It's been a long close-season, but this is the time when it's all starting to happen. Up and down the country, clubs are gearing up for the 2009 season, and there's a hell of a lot of work to be done. The amount of work and love that goes into cricket behind the scenes is nothing short of inspiring – I know one volunteer at a local club who barely sees her family apart from at mealtimes; the rest of her time is taken up with looking after the club's fixture list, volunteering in the social club's bar, trying to get her head around the latest license application, working out the bar orders and where the hell the club will find the money for new fridges, sorting out the pavilion and tea facilities and attending what seems to be an endless cycle of meetings. Being a volunteer at a small club with limited funds is a full-time job, and I wonder how many people devote as much of their time to their local club as Jan does, and how many mountains they move on a daily basis.

It makes running the Cavaliers look like an easy task, but it's hard enough work for me to be able to sympathise entirely. Over the winter, I've been busy updating the website, arranging our fixtures – impressively, I've got us playing 15 matches this season, with another four or five pending dates – washing and sprucing up the club kit and shirts, getting subs off people and, over the last few weeks, trying to improve some of our players with a little coaching. Now the emphasis has changed. I'm becoming the laundry man, writer of match reports, and the guys who rings round everybody in the week leading up to the games to make sure we've got eleven bodies on the pitch.

This week, I just about succeeded. Last-minute drop-outs reduced us to exactly eleven players, and three or four of those who were missing could have made a real difference to the team. Still, we had a side for our first game of the season, and when it all comes together all the hard work is worth it. Here's how we got on.

We had a huge amount of optimism for our first match of the season. A number of our games are against some of Devon's best club sides – Barton, Bovey Tracey, Budleigh Salterton – and with no disrespect to the Mark Park Larkers, we felt this match would be one that was somewhat more at our level. Mark Park are a proper League side, but they only started up a few years ago in a similar fashion to us, sounded very much up for a laugh and really just wanted a good afternoon in the sun. We thought we may not actually win, but we'd at least be able to give them a good run for their money.

And our optimism continued as we got off to a perfect start. We lost the toss and we sent out to field, but in his first over James came up with a peach of a ball that bowled Shaun Sandercock around his legs for a luck. Shortly afterwards, Kev followed up with a beauty to remove Vledder for six, and Mark Park were in trouble at 18 for two. It was the perfect start, and I was chuffed that both my opening bowlers had come up with early wickets. A couple more, and we might even restrict them to a manageable total...

I was still fiddling with my slip and leg gully, trying to get them to realise that when the left-hander came on strike, the leg gully had to come in and stand at slip and slip had to move out and wider, and vice-versa for the right-hander. It was crucial that we got slip in the right place; the astroturf pitch was bouncy and seamed a little, and I was sure that chances would come while the batsmen were still settling in. But I wasn't strict enough with my placings; James was still at gully when the left-hander, McAllen, played inside the line of a ball from Kev, and it flew gently through the vacant slip area. It was a chance missed; a third wicket then could have changed the game.

McAllen and Oakley made us pay. The third-wicket partnership lasted up until the halfway drinks break with both approaching half-centuries and, a hard hook at Chalky's face aside, it was chanceless. James bowled well and for long stretches, but Chip was off his game and I had little luck. My master bluff of pretending that Ed was a great spinner (I brought on two helmets for close fielders and set a very attacking field) failed when his first ball was hit for six, and we headed off for drinks to regroup.

Unfortunately, we didn't have many options. If we'd had last year's player-of-the-year Si, we'd have surely broken the partnership and stemmed the flow of runs. Had new signing Joe not had a fever, we'd have been able to rely on his fast, straight, swinging yorkers. Had Andy been around, we'd have at least had a solid line and length bowler. But with Chip struggling, we only really had James, Kev and I to try to save the innings.

And after drinks, the Larkers accelerated. Boundaries flew all around the park, and although James had McAllen caught at last off a top edge for 40 and Oakley retired on 59, things were looking grim. As the fielders tired, chances went down and we started to misfield in the outfield. James chipped in with another wicket and I got a beautiful edge to carry through to Karl behind the stumps before bowling Taylor, but the realisation that we would be chasing almost 300 took the edge off the celebrations.

After 40 overs, we stopped for tea. We'd been set 298¹ to win, a total beyond our wildest dreams.

We'd been given the opportunity of batting twice in order to try to make a game of it, but didn't get off to the best of starts. I did my usual swish at a few balls outside off stump before Harris found his range and feathered the edge of my bat with a real beauty. Only the wicketkeeper and I heard the edge – Harris himself didn't even appeal – but it was there and I walked. Chalky followed next ball; shortly afterwards James and Karl were out, and our hopes of respectability vanished. Only Ed offered any resistance at all, batting for about 30 balls for a single run (he proved such an efficient blocker, in fact, that the fielders started calling him 'The Wall' in honour of Rahul Dravid). We were all out for 38.

Our second innings went much better, partly because we were all more relaxed at the crease and partly because the Larkers brought on a passing thirteen-year-old girl and her little brother to bowl. I made ten, and even had the honour of having a fielder moved to cover my pull shots behind square. Chalky made 19, but the real star was Karl, who made 36 not out (although we did point in the pub later that he had scored most of his runs against a bowling attack with a combined age of 22). It is the top score by a Cavalier to date, and was a great effort. A tally of our score after the match showed that we'd made exactly 100 in our second innings; the highest score we've made against a side who were actually trying to beat us².

Aching like hell, we made our way to the Exeter Arms in Okehampton for a couple of post-match ales. It's a cracking pub, and many of the Larkers had encouraging words for us. Dean plans to bring his side down to Torquay for a weekend in July, when no doubt we'll give them a good tonking. It was a long drive home afterwards, but a brilliant day out, and the Larkers made us feel at home from the moment we arrived. Roll on Barton next week.

The Absolutely Plumb Archive

Skankyrich

30.04.09 Front Page

Back Issue Page