Northern Trust vs Carib Beer XI,

Greenwich Park, Wednesday 4th June 2025

If anyone reading this has ever seen any of the “Final Destination” series of films, they will know the importance of reading the signs to avoid disasters. Despite numerous signs the fear of feeling the wrath of the Carib Executive Committee was too much and all warning signs were ignored by Caribs Rayner and Nitin the warning signs of boarding the DLR in the wrong direction, ignored the sign of Cutty Sark station being closed, ignored the (station) sign saying Greenwich resulting in them having to go back on the DLR again and ignored the various weather reports saying that we shouldn’t be playing in the first place.

Carib Cordey had his own set of signs that he didn’t ignore, this behaviour will likely result in him being severely reprimanded by the CEC, but this is a light escape when compared to what the rest of us faced, Carib Cordey made the sage decision to send a message a full 18 hours before the match to say he wouldn’t make it, this short notice meant that the Carib tradition of many seasons continued and the Caribs were short in the field. The remainder of the Caribs arrived for an away match versus traditional foe Northern Trust who due to internal politics were fielding a lot of unfamiliar faces interspersed with more familiar figures.

The first duty of the match was for another tradition to be upheld, Captain Haigh lost the toss and NT elected to bat.

NT scored at a steady pace especially as the waiting batsmen were constantly encouraging the team to run the singles and run one for the throw, I guess the Caribs poor fielding reputation is beginning to spread.

NTs opener was forced to retire to give the rest of the team a chance to bat this was more due to overs running out due to a 30 minute rain delay forcing the match to be reduced to 16 overs each rather than a lack of singles and boundaries being hit. The main highlights of NTs innings were Rayner showing that fielding with knees and ankles is usually effective, NTs captain Scott Douglas being run out after great work in the field by Andy Weaver, whilst coming off the field Scott was heard asking his team if they agreed that if he had run fast enough he wouldn’t have been run out…being the Captain, no one at NT seemed willing to point out that that’s usually how run outs work. One last point of note was NTs Joe Minchin who may need his hearing examined or his nerve endings tested during the company medical after he failed to hear or feel the significant edge he hit that resulted in a fine take by Andy Bowen who was up at the stumps whilst Andy Weaver bowled. A low light in the field was Nitin attempting to demonstrate that fielding with your hands is the more traditional method in cricket, but unfortunately, he failed to demonstrate it well and subsequently took a ball to the eye which later that night required stitches.

At the close of the NT innings they had amassed 115 for 3, a total which is often beyond the Caribs with 20 overs, and would prove more than adequate as we were missing most of our traditionally more effective batsmen - Archie on holiday, Nitin out of action due to the injury above, Phil absent due to injury and Rishi being away in India enjoying the celebrations after King Kohli finally landed the IPL title with RCB.

The above absences did prove costly Caribs openers scored at a pace that would have resulted in them being ejected if they tried that representing NT, a combined 15 runs from 35 balls faced, the rest of the Carib line up were equally painful, with the exception of Andy Weaver who managed 17 runs from 28 which, with bowling and fielding factored in must have secured him MoM. Swanand managed to be the sole Carib batsmen to score at more than a run a ball with 8 off 7.

The match was not one to be stored in the memories of the Caribs, after the blow on his head its unlikely Nitin will have much memory of the game anyway so if anything he had the best result as I’m sure the nurses at St Thomas’ were easy on the eye.

Hopefully the return fixture will be a little bit more of a contest and our next fixture is against the Old Boys, so we should be able to get some confidence for the rest of the season.

Carib Beer XI Lose by 48 Runs

Scorecard