New ground, same taste of defeat

Charlatans (161 for 7) beat Mandarins (121 all out) by 40 runs

An unusual home (ish) game for the Mandarins at a novel venue, Greenwich Park, but against a familiar foe.   A lovely tree-ringed ground and a sunny afternoon.  Some uncertainty about which strip we were to play on. The middle stump at one end inserted at an angle you wouldn’t see at Lords.  Several Mandarins delayed by parking challenges. 

We lost the toss and fielded.  Rob and J-C were threatening, Dan, Arvind, Drew and Owen economical.  We secured two run outs.  No Charlatan batsman passed 40.  The Chairman held a catch.  

Tea was excellent – especially the Eastaway scones and brownies.

Then it was back to normal.  The Mandarins just don’t seem to do limited overs cricket.  The batting stats speak for themselves: 0 for 3; median score 1; mode score 0; five ducks in total.  

Arvind and especially Graeme made the target look gettable for a while before both being bowled.  The Charlatans bowling was pretty good apart from lots of wides. 

The venue produced more crowd interest than usual.  In addition to wedding photos in front of the sight screen and mass birthday dancing on the boundary, at one point a man who turned out to be American wandered through deepish mid-on and mid-off.  When told that he was holding up the game he asked grumpily whether we owned the land.  No we said, but we’ve hired it for the afternoon.   He then became irate, justifying his incursion because he had paid his council tax “like everybody else”.  Rob asked whether he would do such a thing on a baseball pitch. ‘What’s is a baseball pitch?’ he asked.  ‘I’ve no idea’ said Rob. 

A lively discussion with some of the oppo about Trump and Brexit in the Crown afterwards.

Louis Davidson