Match report

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable pastime on a warm, sunny July evening than to be putting on your whites and indulging in a bit of leather-on-willow, certainly in a locale as picturesque as the hallowed turf of Jesus College Sports Ground, Iffley Village Cricket Club’s spiritual home of cricket.

And so IVCC welcomed Vodafone, or Welford Park Cricket Club as it turned out, who made the long journey up from the outskirts of Newbury and arrived in good time for proceedings to kick off not long after 6pm. A gentleman’s agreement had been agreed between the two captains whereby Welford Park would bat first, in case some of their players were caught out by the googlies of the A34 at rush hour, and so it was that fly-fishing expert J.R. Hartley took the first over from the Bartlemas Close end. With his first ball being guided (edged?) down behind point for 4, it looked like the game was on!

Secondary school English teacher Dickie Tyler opened from the pavilion end and despite struggling for line early on, he soon taught their opening batsman Dushy a lesson and had him back in the hutch thanks to a simple stunning diving catch from new boy Dyakowski, running in from mid-off. With Hartley proving unplayable from the other end, after 4 overs Welford were 3 wickets down for not very many, and a drubbing was on the cards. Hartley (2 for 10 off 2) was charitably hauled off and Ross was brought on, with the hope that his medium pace would be more accommodating than Hartley’s laser-guided exocets. The skipper had not counted on finding Ross in a rich vein of form following some superb all-rounder displays for both IVCC and a guest-spot for Abingdon Vale, and he was unlucky not to get any wickets at all despite coming close with almost every delivery. He finished with figures of 0 for 2 off 3 overs, and Welford Park had barely troubled the scorer. Tyler (2 for 21 off 4) bowled through his 4 allotted overs, picking up his second wicket LBW when the opposition skipper played round a straight one. With ‘Dave’ proving to be the only batsman to get any runs for Welford, the visitors were well and truly in the mire. Another IVCC new boy, Spencer – a man better known for his batting for his homeclub of Wantage than for any kind of bowling ability – was tossed the ball to see if he could try to leak the visiting team some runs. IVCC then bore witness to the first leg spinner to play for the club, and balls that actually turned, much to the detriment of Welford’s scoring ability (Spencer: 0 for 12 off 2). Acting IVCC skipper Meier searched through his team sheet in search of ideas, desperate to try and make a game of it, and settled on asking Tim ‘The Beard’ Morton to proffer up some gentle spin for the opposition to feast on. Sadly even this proved too much for our mobile network providers, and boundaries were harder to come by than decent Vodafone reception in the OX4 area; Morton eventually bowling Kiran for 7 to finish with figures of 1 for 7 runs off 3 overs.

With Ross removed from the attack at the Bartlemas end, the ball was thrown to Troth, who arrived late having spent some time on the M25 car park. Troth has struggled with injury this season, and this was a good opportunity to regain some full fitness and get some decent competitive overs under his belt. Troth’s medium pacers also proved too much for Welford, who managed to scurry the odd single here and there to push their total over 50 (phew!), but nothing really here of note. Troth can be happy to get decent overs under his belt and he picked up 2 wickets for 13 runs off his 4 overs.

Desperate now to try and gift-wrap some boundaries, skipper Meier finished their innings by bowling non-bowler Dyakowski (0 for 8 off 1) and himself (0 for 9 off 1), which allowed Welford to set a target of 86 – surely easily attainable for an IVCC side that had posted 172–5 off 20 overs just one week prior against Appleton. Having chosen not to unleash Pedersen’s bowling in the first innings, it seemed only fair that, despite reversing the batting order, he should get the opportunity to at least get our run chase off to a good start. And so it was that The Anaesthetist strode out to the middle alongside Taylor, who continues to bat with sunglasses on as if he were Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Perhaps unsettled by the apparently meagre total, Pedersen went for a big slog and holed out to mid-off early doors for just 1 run, his season’s batting average taking a bit of a blow as a result. Dyakowski, making his debut for IVCC, marched to the middle to join Taylor and soon highlighted himself as a batsman with talent – displaying some well-crafted drives alongside enterprising strokeplay all round the wicket to ensure we stayed above the required run rate of 1 an over (or whatever it was!). With the sun dropping low behind the bowler’s arm at the Bartlemas end, Taylor’s sunglasses proved to be defective and he was clean bowled by a ball he clearly didn’t see, and returned to the pavilion with a decent 7 runs to his name. The writer suggests he should, however, seek a refund on those glasses…

With the required total creeping ever closer, and with plenty of overs to spare, Cavanagh danced to the wicket with all the energy of a wicket keeper who’d had very little to do in the field all afternoon (and so had resorted to diving after catches like Tom Daley for entertainment, but without the success). It should be pointed out at this stage that Welford numbered only 10, but when a call came from skipper Meier, who was umpiring at the time, for an IVCCer to graciously offer his fielding services to the opposition, he was initially met with a wall of silence from his charges. It was only when IVCC were a good 6 or so overs into their run chase did Ross, who at this point had been schmoozing some hot totty on the sidelines, chivalrously leave her side and take to the field to, indeed, play for both teams. This may seem like a minor sidenote, and indeed on any other day it would be, but in a game, nay a match report, woefully short on excitement, one needs to embellish even the minor details as much as possible.

And so, as was inevitable, it was Ross that took the catch for Welford to remove Cavanagh for 7 runs and bring Troth to the crease alongside Dyakowski. The two Alexes batted well and advanced the total nicely, despite Troth proving he has just the one shot in his batting arsenal as he continually hit almost every ball straight to Ross at mid-off which, as it turns out, is proving to be the most popular fielding position in this now floundering match report. The partnership was eventually broken when Dyakowski holed out (to mid-off surely?) for 17 well-earned runs, which brought Teacher Tyler to the middle for an innings that, one hopes, was far less interesting than one of his English lessons. Continually failing to find the middle of the bat, Tyler showed none of the batting prowess he’d shown in the Jammers game at Bloxham, and was eventually bowled for a fine-worthy duck.

With a paltry number of runs still needed, skipper Meier (2*) joined Troth and nurdled a few singles in characteristic fashion to allow Troth to be the hero and hit the winning runs, finishing on 23*, with plenty of overs to spare.

Thanks go to all who turned up to play, including the two new boys Dyakowski and Spencer. Not a game to remember at all really, but a win is a win and this means IVCC at this point in the season has played 6, won 4, lost 2, and we swagger onward to a 40-over game v Wolvercote with conviction in our hearts. Our thanks also go to the opposition for making the long trip up the A34.

“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognises genius.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear.

Ali Meier IVCC Chairman 10 July 2015