| Description: | Rockhampton 2s (234/3) beat Wootton Bassett 2s (233 all out) by 7 wickets
I start this week’s match report in the fashion that a model year 10 science student starts his GCSE coursework. With the sort of hypothesis that I’m pretty convinced I can prove in the course of my research… and in any case, one where I can otherwise make up sufficiently convincing evidence.
Hypothesis: The traditional English sport of cricket is the most psychologically challenging of all global sporting activities, professional or otherwise.
To put this in more crass terminology for the benefit of the average Ram. It f**ks with your head. In some cases you can play for 5 days and be up, down, happy, nervous, dejected, elated, broken, victorious. For a full hour and a half on Saturday afternoon, I was having the sort of sulk that normally only comes along every two years, when England are ingloriously dumped out of the latest major football tournament. For the next 45 minutes I was experiencing the sort of nervous adrenalin rushes that are more akin to taking a girl on a first date to a comedy club and daring to sit in the front row.
Then finally, when the illustrious Savo 09 and the mercurial Cindy Beale had seen us to a position of relative comfort; I was able to enjoy that feeling of pure ecstasy, where your pupils expand like beachballs, where your blood runs 24-carat gold and your face bears a grin as wide as a Nigel Hopkins delivery. Bosh! Cinders smashed the winning runs through cover to bring to end an unbeaten stand of 224 with Savo 09 and secured the victory that 2 hours previous had looked about as likely as Matty Taylor arriving home sober after a 2s away day on his 18th birthday.
Cinders, Morph. That was incredible and to say it brought me emotional salvation would only be a minor embellishment. Nonetheless, it draws me back to my original hypothesis. These lads were at the crease with a scoreboard reading 10 for 3. They were playing at a ground where the twos had never won and a ground where we had once been bowled out for a score that failed to exceed 40. Yes there was batting to come but as tall orders go, this was an order as tall as Peter Crouch stood on the CN Tower. Quite how you prepare yourself psychologically to bat through and cruise to a 7-wicket win is something I am keen to learn.
Having batted enough times with the enigmatic clown that is Savo 09, I am at least tempted to throw some insight into his psychological approach. Distraction, distraction, distraction. Avoid taking the matter seriously wherever possible and find techniques to not only minimise your nervous energy, but also find techniques to distract the oppo from their zone of nonchalant dominance.
The means of achieving this on Saturday was not only amusing, but I am quite sure is unique to the game. Walk out to bat and then proceed to endure 40 overs wearing only lycra cycling gloves on your hands. Yes. I kid you not. Adrian Savery smashed a career best 89 not out wearing cycling gloves! Idiot! Talented, brutal, chip-eating, cider-swilling, cycling glove-wearing idiot!... and legend.
Cinders mind on the other hand is a posh and over-educated mind that poses far more of a barrier for the likes of Cooke to find a way in. It is a mind that hides an array of batting strokeplay that makes his team mates green with envy; yet it is also a mind that is reluctant to get its proverbial tits out on the big stage and smash first team bowling to all corners. Whilst I wouldn’t dream of comparing like-for-like the minds of Beale and The Crabman David Long, they both definitely have a mind for a crisis and at 10 for 3 this was the sort of crisis that appears on a banner being trailed by a jet plane saying THIS IS A LARGE CRISIS.
So anyway whilst Hoppo 0, Cookie 0 and Birthday Tays, also 0 were sat swearing, crying and sulking respectively in the Pavilion, these two genies of the Ram proceeded to wallop 224 runs. Cinders made, what Hoppo was ever so quick to point out, was the second highest individual score of the season with his swashbuckling 133 not out and they all lived happily ever after.
And there it is I’ve done it again. 700 words into the report and I haven’t got to the bit where we either leave the Common or arrive at the opposition ground. As usual though we arrived there minus Hoppo, Savo 09 and Beale who this time between them had also abducted the latest debutant Andrew Smart. When Cookie received the call from Hoppo asking where in Westbury the ground was he could be criticised for coming to the conclusion that surely Hoppo and Sav were not really so stupid to have gone to a Team that are no longer even in the League.
Of course they hadn’t. Far more logically they were at the local chippy. Cinders made the most extraordinary arrival though. Coming in around the lanes at the back of the estate he found his entry barred by wire mesh fencing. After contemplating the 150-yard walk around the fence, the victim of a heavy session on the sauce Friday night decided he was more in the mood for burrowing under the smallest of gaps in ferret-like style to secure his entry to the ground.
A matter of minutes later and the Cookster had won the toss but was immediately concerned by how his opponents eyes lit up when he was inserted.
Thankfully those lit eyes were quickly extinguished, first by Rawlee, who saw a drive slapped off the edge to Coates at point, who caught the toughest of three chances he would face during the afternoon. Soon after it was Sammy Nipples turn to cash in as the other opener could only push a catch straight to Djimi Cooke at silly mid-off.
The openers bowled as well as Beale and Savo batted and deserved plenty more for their efforts. Nics 1-15 from 7 overs and Rawle 1-12 from 7 overs was a cracking start.
Typically though the Rams had some issues with the change bowling and not least the skipper. My bowling frailties of course are further damning evidence of the psychological pressures of captaincy and concentration combining to cause catastrophe. Smart bowled 4 wides in his debut over but did nonetheless manage to scare his opponents with every single one of his straight bouncers. Smartypants, also known as Stuart, bowled with the sort of fire in his belly you can only achieve from speedily devouring a vindaloo and would have had a wicket in his second over had his skipper been a wee bit more proactive.
Suddenly the fielding went the way of the bowling as taking catches suddenly appeared to have become the subject of a protest action demanding an immediate ban. Coatesie dropped one that was easier to catch than the plague and suddenly the dropped catch disease spread like the plague.
The Woo Bass skipper reaped most reward clubbing his way to 92 before the birthday boy clung on to one at long-off, off Long (haha. Long-off off Long, remarkable but true) to dismiss him for 92. Cinders then skittled the guy at the other end and there proceeded a mix of violent batting, more dropped catches and eventually the odd wicket.
Nics came back to pick up 4-40 and Rawlee 2-45 and they closed on a respectable 233 all out with a ball to spare. Talking of one ball to spare, that was all that lower order batsman Mohamed Shihaz had at his disposal after a short delivery from Rawlee had left him rolling around on the floor with tears in his eyes and a substantially reduced sperm count.
So then there was tea and the less said about the Rams opening partnership the better.
Just time to say again how utterly brilliant the Cind and the Sav were (I can say that now cos I’m writing this after I said at selection what lucky b*stards they were). Cind hit 19 boundaries and Morph 15 including a monumental six over long-on. Definitely not cow. This was actually a really good shot. Cinders cover driving was bloodthirsty and his leg glances as deft as a ballet dancer in Swan Lake but before his head swells up I will throw in a small criticism that in hogging the strike he denied Savo a ton. I remember Graham Thorpe doing that to Alex Tudor at Edgbaston. Thorpe you selfish ****.
And so it brings me back to mind games. The Rams were psychologically exhausted by this point as we seem to be by 8pm every Saturday. As Savo said at Gloucester City Winget (when we lost incidentally) ‘why can we never win easy?’. I suppose the answer to that is quite simply that it would be boring.
It is the mental turmoil of playing for the twos that makes the wind-down almost as important as the fixture itself. On this occasion it was another rip-snorter. First a cheeky retainer in the Wootton Bassett clubhouse and then it was off to pub 1, a quaint little country pub by the name, of the goat, the groom, the shovel, the horse, the bride and the cart. Hoppo quickly discovered that the WOMAD music festival was on down the road and also discovered that glavier whisky, ‘some green sh*t’ and some ‘other top shelf nonsense’ actually tastes quite nice together. Too nice though so he threw some Baileys in, waited for it to curdle and then demanded Tays stand on a chair in the car park to neck this veritable cocktail of displeasure. That was followed by standard Rams banter and yet more desperate attempts to explain to Sammy Nipples why there is a fish in the cow field.
A few road beers later after some tunes in the Beemer Bar and the Rams were no longer gate-crashing a music festival but an eighties night at the Red Bull Inn at Malmesbury (I might add after driving through, around, under and over Malmesbury). When I say eighties night I am unfortunately not referring to the music but to the fact that even the youngest reveller in the establishment would have been flattered to be considered an octogenarian. A few beers, 9 packs of Nobbys Nuts and 3 of steak crisps later we headed for Tetbury and another public house. The Hunters Wall as I recall. Cooke demolished Coates at pool, aided by some controversial spectating from the Rams, not least the antics of Tays and Hoppo. And at last a special mention for my specialist fielder Robert Sajid Cave who proudly exclaimed that he would field for the twos away from home any day of the week for the drives home. Sorry Orla. My fault entirely he was late home.
Still the entertainment flowed as a brisk exit from 09 was followed by a tantrum from posh-boy Hoppo whose kit was later jettisoned to the roadside at Charfield to his uncontrollable disgust.
He mellowed in Jimmer Hancox’s hot tub though where the twos were treated to the full rundown of the days action at the b field and Catty performed an elaborate ‘falling over with a glass of wine in a hot tub full of naked men and injuring yourself without making inappropriate contact or spilling any wine routine’ – this really should be an Olympic event 2012.
So a well deserved and well enjoyed wind down had followed the Rams fifth win of the season. Add the tie from Trowers and the unofficial win at Marshfield as I am now calling it and this is turning into some season for the Twos. Big games ahead though and some commitment to match that at Swindon could see some exciting things happen…
Conclusion to hypothesis: Well I had a pretty sore head Sunday morning so that must have been a result of the psychological strains of the afternoon… hypothesis proved. Cooke - A*
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