St Martin-in-the-Fields vs Carib Beer XI,

Battersea Park, Thursday 29th June 2017

Tonight’s match would be against the St. Martin’s team, plus whatever Asian ringers could be secured by the opposition skipper, which, if last year’s game was anything to go by, would form the backbone of the St Martin’s line up, being that they are all pretty useful. Quite where they are recruited from is anyone’s guess, given that otherwise, the St. Martin’s team is composed entirely of choir boys and retired vicars from the St. Martin in the fields Church in London, and it’s something of a stretch to imagine them forming part of such a flock.

Nevertheless, tonight’s game would be at one of our home grounds at Battersea Park, a pitch starting to show some mid-season wear and tear, but one that generally affords much better bounce and carry than that encountered at last week’s Greenwich Park. What we’d also not find was the opposition arriving at the ground carrying large cases of beer, as such is the crowd, a large bottle of ginger beer (and possibly some holy water) were all that was in evidence, so we’d not have the chance of an increasingly febrile opposition to improve our chances of an unlikely victory.

As is usual nowadays, the Caribs arrived at the ground in dribs and drabs, to increasing irritation from our Captain, and leader, Martin Haigh. As we did arrive, however, we spied some Asian types, occupying the square, and looking to all intents and purposes, like a group of civvies having a knockabout, such was the lack of cricket gear in evidence. We were sadly disabused of the notion that we may be facing a group of less experienced ringers this time, as several times, we were forced to dodge cricket balls flying in our direction as we circled the boundary.

However, after a while, Martin’s patience finally wore out and he accosted the opposition Bishop for some discussions on how the match should proceed. As is usual, they repaired to the middle, and after much beseeching to the heavens, returned with the happy news that due to the St. Martin’s batting line up being considerably stronger than ours, it was only fair for us to allow them first dibs with the bat, preventing a Carib collapse first up from unduly shortening the game. The main beneficiary of this policy, much preferred by the Caribs, is of course the chance to start on the beer sooner than the final conclusion of the match, given that we are permitted to begin consumption as soon as our role in the game has completed, i.e. upon the loss of our respective wicket, which if nothing else acts as an incentive when volunteers are being rounded up to head up the batting card.

However, as we were still short of players, we still needed to call upon the services of some opposition fielders to fill the gaps in the field. Nevertheless, the old Carib medium pacer, Carib Rogerson, along with newish member, Carib Shawn, Sean, Sawn or Shorn, were chosen to open the Carib attack. Although the old timer, Carib Rogerson, has been enjoying something of an Indian Summer to his career this year, he was completely unable to replicate this today. His first over was a disaster. Although generally on target, the pitched up deliveries provided a little too much leverage to the first of the Asian ringers, Stener, who took something of a liking to them, dispatching him for 2 fours and a six in very quick time. Carib Kant faired marginally better against the No 2, Roland, but the St. Martin’s innings was well and truly up and running.

[Web editor note: Once again our extremely unreliable match reporter ran out of steam at this point. The scorecard suggests a close match, where I am told some slow scoring in the early part of the Carib innings left the lower order with just a little too much to do. But as per all our other matches this season it was another tight contest.]

Carib Beer XI Lose by 10 Runs

Scorecard