Humiliation-on-sea
Budleigh Salterton, Devon, 6/26/2022
Budleigh Salterton won by 206 runs
Budleigh Salterton: 299-5
Strongroom: 93
View the Scorecard
I sensed about a week in advance that this might be a truly dreadful cricket experience, and sadly the emergent reality effectively brought this gloomy expectation to life. After two superb matches in successive days, comfortably nestled in the lush, green hills of the South Hams, we relocated to the coast and found ourselves in a expansive, dry and windy arena, pitted against a youthful and heavily mulletted league team (the mullets apparently reflect a micro-regional phenomena whereby local youth nurture 80s-style mullets in direct emulation of their Exeter Chiefs rugby heroes). Overnight we had also lost several of our best (and youthful) players to other pre-planned commitments, and turned up with a somewhat depleted, knackered and aged touring party. Local Devonian Ian Hutchcroft very kindly agreed to supplement our numbers, to raise us to a grand total of 10.
It was with an ominous sense of foreboding that I negotiated a 35 overs match with the skipper, and agreed to field first, simply to avoid the game being over in 10 overs. Clearly this was the wrong decision on my part, and with hindsight we should have batted first, to get bundled out for 47 and start our journey home. However, field first we did, and on what proved to be a very hot and windy day, which, on an expansive ground with a fast outfield, soon brought to our attention that we were in for an absolute hiding. The dry, flat and grassless playing surface was continental in appearance, and any margin in line and length was ruthlessly punished. As it was, Budleigh hammered their way relentlessly to 299-4 off their 35 overs. While Henry was again excellent with the new ball, and Mario kept tidy figures, my fielding was embarrassingly bad and easily the worst I have ever conducted, due to chronic knee pain that restricted my movement down to grass level. Otherwise, Budleigh’s batsmen started their account cautiously, and there was a sense of pseudo-politeness in how they defended length balls, which could otherwise so easily be simply bashed over the boundary. In due course, the onslaught inevitably began, and we duly dropped two key catches off Ian’s well-flighted leg-spin, which was cruel given the brutality he faced from their buccaneering Bairstow-esque batsmen. I should add that Vinay also bowled very well, albeit with no luck. There were some truly huge sizes struck, but we stuck to our task out of a subconscious, unspoken and deeply embedded loyalty to the game of cricket.
It was with some relief when the 35th over was completed. However, this was soon followed by surprise and disappointment when we were informed there was no tea, due to COVID-19 having undermined the ancient tradition of tea making across the country. It was at this stage I started to wonder if we could simply fast forward to Monday morning, and bypass the next few hours. Upon this disheartening development, Jerome and Vinay fled to the high street to try and source something edible, and I cannot recall if they were successful in this venture. I emptied out a crushed bag of Tunnocks bars, mini-cheddars and oranges, to very limited interest. Seb, meanwhile, showed some of his self-sufficient, can-do camping spirit, found his way into the club kitchen and duly heated up some tinned meatballs which somehow provided the highlight of my day!
In our response to 299 we pledged our allegiance to the Bazball ethos, and set out from basecamp to scale the foothills of this towering mountain. Vinay started very fluently but then mis-hit an offdrive straight to the obliging mid-off. Thereupon, in the face of some excellent, disciplined, pacy and youthful bowling, the rest of us utterly flunked it. The only positive feature of our batting was Sam (27), who opened with Vinay and showed us that he can bat, with what was an excellent and stoic innings. Meanwhile Jerome was chuntering with exasperation with what appeared to be a dubious LBW decision, and by now all the wheels were well and truly off the wagon. Finally we were 93 all out and the misery came to an end, with 206 runs and some hurt pride separating the two sides.
With reflection, this fixture was a reminder of the risk of arranging a game against an established league side on the Sunday of a tour, with no guarantee we can field a decent and agile team. However, overall it had been a superb tour, with the holistic joy of Harberton outweighing the carnage of this particular mismatch. Henry Davey was duly awarded the tour trophy for his excellent contributions with bat and ball, and we hobbled to our respective vehicles to start the long journey home. But hey, it’s (non-league vs league) cricket.
In this image below, we see the highlight of the day for Vinay and Mario - some locally sourced fish and chips.
Written By: J.Gower
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