Mandarins (98 all out) lost to Weekenders (100/6) by four wickets (time format)
Mandarins (223/6) beat North Enfield CC (222/5) by four wickets (overs format)
First, appropriately enough on fathers’ day itself, to Regent’s Park, against our friends from the Weekenders, and where sons of both skippers were in their respective sides. And where the Mandarins were glad to be supported by one daughter, two sisters and four female partners of players, from a total of five spectators from among the fairer sex (stick that one in the New Scientist puzzles section).
After an arranged toss, skipper son no1 Stan Forman was sent in to face skipper son no2 Blake Husseini, and it was Stan who got the best of the battle with a blistering 40 to get us off to a fair flier, but not before Blake had got the better of Baxter. However it was a crash landing after that, with no one else offering much of a contribution, albeit on a tricky, slow and uneven pitch. Kishen told the story of how his dad had once impressed his mum when she first came to watch him play by deliberately hitting boundaries to where she was sat. With his own wife in attendance for the first (and last?) time, Kish instead ran himself out by running half way down, slipping on the way back and only being able to watch from the floor as the fielders did their best to fumble the chance, only eventually getting the bails off as he got back on his feet still 10 yards short. Which just about summed the undignified innings up. We were 98 all out, taking an early tea and giving the Weekenders an extra half an hour of batting which it seemed highly unlikely they would need, however their innings went.
However a spirited and skilful effort in the field very nearly did bring those extra overs into play. We didn’t quite get to squeaky bum time but we did make them work bloody hard for it. Eastaway R and Healey C were highly economical with the new ball. Wahaj and debutant Ted were sharp in pace, with Ted picking up his first wicket for the club. And then Rakesh (7.3-5-11-1) and Kishen were relentless in refusing to let the Weekenders get over the line with anything easy, taking us well into final 20 overs and getting them six down and perhaps one away from a real wobble. One of those six was a shouldn’t-be-allowed-on-a-
A week later we were back in north London to face North Enfield CC, with not one, nor two but three father-son combinations in the side (Harry Forman, Adam Eastaway and Sam Tunbridge being the relevant offspring) and a game that will quite possibly be talked about for generations to come. It was a rollercoaster affair on the steeply sloping Strayfield Rd ground, with more plot twists than an episode of Succession.
Put into the field we were under the pump immediately with Enfield opener Gillman racing to 79 from 47 balls and taking his team past 100 in the 13th over. So we were grateful that Graeme held on to him under the tree and that the umpire deemed that a slight brush of a branch did not breach the local ‘can’t be caught off the copse’ rule. From there skipper Tunbridge Snr marshalled his increasingly limited resources (including injuries to himself, Kishen and Harry) expertly on a rock hard pitch where the short boundary on one side and the downhill on the other presents some impossible captaincy choices.
His saviour was his son and heir Sam, making his full ‘competitive’ debut after his first appearance in the intra-club anniversary ‘friendly’ last year. Sam (5-0-8-1) was exceptional, having to bowl from both ends and against the Enfield skipper Will Munt (who was on his way to an unbeaten century) in the last 10 overs. He found a consistency of line and length that has long eluded his father, and helped keep a total that had looked like it could easily exceed 300 to a tough but chaseable 222. A word too for Nikhil Gidwani (4-1-12-2), not just for his best bowling for the club but also for a worldie of a one-handed catch at midwicket that surprised no-one more than himself. Mike Duggan will also bowl a lot worse and take a lot more wickets than he did on debut here.
And then the chase. A bit difficult to write about objectively for me as really there can be few greater pleasures than putting on a 100 partnership with my son. And with Harry in this form the best thing for me to do was spend as much time as possible at the non-strikers’ end with the best view in the house. He found all corners of the quirky ground in his 86, with a couple of hits over long on that Harry Brook couldn’t have struck much further. He got us well ahead of the required rate before he departed with the score on 127. Chris McKeon and I then just about kept us on it, I inched my way past my club best score and then 50, and we took the total to 189-1 with seven to bowl before, well, we never make things easy for ourselves, do we?
191-2, 192-3, 194-4, 198-5, with an over going by each time too. So 25 still required with just three to bowl now. Hearts were in mouths. Fingers were in front of eyes. Whatsapp messages were pinging on phones in Melbourne, Manhattan, Berlin and Chennai. Enter the dads, Tunbridge and Eastaway Snrs, with clear heads, cold blood and killer heart rates fashioned from years of Mandarins poker and even more years of Mandarins collapses in front of the gates of victory. But that wasn’t the lesson they wanted to teach their sons. Graeme found the boundary every time we needed him to, taking 10 from the over to keep us in touch. The next was tighter but the dads stayed cool, leaving 12 required from the last. Dot. Four. Two. Four. Nothing less than finishing G-nious from the skipper. Two off two required. A single to take the scores level, leaving Rob to face the last. Calm enough to tap rather than swing, he pushed into the offside, scampered the single and brought the victory home, our joint second highest ever recorded successful run chase. There are fathers days, and then there are days for fathers to tell their grandkids about
Dan Forman
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