The Bacchus XI vs Chumpshire Crickeh Club
RECEIVING ONE’S FIRST cap, whether in cricket’s playing or in its reporting, is a moment well worth savouring. You can imagine my indignation, then, when I was rudely awakened from my ambrosial stupor by the suggestion that it might be self-indulgent to keep that sort of thing up for a full year, and could I possibly get a move on writing a report. Staring down the barrel of a fateful rematch, I acquiesce.
MATCH REPORT -- The Bacchus XI vs Chumpshire Crickeh Club -- Chiswick House -- 12th May 2024
"The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like."
— E.L. DOCTROW
IT IS A mark of recognition for the Bacchus XI High Performance Programme that a team was selected to play against one of England’s premier counties, and to put them through their paces ahead of a promising season. Buoyed by the athlete development successes of the Patrick Hudson Centre for Kids Who Can’t Bat Good, and Who Wanna Learn to Bowl and Field Good Too, a full Bacchus’ dozen (being approximately, but never exactly, eleven) descended upon a balmy West London venue. Accompanying was a larger-than-usual contingent of court functionaries, advisers, viziers and consiglieri, primed for what critics are already calling a ‘game of cricket’.
An eyebrow was raised when it became clear that no one on the team had ever heard of, let alone been to Chumpshire, though this is perhaps not surprising given the number of Bacchants who drive to shoots with their eyes firmly shut between junction 6 of the M1 and the Scottish border. The other eyebrow shot up to meet it when it was revealed that your humble narrator had been moonlighting, in his weaker moments, for the enemy, and that, yes, the rumours were true! I was indeed the holder of the highly coveted Chumpshire CC 2023 ‘Bowler in the Team’ award for outstanding contributions to bowling. Once the wails and weeping had subsided, and we had taken the fainting viziers into the pavilion to recover, I assured everyone that this brief folly was behind me, and that I would remain as fierce and staunch a Bacchant as ever. Readers can judge for themselves whether events bore this out.
History remembers who won the toss; sadly, I do not. Nevertheless, the annals state that Larken and our freshly-minted opener Harry Deacon were sent in, willow in hand, to face the best that the yeomen of Chumpshire could muster. The Good Deacon made as fine a start as any Bacchus opener, looking on in disgust at Larken’s blocks and “leaves” from the non-striker’s end. After an over, or perhaps a run (though we all know which is more likely), he came to face the ball and struck an imperious boundary that drew some murmuring from the crowd, and stirred another flutter of tentative hope in stalwart Bacchant hearts that we might have finally found our Special One. Imperious it may have been, but more of the Palmyrene rather than the Byzantine in longevity. The empire, the innings, and Pat’s poor heart, crumbled to dust when his stumps were rearranged shortly after. Replacing him was the lesser-spotted Eoin Simpkins, a rare and fantastical beast, whom these days can be found roaming the subcontinent, and evangelising its many delights on his return. There was optimism, then, that his exploits might have included some cricket coaching from the locals. Seemingly a fresh graduate of the Virat Kohli Duck Academy, young Eoin showed us all exactly how he had passed the practical exam with flying colours, and trudged back to the sheds.
Readers who prefer to ignore all my hard work and skipped straight to the good bit will notice the absence of both Catwater Riley and Herr Vittenklopp, the noted botanist, from the playing XI. The explanation for this was simple — they had both recently been sacrificed as part of a powerful ancient ceremony to resurrect Sutton Bill, our occasional Anglo-Saxon wight and middle-order ringer. Clad in period-accurate padded armour and Oxford Investment Management Society hat, Sutton Bill set about merrily flaying the opposition bowling, and only with some pleading could he be stopped from flaying the bowlers, too. Cackling with necromantic glee, Pat took down his hood and sat back to watch Bacchus pile on the runs, for once.
This, though, would have to wait. Larken had decided that was quite enough standing (a term the editors though more appropriate, since batting implies the accumulation of runs), and that it was about time to head back inside, keen to get stuck into the massive pie he had baked before it was devoured by a malnourished court jester. So off he went, having engineered an unlikely catch, and out I strode to the crease.
Back In I strode, the next ball. The less said about that, the better.
Thankfully, what followed was an actual partnership; Philbeach Gardens had not been laid to waste in vain, after all. Rodrigo Kewbuitte [sic] was in, Sutton Bill was in, the sun was shining, and all was right with the world. There was a nonchalance, an ease, a confidence to the thing that relaxed the shoulders and brought a warmth to the twisted, jaded Bacchant soul that it recoiled from in fear, burned one time too many by the promise of Freddie’s Big Score. But this time our faith was rewarded by the arrival of the Bacchus XI’s maiden century, met with exultation from the boundary, and glassy indifference from beneath the helmet of Sutton Bill. He removed it to reveal a crumbling visage, and offered a single dispassionate kiss of its badge, inscribed “ᚷᚱᚨᛃ - ᚾᛁᚲᛟᛚᛚᛋ”. The crowd went absolutely bananas. Cueuebuiuitte, having supported valiantly, departed for 40 shortly thereafter, and normal service swiftly resumed.
Tiring of the mortal realm, Sutton Bill crumbled into dust on a majestic 126, and his bails were removed so they could be re-interred with his remains, pursuant to a particularly malicious clause in Catwater’s last will and testament about confusing future archaeologists. What followed will be increasingly familiar to long-suffering followers and fans of the oeuvre of Lemony Snicket alike. First came some shocking behaviour by one Mr E S T Larken, English cricket’s first legally blind umpire. Usually unsafe to stand without his guide parrot, he had wandered out to square leg, unsupervised, and stuck a finger in the air following an otherwise innocuous ball to dismiss Ramsy, given run out from well behind his own stumps. This heralded a classical Bacchus collapse to end the innings, with Ayush, Jeffers and Pat throwing their wickets away in despair, leaving only hot-shot tailender George Jones stranded with just two of his surefire hundred runs scored. We had scraped to 200 – dizzying new heights by historical standards, but would it be enough? The answer, I am sure, will not shock you.
Then there was tea, miles of it. I tucked into a league or two while discussion floated past on whether we had scored enough, and everyone got stuck into Larken’s Massive Pie for bowling inspiration. Our opponents rather timidly kept themselves to their sandwiches, a behaviour almost betraying some sporting prowess. This was seen universally as a bad omen. Eventually, Max’s sausage rolls were, tragically, depleted, and it was decided that there was nothing much better to do than get on with some more cricket, so out we sausage rolled.
The Bacchus has been known to serve up some half-decent bowling, when the wind is favourable and the correct assortment of ringers has been corralled. So it was, then, that we started very tidily indeed, with Ronaldo Cubic drying up one end, and Pat doing his very best bowling impression, good enough to fool the less-than-expert eye of the Chumpshire openers. Rogelio struck early, sending the first man home for one, and two further wickets went cheaply; Pat’s strict umpiring coaching came good for once as he trapped the next man in “front”. There have been suggestions that more wickets might have fallen early, if we had taken some catches, but can we really call them chances when the outcome is inscribed indelibly in fate? Roberto dropped several, claiming that he wanted all the glory for himself. Very much putting his money where his mouth is, he then went on to take another three wickets in his next two overs, and the Chumps were suddenly five down for not too many. We had them on toast.
Veteran Bacchants get a feeling, deep in the pit of their stomachs, when claims bubble up in the heat of the moment about opposition teams and toast. It is a gluten intolerance of the soul from which science has not yet delivered us respite. But we go on buttering just the same. At the crease now was their captain, Steve, who tells tales of his one Big Score, made during the Pleistocene era. Joining him was Prateek, lifetime high score: about eight. Hopes were high. Hopes had not accounted, though, for the fact that we had slightly run out of bowling. The Swann-Polding axis is not yet quite the first-change pairing of Flintoff and Simon Jones, say. Ramsy and I are confident that we’ll get there once we stop arguing about who’s going to be whom. The sun beat down. Runs leaked. George Jones did his best Simone Biles routine on the boundary to avoid the ball. Sutton Bill fired up a podcast on the Fall of Saigon. We waited, patiently, for the last chopper out.
As the partnership built, we resorted to increasingly desperate and underhanded tactics. We brought on Jeffers for some mystery, and Larken, whose bowling has been banned under the Geneva Convention. There remains a whole range of international treaties not ratified by the Bacchus XI - management thought it prudent to keep all options on the table for when we play the V&A. And a good thing too, since Larken’s war crimes eventually saw the grisly end of Steve, for 43, and the next man shortly after. Seven down, with plenty left to bowl at, it was back on.
Pat and Raymondo bowled themselves out valiantly, giving away little, but without any breakthrough. This prompted some profound soul-searching from everyone except Sutton Bill, who was too busy burning documents in the US embassy, and couldn’t find his soul anyway. No one volunteered to bowl at the death, so Larken, Jeffers and I were thrown at the wall to see what would stick. Alas, to no avail. Prateek, now staring down 80, was a man possessed - the Bacchus black magicians have not yet perfected their incantations - and was supported obdurately from the other end.
When the winning runs came we pondered, as so often, how such a well-laid plan could fail. The Evitable Jeffers just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, after all. The Bacchus propaganda machine was dusted off and cranked into life. Cricket was declared the winner, and we slept better that night knowing we had brought a real sporting spectacle, and not a little joy to the people of W4 that day. I promised I would get a report written up in good time. Arrangements were made for a rematch - we’re nothing if not masochistic.
Bacchus XI:
H Deacon b. Thompson 4
E S T Larken c. S. O. Meone b. Rahul 14
E Simpkins c. O. R. Other b. McLoughlin 0
W Sutton-Mattocks b. Thompson 126
J A Swann b. Rahul 0
R Cubitt b. Rahul 40
R Polding run “out”, Larken 1
A Kulshreshtha b. Thompson 0
G Jones 2*
W Jefferies LBW Rahul 0
P H Hudson b. Prateek 1
Extras 12
Total 200 (34 overs)
Chumpshire CC:
P Singh b. Cubitt 18
M Sweeney b. Cubitt 1
A J Thompson LBW Hudson 5
I L L Egible b. Cubitt 4
S T McLoughlin b. Larken 43
Akriti c. W H Oknows, b. Cubitt 0
P Sisodiya 89
Deep b. Larken 5
Rahul 19
Extras 17
Total 201/7
Chumpshire CC win by 3 wickets