Despite initially setting off with no cap on my oil tank I got to my game on time without complications and I had the pleasure of having a decent chat before Cherry Tree’s game at Whalley on Saturday with the umpire and former Burnley, Lowerhouse and Enfield favourite Pankaj Tripathi.
‘Trip’ is about 6 months different in age to me so to the passing world it looked like what it was, two blokes knocking on in years sat on a bench in the sunshine having a mumble.
But back in the days when even I had hair like teen idol David Cassidy, Trip, who it’s fair to say revolutionised Lancashire League fielding like Jonty Rhodes did at international level, cut even more the dash.
With his good looks, long hair and slim frame always immaculately turned out in slightly flared Persil-white flannels, he could almost have adorned the pages of your sister’s Jackie Magazine, a kind of boy-band bible for teenagers.
But what a piece of cricketing work he was in the field. Electric.
He told me how he relished patrolling an area that three men might be needed to cover otherwise, taking brilliant catches and throwing in super-accurate returns to run batsmen out. Direct hits were a speciality. It was a shock if he missed. Run at your peril.
He was a force of nature and stood out like a blinding beacon when your average rather more stoutly-framed and less groomed league cricketer might have had a safe pair of hands but one which were often holding a pint, fag and a pie off the field.
His excellence didn’t come about by accident. He told me how he practised and did his drills till all light was faded and he regarded anything that bounced off a single fingertip even after a desperate dive as a failure, to be anticipated and moved towards better in future.
I thought about his words a couple of hours later at a pivotal moment in my game.
Whalley v Cherry Tree was a scorer’s dream of an afternoon, a win for your team all over by 4.30pm.
Mrs Wilkinson had accompanied me and toddled off to see her pal in the village and my only worry at one point was she wouldn’t be back for an early getaway after a Whalley side containing four former Church men (including Crabby) were already largely undone by spin. From 23 for five they did well to give Lesley time to walk to her mate’s and back.
Initially surviving the early carnage pro Levi Wolfenden had to play one of his most uncharacteristic knocks in a rescue bid,
He made 12 from 69 balls before being eighth man out at what turned out to be the final total of 76.
Launching Andreas Sudnik skyward when further defence was futile, I had to stand up and head for the scorebox door (another ‘restricted view,’ at Whalley, the bane of a scorer’s life) to see if anyone was underneath the towering hit.
How reassuring to get outside and see the vertiginous blow descending to fall just inside the ropes into the clutches of Mark Hadfield, the kind of ‘model amateur’ you would be very surprised to see drop one.
Hadfield gave a wry smile to spectators immediately behind him who had perhaps been less sure than I was that he would pouch it and in that moment the contest was over.
Mark is the kind of lad who prides himself in getting his best on show in every discipline of the game. I bet he seldom misses a net or practice routine. He’ll drop one occasionally, they all do, but his hours of practice made me confident he was holding that one to effectively win his team the game.
Even half an hour of Levi blasting away with the tail makes it a different game but he and the last two were gone without further addition and Cherry made light work of chasing the target (77) down with their pro Bhada able to stroke an unbeaten 33 after skipper Charles Elwood had broken the back of the chase with a rapid and violent 43.
Roll forward 24 hours and in a very well-contested, tough game at the iMEP Arena, Accrington missed a not exactly simple but highly possible chance to snap up eventual Greenmount match clincher Mapstone, the number 7 who steered his side home with 47 not out after Graeme Sneddon’s men had given themselves a fighting chance of pipping the highly-fancied visitors in a bout that swung to and fro all afternoon.
It was the kind of chance you wanted a Tripathi or Hadfield under.
Pro Jurie Syman would surely expect such a chance to be taken in 95 per cent of the cricket he plays and how his air of frustration at a big moment in a game contrasted with Min Bhada’s relaxed demeanour a day earlier.
Jurie would already have been disappointed not to convert a 43 into a big one but is entitled to expect even amateur team-mates to hold their opportunities.
True, promotion tips Greenmount were mildly depleted with a sub pro after a freak training injury to Accrington’s nemesis Jacques Snyman and two regulars were evidently at a wedding (I’m always curious to imagine what skippers of the Bryan Knowles/Roland Harrison era would have made of that as an excuse, even if it was your own nuptials you were requesting a day off for).
Although Mapstone and wicket-keeper Norris took Greenmount home with an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 45, the match-winner was probably their skipper Travis Townsend who made 83.
Our score of 221 for 9 was a worthy effort with three main contributions from Jurie (43) Jacob (53) and Ali Hasham (46 and apologies once again to Hash for cocking up the individual tallies on the board) a respectable effort and a target which needed getting after losing three wickets for 52 but Townsend and Andy Kerr, once of Immanuel, built Greenmount’s recovery after an excellent three-wicket salvo from Oliver Lowe had their innings similarly teetered.
That’s twice now we’ve rattled up more than respectable 200 totals against sides noted for powerful batting and in both games Accrington have competed deep into it but it just needs that extra 10-15 per cent to be found from somewhere.
That 40 or 50 to be turned into 80 or a 100, that dropped catch to be held to stun the opposition, that three-for to be turned into a collection.
Sunday’s game at my spiritual boyhood and teenage cricket home, Alexandra Meadows, is one everyone has to be at it for.
They too have had a poor start but we have had enough individual performances so far to suggest there’s a proper team busting to get out here,
I’m the last person in the world to be criticising anyone’s fielding and my own scoring hasn’t been tip-top so far this season, I’m determined to do better, but I hope the lads are at it with the skiers till twilight, catching pigeons for fun, on Thursday night.
*I took issue with a bloke on Twitter this week (When did you last not take issue with a bloke on Twitter? - Ed) who saw my post about the Bacup pro getting 234 and it not being flagged up in the Monday Telegraph.
The bloke, from Wales, which in itself might explain more than I am about to, replied: “Quite rightly ignored I don’t see the fun in seeing a player hit 234 - he’s obviously way above the level he’s playing at,
“To whose expense? Probably young developing bowlers who may feel like turning their back on the game after that. I’ve seen it happen first hand.” That’s me told then.
Now I’m not sure exactly goes on at weekends in Wales (I do recall Collis King playing somewhere that way on) but I’ve seen a lot of League cricket since first being taken to East Lancs in 1968.
My dad told me were going to see a huge West Indian fella hit a cricket ball for miles - He’d made 100 for Haslingden in the corresponding fixture a year earlier.
Lloyd made 1, caught and bowled by a bushy-haired young bloke named Ian Houston.
“Don’t worry,” said Dad, he’s back in a couple of weeks. The Lancs League are playing the International Cavaliers.”
Lloyd made one in that game too, with the great Graeme Pollock doing similarly poorly for the superstar XI.
No matter, I was hooked on cricket.
So even then I knew I was watching a game where local lads could compete with world stars. I saw the same Ian Houston launch an incandescent D K Lillee into the Grammar School yard several times to win a Worsley Cup game. If I get to Heaven and they offer me the chance to live one afternoon of my life again, that would be high on the list.
I’m sure the lads who got a bit of tap off Bacup’s Kharuna won’t suffer any lasting damage - Oliver, the youngest of our bowlers certainly looked bang at it on Sunday - and it all added to the rich tapestry of amateur v professional in our unique circumstance of league cricket.
I’ve enjoyed all the magnificent pros I’ve watched - Lloyd, Border, Azharuddin, Viv Richards, Collis, Kapil Dev, Warne, Holding, Donal et al - and none of them ever caused anyone to walk away from the game as far as I’m aware. (None of them scored 200 either!
And I’ve enjoyed seeing pals like Nick Westwell, Gerard Metcalf, Andy Stevenson and Alan Massicks get the better of a famous name or two.
It’s the greatest leveller in world sport and what we all turn up for and will be doing again this week.
Now let me just check that oil and water again.
