am I of his stroke-playing future that we have a wager of ten pounds of beef on his reaching double figures next time.

Herr Vittenklopp had been bowled with the score at 66 after 16 overs; Wytham had been two down at the same point, on 40. The difference, best beloved, is that this was when we started mixing up the bowling, whereas now they had introduced their run-scoring nine, who had hurled fast balls miles wide down leg, then miles wide down off, then miles down leg again. ‘Settle in lads – we’ll do it in extras.’ But shortly after Vittenklopp’s flukey wicket he bowled a flailing Truell as well. And so.

Ramsy came in – still, miraculously, sustaining full-length trousers – and was immediately given out caught behind by Larken. He tried very hard to stay at the crease and by the time he was dragged away was severely alienated from the merry fellowship of happy bunnies. Larken had been scrupulously hostile – hostilely scrupulous – there hadn’t been a sound – or if there had it was the sticker on the bat – which hadn’t been near it – certainly not that near it – clearly a leave – looked like a no ball – what about first ball grace? How can we do this to one another? How can we?

Catwater, the other umpire, later confirmed that he had heard Ramsy nicking off from square leg for his second golden duck in a row. But we had all believed him and some still do. It was 67-4.

Ed Ball, SU’s old crony, had been billed as a top-class fielder and accordingly spent the Wytham innings doing nothing at long-leg. (Would you believe that I have read actual books about captaincy?) Now at the crease and suddenly proximate to the ball, he seemed to know an awful lot about what he was about. The Danger Bowler looked more like Penfold and runs accrued, though Zwak slightly spoiled the effect by being skittled.

This prompted another collapse. Bacchant collapses are the real thing – not the incremental tumbling of wickets for not many runs, but the annihilation of a significant portion of the batting order without trace. SU had planned a glorious match-saving partnership by the old boys of RGS Guildford (which, for or its faults, isn’t Winchester DG) but bottled it for one. Then Catwater was bowled two ball later; and Dominic played on two balls after that. 105-8.

Jeffers was unable to sustain his extras-acquiring heroics, and so it behoved me to come in at the bottom of the order and run Ed out before he could reach anything so uncouth as a half-century.

LATER ON PORT MEADOW, we were discussing who would play where in the Bacchants’ Rugby Union XV, a suicidal idea some find alarmingly attractive (but not me – I firmly maintain that we should play League). Herr Vittenklopp was burning sausages to the highest standards, we had lost our ninth cricket match on the bounce, I had a column to write, and it was dark. It looks like we’re back in business boys and girls.

SCORECARD

Wytham
M Smith c Swann b Jefferies 45
A Glennie b Hudson 2
Hollis c Jefferies b Hudson 2
Speight b Riley 75
Kybard b Riley 3
T Green c Polding b Hudson 8
J Green b Riley 1
J Shaw b Hudson 0
Aki not out 33
P Newman c Gee b Hudson 9
Nowers not out 1

Extras 5b 12w 9nb 26
Total (35 overs) 205

Bacchus XI
E S T Larken b Newman 25
B J Swann b T Green 17
F Gate b Aki 15
R Truell b Aki 4
R Polding c J Green b Aki 0
E Ball run out Green 43
H Spencer Underhill b Aki 1
S Riley b Aki 0
D Hudson b Aki 0
W Jefferies b T Green 0
P Hudson not out 4

Extras 4b 1lb 7w 12
Total (27.0 overs) 121

WYTHAM WIN BY 84 RUNS