Mandarins at Abinger Hammer – Records to Fall

 Abinger, 234-4 drew with Mandarins, 220-7

“The two most insane things I’ve seen in ~40 years of Mandarin cricket…within 5 minutes of each other” – Chris Healey

Unfortunately for you, those 5 minutes happened right at the end of the game so you’ll need to make it through the rest of the match report to see what moved Chris to make such a bold statement.

Abinger play their Sunday friendlies on a Saturday, meaning that the game saw season debuts for Paul Mills, Graeme and Sam Tunbridge, and a full Mandarins debut for Ralph Taylor – school- and club-mate of Sam. A proper time game (including just one new ball) was the format and, in truth, the Abinger innings was fairly unremarkable – the ground is small, the pitch is good and with a batting line-up of wily older players and younger biffers we were pleased to come off at tea with a target of 235.

That’s not to say there weren’t highlights – Harry Wigram and Andy Heard bowled tidy opening spells and both took deserved wickets, with Andy’s caught and bowled demonstrating rarely seen levels of athleticism – “I’ll do it off my own bowling” he explained. Ralph’s spell was impressively tidy, keeping set batsmen quiet, and Abhi took another couple of wickets to cement his place at the top of the table for the season – a welcome challenger to the usual yearly Ramani/Forman duel.

The Mandarins approached the chase with the confidence of a team that has passed 200 runs several times already this season – Jeremy Jarvis setting the tone with some elegant boundaries before falling to a good catch. Jonathan Wilmot and Arun Sajjan picked up where Jarvis left off, chalking up a 50 partnership. Arun was unfortunate to be given out LBW when an inside edge was heard clearly on the boundary and it heralded a mini-collapse. Graeme and Paul were both victims of ill-advised early aggression in their first games of the season. Jonathan and Ralph also fell in quick order to leave the Mandarins at 102-6 with 18 overs to survive; another score of over 200 felt a long way off at that stage.

And Sam and Abhi took survival seriously – they started their partnership watchfully, resisting the temptation to launch the loopy leg spinner (nicknamed “The Baron”) to one of the several boundary riders. “Sam’s technically good but I think he’ll struggle if he starts to try and play some shots” I sagely opined to the watching Mandarins. Very shortly after Sam demonstrated exactly how much I know by starting to play his shots and absolutely, categorically not struggling. He played shots all round the ground, with one lofted extra cover drive drawing audible purrs from the watching crowd. Abhi also started to accelerate before falling to an excellent catch from one of those boundary riders – but a partnership of 72 with only two and a half overs to go meant that the draw felt as safe as it ever does with the Mandarins when there is still a theoretical way to lose.

“Time for a cameo” cried Harry as he strode out to the middle, inspired by hitting some late innings boundaries in his previous game and seemingly intent on ignoring my advice to see the game out. Shortly after, Sam got to his 50 with a lovely late cut – at 13 and a half, comfortably the youngest Mandarin to reach that milestone. It was a proper innings and the biggest compliment I can pay is that it was one that reminded me more than a little of the watching Chris.

This left Harry on strike for the penultimate over with the loopy leg spinner still twirling away. The first ball was launched cleanly over the bowler’s head into the field beyond the boundary. The second ball was launched cleanly over the bowler’s head into the field beyond the boundary. At this point I was dispatched into the field as Harry’s intent became clear. The third, fourth and fifth balls followed suit. Rarely have I felt quite so certain about the outcome of the final ball of the over, which was duly launched cleanly over the bowler’s head into the field beyond the boundary. I don’t think words can really do it justice, it was the cleanest of clean hitting and really quite remarkable to watch. As if it couldn’t get any better, it was “The Baron” bowling the over, and we discovered that his nickname comes from owning much of the land around Abinger Hammer including the field into which the six sixes were launched.

19 required off the last over; it couldn’t happen, could it?! Sam got the single needed off the first ball of the over but, alas, we weren’t able to get the Hammer to fall, with the Mandarins ending up on 220 and an unexpectedly comfortable draw under our belts. Sam and Harry received a deserved ovation as they walked off from both teams, with those in attendance all thrilled that they were there to witness not one but two utterly unforgettable Mandarins’ moments.

Graeme Tunbridge