Harrow by a hair's breadth

Have a look at the picture of Harrow St Mary's warm-up session prior to this week's game (above and here). I reckon the average age of the team is probably 18. A young vigorous outfit.

Contrast this with our team - average age 41.73. We do not have a warm-up routine as, for most players, there is enough danger of injury getting changed every week (if you'd seen a naked Mark Naisbitt rubbing ointment into his 44-year-old frame you would understand).

Mick McGowan "club skipper" relinquished the reins this week and yours truly took over the mantle of skipper.

Smiler maintained his role as chief tosser and sorter out the game with the oppo. Our tosser won and we decided to bat on a beautiful afternoon at Southover.

Andy Vernon and Dave Reed opened up the innings for us. Dave employed his "kick it" tactics to get his eye in and was lucky to survive several early LBW shouts.

With the score on 12 Dave was out bowled (yes, you've guessed, trying to "kick it" away). Smiler joined Andy. Mr Vernon was looking in prime form, in stark contrast to last week. He had several shots that, against an inferior fielding opposition, would have gained him boundaries, but only resulted in ones or nothing.

These two old heads contrived to throw the next wicket away. Harrow's bowler dropped the ball short outside Andy's off stick, he played a cut shot upishly through point, where the fielder should have at least got a hand to the ball but dived under it.

Andy and Smiler set off running. But Smiler was thinking two and Verno only one. Smiler called the second and V, ignoring the coaching manual, turning blind for the second.

His chubby little legs pumped furiously, but the throw from the fielder was accurate - bye bye V.

Jani joined Smiler. He did not instil great confidence when his first shot lobbed gently off the bat, luckily into an area where there was no fielder. When he repeated the shot shortly afterwards Harrow revised their field placing. He was soon departed, having contributed 0.4926% of the final total (for non-mathematicians that is one).

Steve Golding was our next man in. We were struggling a bit at 30 for three. One over later we more than struggling. Mehta bowled the out-of form and luck Smiler, for 10.

Specials were 36 for four.

What happened next changed, not only the passage of the game, but also, the Sundown Specials' record books.

Mick McGowan, free from the shackles of captaincy, strode to the wicket. Along with Golds he set about the Harrow bowling (his second scoring stroke being a six).

We cruised past 100, and Mick cruised past his 50 with an array of attacking shots. On the sidelines the debate over what was a good score was being revised by the over, would 150 be useful, 160, 180 or should we aim for 200?

With tea around the corner, Golds reached his 50, a fine innings containing seven fours and a six. It would have been nice to see Steve accompany Mick to his 100, but Golds had one whoosh too many and was bowled.

This act concluded a magnificent partnership of 154, a new club record for the 5th wicket, replacing the previous record of 110 held by Mike "Smiler" Herlihy and Dave Reed, most recently in 1998 against Old Reptilians, and Smiler and Dave Brettle against the same opposition in 1993. It is the first all-time record to be set by the club for six years (see our stats archive for details!).

The honour of getting the club skipper to his ton fell to your correspondent. Just to get his adrenaline flowing even faster, I told him he was on 95 and we would declare when he reached the magic figure.

We scurried a few singles and in the 42nd over Mick completed his ton. A splendid effort that saw the club skipper back to his very best form. He had taken only 25 overs to reach the milestone and in the process had turned the innings around.

I declared the innings on 203 for five, and both teams repaired to the bar to indulge in another resplendent tea by Pat.

Suitably watered and replenished we returned to the fold to see if we could get back to winning ways.

With the sun still blazing, we opened our attack with Dom Pilgrim down the hill and Ringo Tailor from the "Bathard end".

Dom got us off to the best start possible as the well placed Naisbitt at short-leg, snaffled a catch off the very first ball of the Harrow innings. Sharma, the unfortunate batsman, weaved his way back to the pavilion, in a manner that made the famous Clive Lloyd feet-dragging exit look positively speedy.

Our initial jubilation was beginning to be eroded as Ruprazi and Trivedi got stuck in. Then Dom produced a quick ball that struck young Ruprazi painfully on the knee. As the young man lay prostrate on the ground, groaning in agony, Dave Reed was heard to comment "did it dislodge the Patella?".

Wright came in as Ruprazi exited to have his wound repaired.

Naisbitt replaced Tailor, and got us our next breakthrough, clean bowling the Harrow number three, one of the Trivedis, with a well-disguised slower ball.

He also removed the returning Ruprazi, encouraging him down the wicket to allow McGowan a stumping. Harrow had reached 103 for three.

I must mention one other matter pertaining to Mr Naisbitt. Mark has so far this season been by far our unluckiest bowler with many of our now famous dropped catches being off his bowling. He today added to that total, but this time was the culprit, dropping a chance off his own bowling.

Wright was looking more and more dangerous for the visitors, and cruised past his 50. He was definitely the danger man.

With score on 153, Wright pulled Golds square of the wicket, Ringo rose like a Phoenix, and snaffled the chance. We were back in charge. It was the first chance Wright had given in his fine 70.

The next period of the game was dominated by run outs, missed run outs and run out decisions.

First the one that wasn't given.

Golds threw down the stumps at the non-striker's end with the batsman clearly several feet short. The umpire appeared to have taken up a good position, but bamboozled the Sundown fielders by stating he hadn't seen the incident properly. Result - not out!

Now for one of the three that were out. The ball was fielded by Mark Nez at long off and launched to Dave Cattell at the stumps. Dave couldn't gather properly and diverted the ball away from myself who was backing up. I chased the ball and whipped it in to stumper Mick who removed the bails. Result - out (from the earlier guilty umpire) -- 155 for six.

Andy V was "heavily" involved in the next run out. Fielding at mid-wicket and under pressure from his skipper (me) not to allow singles his forward momentum was too great for his hands to cope with. The result being the ball spilled away behind him.

We all cursed various unseemly references about Scousers. Vernon was not put off however. Acting quickly he "darted" across to the ball lulling the batsman still further down the track, and after what seemed like a time warp he whizzed a throw to Mick -- 176 for seven.

Pilgrim and Cattell were our bowlers for the final overs. One over of Dom's went for 10, but Dave pulled it back at the other end, conceding only two.

Dom then produced one of his swinging yorkers to remove Odedra, to leave the score on 197 for eight.

And now for a run out that was missed. Dom bowled the ball and the batsmen dropped the ball at his feet and set off for a very cheeky single.

Dom raced down the wicket and got ahead of the batsman running from the non-striker's end. He picked the ball up cleanly but didn't realise he had the march on the non-striker. His throw narrowly missed the stumps, but had he run the ball to the wicket the batsman would surely have been out. That would have put them nine down.

Six were required from Cattell's last over -- according to the scoreboard.

With three balls to go Harrow had acquired four of the six required. The next out involved yours truly, the ball was whacked into the deep mid-wicket area, where using the extra pace that a few added pounds allows you whilst running down hill, I collected the ball as the batsman set off for the third run.

Big mistake. My throw was accurate and McGowan again whipped off the bails. Another one gone. This left Harrow with one to win from two balls, with Specials needing one wicket to win.

I gathered the field in a circle around the wicket, and Cattell prepared to bowl the penultimate ball.

The last man turned it to leg and found our shortest fielder, Andy Vernon, whose leg wasn't quite long enough. The batsman raced through joyously for the winning run with one ball to spare.

We had lost a match in which both sides had scored over two hundred at Southover (a very rare event).

We were even more gutted when scoremaster Dom added up the runs in the Harrow scorebook to find the batting and extras totalled 195. Even more bizarrely, the bowling and extras totalled 210. Had we been done? It was too late to do anything about the matter.

In summary - a much better batting and fielding display by us. Indeed, a game in which we were extremely unlucky not to come out victorious.

On to the days winners and losers;

The Winners:
Mick "the ex-skip" McGowan - magnificent century, and a stumping. The question remains - should we take the captaincy away from him every week?

Steve "Golds" Golding - well made 50 to support Mick, plus two for 16. Is this lad the Sundowners new all-round young talent?

Harrow St Mary's - yes they won the game, but some very dubious umpiring and scoring may have helped. Are they the South Korea of the Middlesex Cricket Conference?

The Losers:
Andy "short legs" Vernon - run out for 12 when in prime form. Will he be doing some speed work this week?

Jani - lowest % contribution of the day. What will the youngest member of the team (age 33) be doing this week to improve his batting stats?

Mark Naisbitt - dropped catch off his own bowling. How many more wickets will be sacrificed this year?

Next week we travel to Enfield Invicta, on World Cup Final day. Will any of the above questions be answered? Who will be crowned champions of the World? And can Sundowners get back to winning ways and be crowned champions of Enfield?

© Tony Medlock 2002