Mells - 13th June 2004

This was yet another tight match which went right to the wire – the last three balls, in fact. Simon Potter drew the short straw and had a bit of a nightmare getting a team together. In the end, we fielded a combination of six Babington members, one U13 from Frome and four Downside pupils, including a couple of extremely handy South African cricket scholars.

Mells turned up with a much stronger line-up than the one we bowled out last year for 87. We batted first, which was just as well because Garfield rang to say he would be late. Apparently, he’d tried to roast an oven glove instead of the chicken and was having to make tea for half the Somerset Fire Brigade. Nigel Lewis opened with Matt Warriner, one of the SA ringers, and they were pinned down by some accurate bowling. After the first ten overs, four of which were maidens, we’d made only 23.

Then the runs started to flow: Nigel began to time the ball and Matt was clearly a classy bat, falling finally for 34 to a sharp caught and bowled. Nigel was run out for 41 by a throw from the outfield which not only hit the stumps but also broke one of them, and Nick Sinfield thumped a huge six before he skied another and was caught. Ollie Mellotte, skipper of Downside firsts, looked like he was heading for a big score before he was unluckily run out backing up after the bowler managed to get his finger tips on straight drive by Andrew Gilfillan at the other end.

Andrew continued to push the score along with some timely boundaries, as did Garfield, but out total of 158 never looked like being enough.We also had injury problems. Simon Potter, fresh from a lunch engagement, came on as sub for Nick Sinfield, who had been struggling manfully with a painful hamstring.

However, the transfusion of young blood into our bowling attack raised hopes and we started with tight, accurate spells. Mells were 11 for 3 off 11, with their most dangerous bat, skipper J Seviour, already back in the hutch after hammering a straight drive and being caught one-handed by yours truly. Dayne Naidoo, the other cricket scholar, removed their number four with his first delivery (a wrong’un) and at that point we thought a win was definitely on the cards. But their middle order contained some hard hitters and we spilled a couple of difficult chances in the deep.

They needed nine off the last over and I’m afraid to say I probably bowled too straight, allowing their number nine to hit two sixes in a row to win the match.By now, most of you will have heard about the debacle in the bar after the match. To try and avoid this happening again – viz the embarrassment of a visiting team being told they can have one drink and then leave – we’re asking match managers to check with bar staff during tea that a sudden influx of cricketers around 7-7.30 pm is not going to cause problems. If the answer is yes, then we could suggest they draw off a certain number of jugs of lager/ beer/cider before we arrive and add it to the tea tab. Alternatively, if the bar is likely to be as crowded with, say, shy and retiring footie supporters, as it was last Sunday, then we might decide to go instead to a nearby pub, such as the Vobster Inn. We could try The Talbot, but that might depend on how Mells CC react in the next couple of days.