A 2024 romantic-ish comedy (of sorts) set in Peckham and starring the Mandarins and Millfields CC
Director: G Tunbridge
Producer: D Forman
Original screenplay by: 11 amateur cricketers finding new ways (or at least new places) to lose every week
“Will it be safe to park my car?” enquired one (to remain anonymous) Mandarin on the late notice news that our game against Millfields had been moved to Peckham Rye. He clearly hadn’t been to the (now very) posh end of Peckham in a while. What he should have been more worried about was the safety of his ankles on some very unkempt grass, the short boundaries on all sides, and the lack of turn offered by an astroturf pitch. Still, same for both teams and beggars can’t be choosers etc, and we were grateful to Vik at Streatham & Marlborough CC who facilitated the use of the pitch after Dulwich Sports Ground let us down. And have we ever had a ground with its own ice cream van in situ before?
As many Mandarins will of course know, the locally set Rye Lane was a very successful 2023 British romantic comedy. According to Wikipedia, the film “received critical acclaim… with praise for the performances, and its direction, style, and originality”. And as any Mandarins who have seen my obvious match report jokes coming a mile off before will of course have already have guessed, our match had very few of those things. There were indeed many critics, but there was little acclaim. The performances received praise in part but will not be troubling the judges when it comes to awards season. Director Tunbridge did his best with the limited source material he had, but style was in short supply, and, as for originality, let’s just say that many of us had seen very similar films before.
After an arranged toss and being put/putting ourselves into field, best actor in a leading role was clearly Wahaj, who bowled with good pace (for 2-32) and significant swing, took an excellent catch in the deep and batted with gusto. Harry (2-28) and Rob (2-36) also bowled new ball spells that were deserving of more and would have got it on a pitch offering any kind of movement off the surface (and did their figures a bit more justice when coming back to bowl to the tail). And it clearly wasn’t a spinner’s pitch but Martin was threatening with his spitty bounce, while Nikhil and I took some tap but at least combined to get rid of their best bat. However Millfields were stuffed full of good batting (“probably the best batting line up we can put out” is always a mixed blessing when relayed in the pub afterwards) and pushed through the 35 overs for a powerful 204-9.
Fuelled by his birthday cake at tea and with memories of his Treasury take-down still fresh, Stan was promoted to open and got us off to a flier with a sparky 26. But Sam Brand got a good one, while Chris McKeon and the skipper succumbed to almost identical looking late-swinging in-duckers to leave us at that point in the story arc when all hope seems lost (but in our case of course actually was). Jules tried to hold things together with a patient 23 and Nikhil and Wahaj had a bit of fun (with Wahaj’s pull/hook behind square the highlight). But that was all she wrote, with the last two wickets going off consecutive balls and suddenly we were all out for 106 with seven overs still out there in the sun. Small consolation was taken from the score having gone over 100 and the margin of defeat having just dipped under it.
So not exactly an original Mandarins storyline, a cliffhanging finale or a sudden unexpected twist. Romance was more to be found beyond the boundary among couples lounging in the finally spring-like weather. As for comedy, well there’s always a bit of that in Mandarins cricket and the outfield provided some slapstick moments. So, while it might not win any awards, worse days have certainly been had. We played a game of cricket in good weather against always pleasant opponents, no one broke an ankle and Martin’s car remained unscathed (and if you really thought he would remain anonymous you should have seen that one coming too). So as the credits rolled and the audience left muttering that they thought it was meant to be a bit more exciting than that, no one actually demanded their money back from the box office.
Dan Forman
Amazing story! Great! |
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