The Hendrick's Occasional XI, 2017
The Season So Far...
As he lies recuperating in a small, sterile hospital bed, the relentless aroma of medical cleaning products and stodgy cafeteria food curdling in his nostrils, Timothy J. Saunders contemplates the meaning of life.
Following what some professional observers may boldly describe as ‘extensive’ or, on a more melodramatic day, ‘life-saving’ heart surgery, the Hendrick's XI’s now scarred and bionically enhanced captain has experienced something of a wobble. At the core of this brief existential crisis is, naturally, the game of cricket. For what does a mere game amount to – frivolous, temporal, prone to wild and unpredictable lurches of fortune – when considered in the grander scheme of things?
In the depths of his morphine-induced delirium, a voice drifts down to him. A fruity voice of commanding, reassuring pitch and panache that immediately blows away the proverbial cobwebs and sends a brilliant burst of light shimmering into the darkness. To whom does this disembodied, omniscient tenor belong to? Some all-powerful, metaphysical being? God??
“My dear old thing”, begins The Voice, with an uncanny and surely not coincidental resemblance to legendary cricket commentator and benevolent rambler-in-chief, Henry Blofeld. “How splendid to see you, sorry about your present state of affairs. Just dropping into say, don’t lose heart. Carpe Diem, and all that. For what could possibly be more vitally restorative than a good spot of cricket and snifter of gin, in these troubled times?”. This, of course, is a year in which Trump and Brexit have loomed large, threatening to extinguish even the most simple of life’s pleasures.
After a long, waffling speech, full of mispronounced inspirational tropes and a good deal more ‘my dear old thing-ing’, he eventually wraps up in fitting style. “Oh look, there’s a Number 32 bus heading down the road. And a particularly thoughtful looking pigeon….”
He trails off imperceptibly, but his job is done. Saunders, revitalised, proceeds to reconvene the troops.
* * *
Empty Champagne bottles and crumpled beer cans litter the floor of Hendricks HQ, the mood jubilant, the liquor strong and the celebrations euphoric thanks to a sensational four match unbeaten run that saw them finish the 2016 season in style. As the wind whips up discarded streamers and trampled confetti, there is an unmistakable air of optimism pervading the club’s hierarchy, who have already begun planning fixtures and plotting further triumphs for the new campaign.
Although the previous year was consecrated as, by a gaping chasm, their most successful to date, the brief glimmer of hope for more consistent displays of sporting competence would sadly prove to be crushingly misplaced. But although the early season buoyancy flickered away almost as quickly as it had breezily arrived, it would, as always, not be down to a lack of hearty, gin-soaked spirit and incorrigibly half-cooked persistence.
Match One vs. All Stars CC (lost by four wickets)
Hendrick's XI 129-9
All Stars CC 131-6
A balmy afternoon in late May saw the Hendrick’s contingent drift out to Belair Park in Dulwich, an almost embarrassingly park-laden environ of South London, for their opening fixture. Eventually locating the correct area of picturesque greenery among the borough’s numerous commons, a quick toss against a team comprised of affable Civil Servants ended in Saunders choosing to bat first.
The initial signs were good. Worryingly, almost complacently good. Unfortunately, solid top-order contributions from Qas Khattak and skipper Saunders would prove to be the high point of a season that has thus far stalled in the batting department, in marked contrast to the previous campaign. In 2016, batting records had been shattered by Jay Modi and Ross Quest, the latter of whom made the club’s maiden century, while Khattak put bowling attacks to the sword so frequently he had raced to the top of the prestigious ‘Most Career Sixes’ leader board, eclipsing even the big hitting prowess of the curmudgeonly Quest.
Keen to add to his tally this year, he set about the bowling with vicious intent, finding the ground’s short boundaries to his liking as he laced successive balls into the thick wilderness of shrubbery which bordered the pitch. Khattak explained his sudden onslaught of aggression by saying he was “thoroughly disappointed” that he hadn’t lost the match ball after hitting the first of his three imperious sixes.
Elsewhere, however, the batting floundered uncharacteristically. Quest was, perhaps a touch harshly, dismissed lbw for 14, a decision which notoriously discerning umpire James Hewlett later confirmed as “probably out” after he had raised the finger with searing, athletic pace. “Well, what I mean to say is, there was a good chance that it might have been out”, he soon clarified helpfully.
Hewlett and Tom Metcalf provided some of their characteristically bullish, test match-derived defensive strokes which looked tidy and considered without adding much momentum, before debutant Ollie Holland briefly troubled the scorers with a robust 11, making him only the fourth batsman to edge into double figures. To call the remainder of the innings a collapse would be generous to what had come before, such were the George Osbornesque levels of tight-fisted austerity on display.
They did, at least, end on a high when Khattak returned from his brief retirement for the final two balls of the innings, picking up two runs from the first before rounding off proceedings with yet another towering six from the last, effectively scoring more in two deliveries than the team had managed in the previous two overs.
Defending what could, at best, be described as a “gentlemanly” 129, the gauntlet was well and truly down, not helped by the absence of several pivotal new ball merchants from years past.
After establishing himself last season as a ferocious opening bowler of startling pace, accuracy and consistency, Quest’s shock decision to withdraw his services can only be attributed to an attempt to leverage a more lucrative contract deal, not dissimilar to the current dispute between the Australian team and their own cricket board.
Thankfully, in the absence of both him and fellow 2016 opening stalwart Modi, the Hendrick’s XI were once again generously blessed with a new recruit capable of adding a much-needed gloss to proceedings. Fizzing the ball in on both line and length, clearly alarming the startled Saunders behind the stumps, James Gilbert simultaneously stifled runs and took wickets, in a callous display of professionalism that briefly threatened to turn the game into a genuine contest.
First-change regular Ajay Shah was also lamentably absent, having been flown out to a specialist clinic in the remotest reaches of the Swiss Alps, at considerable expense to the team, so that he could undergo a mysterious but apparently vital eye operation to prolong his slow-burning Hendrick’s career. As such it was another of the team’s ringers who stepped up to the metaphorical plate. Alex Sharp, five wicket hero from his solitary appearance last year, stepped up admirably while Holland continued his pleasing debut, providing a measure of balance to the beleaguered attack as he sent down four overs tighter than Theresa May’s firmly clenched posterior on election night.
Momentum, however, would continue to remain elusive. Much like a cumbersome, treasure-laden cargo ship set upon by unscrupulous pirates in the mid-seventeenth century, runs continued to be plundered freely. The voracious All Stars found boundaries markedly easier to come by than their opposition as they flogged a rusty and expensive bowling attack into neighbouring fields and troubled many an unsuspecting pedestrian on their way around the park’s now ball-strewn outer pathways.
Hewlett’s spidery limbs twirled away merrily with his customary disregard for trifling matters such accuracy, a jaunty smile on his face suggesting only a passing concern for events around him. In the latter overs Wickham and Metcalf plied their trade, with the trade being the ability to bowl with only just enough pace to propel the ball to the other end of the wicket without it stopping dead in mid-air. Unfortunately their awkward and usually difficult-to-get-away, occasional-wicket-taking fare proved easy to get away and in notably little danger of taking wickets, until Metcalf ensnared an unsuspecting victim to offer a brief glimmer of hope.
Gilbert’s late return to the attack with some truly miserly and potent death bowling was sadly not enough to swing the balance back in their favour; immaculate figures of 3-10 from his four overs were almost unsportingly accomplished given the circumstances. The prospect of rampant, booze-soaked street parties and cardboard novelty masks fashioned after members of the Hendrick’s team was finally ended when a decent last over from Holland yielded the necessary couple of runs required.
Reflecting on a tough opening fixture, Saunders was stoic in defeat. “Yeah, well, you know, the lads have been hitting it pretty hard since last year’s triumphs. Money, women and an ever growing list of intoxicants. It’s a dangerous combination”, he offered by way of explanation, before continuing: “Some would say we were undercooked today, ‘tepid’ perhaps. I prefer ‘lukewarm’. Either way, it seems fair to equate our performance to some sort of idly forgotten, room temperature liquid”.
Match Two vs. Fairlands CC (lost by nine wickets)
Hendrick's XI 84 all out
Fairlands CC 85-1
Unexplained absences, phantom injuries and rumours of aborted stints in narcotic rehab centres continued to plague the team heading into their second fixture. Quest took his industrial action to the next level by calling a one man strike and retreating to his ancestral seat of Gosport, Saunders headed into self-imposed exile in the United States, while Modi’s radio silence continued unabated.
Between the severely depleted squad and Quest’s taking of the team kit as hostage in his ongoing feud with the club, the odds of success were beginning to stretch ever longer. As the meagre contingent sallied forth to Guildford to face friendly specialists Fairlands, the truculent stiff upper lip spirit of the remaining ensemble suffered further setbacks as first Metcalf then Khattak were forced to pull out as the sun rose on a delightfully summery June morning. Initial reports of detention in police custody began to surface, following a vicious bar brawl the night before, with Metcalf apparently suffering a broken finger while Khattak was left with a missing tooth - presumably as a result of forceful contact between the two body parts.
As such, the return of Will Pitt and his expansive, wardrobe-like physique to the line up was fortuitously timed. Along with him came an acquaintance from his school boy heyday, Dave ‘Trigs’ Treglow, whose privately educated grasp of both the rules and techniques of cricket immediately saw him promoted to wicket keeper and opening batsman. Wickham scoured the rolodex of casual acquaintances in an attempt to widen the talent pool, laying considerable ground work with the proprietor of the local off licence, who claimed to have once been a budding Pakistani all-rounder of notable repute before some vague and apparently indescribable “shoulder tissue injury” had curtailed a promising semi-amateur career.
In the end he settled on his amiably diminutive work colleague Ravi Patel, whom he accosted and press-ganged into service during a frantic Friday afternoon recruitment drive at the office. Being of Indian extraction, a cliched expectation of diligent top-order batting prowess and canny wrist spin was assumed. Fortunately this prediction proved to be startlingly close to reality, and the team’s latest acquisition was sent in to partner Treglow.
They both arrived at the crease oozing poise and assurance, immediately demonstrating a handy knock of getting bat on ball, a skill widely believed to be advantageous when opening the batting. But in spite of some crisp flicks and flowing drives, both were dismissed for somewhat underwhelming scores of zero, leaving the team rocking and the batting order scrambling as the paltry two sets of borrowed pads, gloves and boxes were hastily ferried to the edge of the pitch for a rapid exchange with the incoming batsmen.
It was left to James ‘Rocket’ Rollett to get the team off the mark, heroically dragging them to a mighty 6-2, before he too perished. A promising partnership between Gilbert and Pitt ended when Pitt was comically run out, as the Hendrick’s cohort continued to be orchestrate their own demise, before Gilbert fell for a hard-fought 14. With Hewlett still en route to the ground direct from his wedding in New York, having cut short his vows and charged immediately from the service already wearing cricket whites concealed beneath a three-piece suit, Wickham stepped into the breach with the team on course to post their lowest ever total.
In the absence of more seasoned skippers, the team had been forced to turn to their vice-deputy-back up captain, whose proudest achievements in previous error-strewn tenures include a solid 50-50 record of winning the toss and consistent decisions to never inflict his own bowling on proceedings. Finding himself at the crease with the runs bare and the wickets tumbling, Wickham’s stay in the middle looked to have ended in its usual style - dismissed lbw for a second ball duck - when a vicious swinging delivery slammed with a sickening crack into his back ankle that left him barely capable of movement.
But the near fatal blow to this tender, unprotecting region had a galvanising effect on his usually non-existent batting technique. Digging deep he led from the front, producing some masterful, ungainly flaps, jerks and twitches on his way to a slightly incorrectly recorded 15, which saw the small pitch-side gathering briefly bemused at the sight of his name leading the scoreboard.
Due to their numerical deficiency, both openers were permitted a second spin of the wheel, which saw them reconvene for the side’s highest partnership of the afternoon as they counter attacked with some crunching shots that left the ball lying in the medieval moat which ran at the bottom of an alarmingly steep drop around the boundary rope. Presumably dug to repel marauding armies of local youths, in case of a lengthy siege. Their valiant last gasp stand saw the total inch up to 84, ensuring there would be no wooden spoon for a record lowest Hendrick’s score, a fact which brought about revelrous celebrations and enthusiastic high-fiving at the mid-game interval.
Having laid down a total that would not widely be regarded as imposing, Gilbert continued his good work with the ball from the previous game while Pitt, built like a locomotive, sidled in gracefully to steamroller his way through some customarily aggressive overs. With a modest haul of runs to play with, a merciless early charge into the opposition batting line up was essential.
As the extravagantly voiced Henry Blofeld once said: “One must be ruthless in one’s pursuit of cricket”. And rest assured, cricket was ruthlessly pursued, whether it wanted to be or not.
In this instance it appeared that, regrettably, cricket did not want to be pursued. Evading them at every twist and turn, it proved to be as difficult to pin down for them as those attempting the reconnaissance mission for ‘Football’ dating back to Baddiel & Skinner’s proclamation that it would be ‘Coming Home’, way back in 1996.
Rapid fire bowling changes were deployed in an attempt to dislodge the openers from their assured partnership, with electric paceman Rollett mixing in gentle bouncers and sky-bound beamers to soften their pair, before Hewlett served up a delicious slower ball which slipped surreptitiously through the defences. Despite some sharp, darting deliveries from the round-arm action of Patel, it would prove to be the first and last entry into the wickets column on an otherwise unpopulated Hendrick’s scorecard.
After sneaking home with a mere eight overs, nine wickets and three hours to spare, a repeat 18 over ‘blast’ was proposed - ironically longer than the original fixture, such was the praiseworthy efficiency with which the Hendrick’s XI had engineered their initial defeat. Not since the ferociously incompetent Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 has a contest ever been so poorly planned, one sided and hastily concluded.
Match Two and a Half vs. Fairlands CC (lost by 31 runs)
Fairlands CC 127-5
Hendrick's XI 96 all out
Batting and bowling line ups for ‘El Scorchio’, as the inaugural blast was dubbed, were reversed, with every player taking a couple of overs with ball in hand, in a socialist-inspired display of sporting solidarity. With the troops charging once more unto the breach, the energy was high, the commitment faultless, and the defeat, again, swift.
Fielding first, notable highlights included Pitt and Treglow becoming awkwardly entangled as they pirouetted around each other, both attempting to take a high, spiralling catch. Miraculously the chance was eventually held by Pitt despite the rather physically and socially uncomfortable proximity he now found himself to his evidently nonplussed teammate. A wicket maiden was also sent down, making their eventual defeat even more impressive, by Paul, the benign septuagenarian loaned to them by their accommodating opposition who whirled away in a Wickhamesque display of poor sportsmanship after the scalp was chalked up.
Another temporary loanee, Max, also chipped in with a wicket, despite his good natured disdain for the sport and all those who played it, emulating the forceful ennui of the absent Quest. Never since Ajay Shah’s debut season has a man looked so ill at ease and in total shock to find himself wearing cricket whites in the middle of a large field. The flurry of early dismissals continued with Trigs, who picked up a handy couple to become the seventh successive debutant in as many seasons to immediately surpass the achievements of every other player on the team.
After Fairlands sailed past the 100 mark, an unlikely Hendrick’s victory seemed to be growing ever more remote, and the response with the bat began thoughtfully, almost philosophically. Hewlett opened and dropped anchor in customarily diligent fashion, playing with a thoughtfulness and careful shot selection not seen since the limpet-like adhesion of the stodgiest Boycott years. Wickham played another fleeting four-ball cameo, lacing successive boundaries before being ushered away from proceedings by Umpire Patel - given out leg before. He was, however, immediately reprieved upon returning to the pavilion, the fourth umpire having reviewed the video footage studiously and adjudged the impact to be too high.
Making the most of his bizarre second chance he payed a true captain’s innings of 14, before Gilbert and Rollett bedded down with determination to set a solid platform. A swashbuckling final outing of the Trigs-Patel Show would not, sadly, prove to be enough to rescue lost pride or salve open wounds, but the manner of their performance at least ensured a more theatrical defeat. Which, at the end of the day, as all any proud British citizen can ever ask for.
Enjoying a restorative Captain Morgan’s and Coke in the faded plushness of the clubhouse post-game, Wickham reflected even handedly on his time back at the helm. “I’ll always point out the positives, and despite two crippling losses there’s plenty to be proud of. How many skippers can claim to have captained their team in back-to-back defeats on the same day? You need real character to take such a raw pounding and plough blindly on regardless, and personally I’m happy to join that elite list and tick another achievement off the old bucket list”.
* * *
While the season’s tantalising beginning has not exactly been the saucy romp of unadulterated success which some may have hoped for, a more robust climax, one feels, is only ever teasingly around the corner.
As famous gin lush and accomplished brick layer Winston Churchill legendarily opined, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”, and it is precisely this buoyant spirit which will continue to ferry the temporarily beached vessel that is The Good Ship Hendricks.
For what are defeats if not merely a mechanism with which to make eventual triumphs seem all the more impressive? With the sales unfurling and the buccaneering heroes of years past still sharpening their swords, there is undoubtedly a good deal more thrillingly mediocre cricket and indulgent storytelling still to come.
Following what some professional observers may boldly describe as ‘extensive’ or, on a more melodramatic day, ‘life-saving’ heart surgery, the Hendrick's XI’s now scarred and bionically enhanced captain has experienced something of a wobble. At the core of this brief existential crisis is, naturally, the game of cricket. For what does a mere game amount to – frivolous, temporal, prone to wild and unpredictable lurches of fortune – when considered in the grander scheme of things?
In the depths of his morphine-induced delirium, a voice drifts down to him. A fruity voice of commanding, reassuring pitch and panache that immediately blows away the proverbial cobwebs and sends a brilliant burst of light shimmering into the darkness. To whom does this disembodied, omniscient tenor belong to? Some all-powerful, metaphysical being? God??
“My dear old thing”, begins The Voice, with an uncanny and surely not coincidental resemblance to legendary cricket commentator and benevolent rambler-in-chief, Henry Blofeld. “How splendid to see you, sorry about your present state of affairs. Just dropping into say, don’t lose heart. Carpe Diem, and all that. For what could possibly be more vitally restorative than a good spot of cricket and snifter of gin, in these troubled times?”. This, of course, is a year in which Trump and Brexit have loomed large, threatening to extinguish even the most simple of life’s pleasures.
After a long, waffling speech, full of mispronounced inspirational tropes and a good deal more ‘my dear old thing-ing’, he eventually wraps up in fitting style. “Oh look, there’s a Number 32 bus heading down the road. And a particularly thoughtful looking pigeon….”
He trails off imperceptibly, but his job is done. Saunders, revitalised, proceeds to reconvene the troops.
* * *
Empty Champagne bottles and crumpled beer cans litter the floor of Hendricks HQ, the mood jubilant, the liquor strong and the celebrations euphoric thanks to a sensational four match unbeaten run that saw them finish the 2016 season in style. As the wind whips up discarded streamers and trampled confetti, there is an unmistakable air of optimism pervading the club’s hierarchy, who have already begun planning fixtures and plotting further triumphs for the new campaign.
Although the previous year was consecrated as, by a gaping chasm, their most successful to date, the brief glimmer of hope for more consistent displays of sporting competence would sadly prove to be crushingly misplaced. But although the early season buoyancy flickered away almost as quickly as it had breezily arrived, it would, as always, not be down to a lack of hearty, gin-soaked spirit and incorrigibly half-cooked persistence.
Match One vs. All Stars CC (lost by four wickets)
Hendrick's XI 129-9
All Stars CC 131-6
A balmy afternoon in late May saw the Hendrick’s contingent drift out to Belair Park in Dulwich, an almost embarrassingly park-laden environ of South London, for their opening fixture. Eventually locating the correct area of picturesque greenery among the borough’s numerous commons, a quick toss against a team comprised of affable Civil Servants ended in Saunders choosing to bat first.
The initial signs were good. Worryingly, almost complacently good. Unfortunately, solid top-order contributions from Qas Khattak and skipper Saunders would prove to be the high point of a season that has thus far stalled in the batting department, in marked contrast to the previous campaign. In 2016, batting records had been shattered by Jay Modi and Ross Quest, the latter of whom made the club’s maiden century, while Khattak put bowling attacks to the sword so frequently he had raced to the top of the prestigious ‘Most Career Sixes’ leader board, eclipsing even the big hitting prowess of the curmudgeonly Quest.
Keen to add to his tally this year, he set about the bowling with vicious intent, finding the ground’s short boundaries to his liking as he laced successive balls into the thick wilderness of shrubbery which bordered the pitch. Khattak explained his sudden onslaught of aggression by saying he was “thoroughly disappointed” that he hadn’t lost the match ball after hitting the first of his three imperious sixes.
Elsewhere, however, the batting floundered uncharacteristically. Quest was, perhaps a touch harshly, dismissed lbw for 14, a decision which notoriously discerning umpire James Hewlett later confirmed as “probably out” after he had raised the finger with searing, athletic pace. “Well, what I mean to say is, there was a good chance that it might have been out”, he soon clarified helpfully.
Hewlett and Tom Metcalf provided some of their characteristically bullish, test match-derived defensive strokes which looked tidy and considered without adding much momentum, before debutant Ollie Holland briefly troubled the scorers with a robust 11, making him only the fourth batsman to edge into double figures. To call the remainder of the innings a collapse would be generous to what had come before, such were the George Osbornesque levels of tight-fisted austerity on display.
They did, at least, end on a high when Khattak returned from his brief retirement for the final two balls of the innings, picking up two runs from the first before rounding off proceedings with yet another towering six from the last, effectively scoring more in two deliveries than the team had managed in the previous two overs.
Defending what could, at best, be described as a “gentlemanly” 129, the gauntlet was well and truly down, not helped by the absence of several pivotal new ball merchants from years past.
After establishing himself last season as a ferocious opening bowler of startling pace, accuracy and consistency, Quest’s shock decision to withdraw his services can only be attributed to an attempt to leverage a more lucrative contract deal, not dissimilar to the current dispute between the Australian team and their own cricket board.
Thankfully, in the absence of both him and fellow 2016 opening stalwart Modi, the Hendrick’s XI were once again generously blessed with a new recruit capable of adding a much-needed gloss to proceedings. Fizzing the ball in on both line and length, clearly alarming the startled Saunders behind the stumps, James Gilbert simultaneously stifled runs and took wickets, in a callous display of professionalism that briefly threatened to turn the game into a genuine contest.
First-change regular Ajay Shah was also lamentably absent, having been flown out to a specialist clinic in the remotest reaches of the Swiss Alps, at considerable expense to the team, so that he could undergo a mysterious but apparently vital eye operation to prolong his slow-burning Hendrick’s career. As such it was another of the team’s ringers who stepped up to the metaphorical plate. Alex Sharp, five wicket hero from his solitary appearance last year, stepped up admirably while Holland continued his pleasing debut, providing a measure of balance to the beleaguered attack as he sent down four overs tighter than Theresa May’s firmly clenched posterior on election night.
Momentum, however, would continue to remain elusive. Much like a cumbersome, treasure-laden cargo ship set upon by unscrupulous pirates in the mid-seventeenth century, runs continued to be plundered freely. The voracious All Stars found boundaries markedly easier to come by than their opposition as they flogged a rusty and expensive bowling attack into neighbouring fields and troubled many an unsuspecting pedestrian on their way around the park’s now ball-strewn outer pathways.
Hewlett’s spidery limbs twirled away merrily with his customary disregard for trifling matters such accuracy, a jaunty smile on his face suggesting only a passing concern for events around him. In the latter overs Wickham and Metcalf plied their trade, with the trade being the ability to bowl with only just enough pace to propel the ball to the other end of the wicket without it stopping dead in mid-air. Unfortunately their awkward and usually difficult-to-get-away, occasional-wicket-taking fare proved easy to get away and in notably little danger of taking wickets, until Metcalf ensnared an unsuspecting victim to offer a brief glimmer of hope.
Gilbert’s late return to the attack with some truly miserly and potent death bowling was sadly not enough to swing the balance back in their favour; immaculate figures of 3-10 from his four overs were almost unsportingly accomplished given the circumstances. The prospect of rampant, booze-soaked street parties and cardboard novelty masks fashioned after members of the Hendrick’s team was finally ended when a decent last over from Holland yielded the necessary couple of runs required.
Reflecting on a tough opening fixture, Saunders was stoic in defeat. “Yeah, well, you know, the lads have been hitting it pretty hard since last year’s triumphs. Money, women and an ever growing list of intoxicants. It’s a dangerous combination”, he offered by way of explanation, before continuing: “Some would say we were undercooked today, ‘tepid’ perhaps. I prefer ‘lukewarm’. Either way, it seems fair to equate our performance to some sort of idly forgotten, room temperature liquid”.
Match Two vs. Fairlands CC (lost by nine wickets)
Hendrick's XI 84 all out
Fairlands CC 85-1
Unexplained absences, phantom injuries and rumours of aborted stints in narcotic rehab centres continued to plague the team heading into their second fixture. Quest took his industrial action to the next level by calling a one man strike and retreating to his ancestral seat of Gosport, Saunders headed into self-imposed exile in the United States, while Modi’s radio silence continued unabated.
Between the severely depleted squad and Quest’s taking of the team kit as hostage in his ongoing feud with the club, the odds of success were beginning to stretch ever longer. As the meagre contingent sallied forth to Guildford to face friendly specialists Fairlands, the truculent stiff upper lip spirit of the remaining ensemble suffered further setbacks as first Metcalf then Khattak were forced to pull out as the sun rose on a delightfully summery June morning. Initial reports of detention in police custody began to surface, following a vicious bar brawl the night before, with Metcalf apparently suffering a broken finger while Khattak was left with a missing tooth - presumably as a result of forceful contact between the two body parts.
As such, the return of Will Pitt and his expansive, wardrobe-like physique to the line up was fortuitously timed. Along with him came an acquaintance from his school boy heyday, Dave ‘Trigs’ Treglow, whose privately educated grasp of both the rules and techniques of cricket immediately saw him promoted to wicket keeper and opening batsman. Wickham scoured the rolodex of casual acquaintances in an attempt to widen the talent pool, laying considerable ground work with the proprietor of the local off licence, who claimed to have once been a budding Pakistani all-rounder of notable repute before some vague and apparently indescribable “shoulder tissue injury” had curtailed a promising semi-amateur career.
In the end he settled on his amiably diminutive work colleague Ravi Patel, whom he accosted and press-ganged into service during a frantic Friday afternoon recruitment drive at the office. Being of Indian extraction, a cliched expectation of diligent top-order batting prowess and canny wrist spin was assumed. Fortunately this prediction proved to be startlingly close to reality, and the team’s latest acquisition was sent in to partner Treglow.
They both arrived at the crease oozing poise and assurance, immediately demonstrating a handy knock of getting bat on ball, a skill widely believed to be advantageous when opening the batting. But in spite of some crisp flicks and flowing drives, both were dismissed for somewhat underwhelming scores of zero, leaving the team rocking and the batting order scrambling as the paltry two sets of borrowed pads, gloves and boxes were hastily ferried to the edge of the pitch for a rapid exchange with the incoming batsmen.
It was left to James ‘Rocket’ Rollett to get the team off the mark, heroically dragging them to a mighty 6-2, before he too perished. A promising partnership between Gilbert and Pitt ended when Pitt was comically run out, as the Hendrick’s cohort continued to be orchestrate their own demise, before Gilbert fell for a hard-fought 14. With Hewlett still en route to the ground direct from his wedding in New York, having cut short his vows and charged immediately from the service already wearing cricket whites concealed beneath a three-piece suit, Wickham stepped into the breach with the team on course to post their lowest ever total.
In the absence of more seasoned skippers, the team had been forced to turn to their vice-deputy-back up captain, whose proudest achievements in previous error-strewn tenures include a solid 50-50 record of winning the toss and consistent decisions to never inflict his own bowling on proceedings. Finding himself at the crease with the runs bare and the wickets tumbling, Wickham’s stay in the middle looked to have ended in its usual style - dismissed lbw for a second ball duck - when a vicious swinging delivery slammed with a sickening crack into his back ankle that left him barely capable of movement.
But the near fatal blow to this tender, unprotecting region had a galvanising effect on his usually non-existent batting technique. Digging deep he led from the front, producing some masterful, ungainly flaps, jerks and twitches on his way to a slightly incorrectly recorded 15, which saw the small pitch-side gathering briefly bemused at the sight of his name leading the scoreboard.
Due to their numerical deficiency, both openers were permitted a second spin of the wheel, which saw them reconvene for the side’s highest partnership of the afternoon as they counter attacked with some crunching shots that left the ball lying in the medieval moat which ran at the bottom of an alarmingly steep drop around the boundary rope. Presumably dug to repel marauding armies of local youths, in case of a lengthy siege. Their valiant last gasp stand saw the total inch up to 84, ensuring there would be no wooden spoon for a record lowest Hendrick’s score, a fact which brought about revelrous celebrations and enthusiastic high-fiving at the mid-game interval.
Having laid down a total that would not widely be regarded as imposing, Gilbert continued his good work with the ball from the previous game while Pitt, built like a locomotive, sidled in gracefully to steamroller his way through some customarily aggressive overs. With a modest haul of runs to play with, a merciless early charge into the opposition batting line up was essential.
As the extravagantly voiced Henry Blofeld once said: “One must be ruthless in one’s pursuit of cricket”. And rest assured, cricket was ruthlessly pursued, whether it wanted to be or not.
In this instance it appeared that, regrettably, cricket did not want to be pursued. Evading them at every twist and turn, it proved to be as difficult to pin down for them as those attempting the reconnaissance mission for ‘Football’ dating back to Baddiel & Skinner’s proclamation that it would be ‘Coming Home’, way back in 1996.
Rapid fire bowling changes were deployed in an attempt to dislodge the openers from their assured partnership, with electric paceman Rollett mixing in gentle bouncers and sky-bound beamers to soften their pair, before Hewlett served up a delicious slower ball which slipped surreptitiously through the defences. Despite some sharp, darting deliveries from the round-arm action of Patel, it would prove to be the first and last entry into the wickets column on an otherwise unpopulated Hendrick’s scorecard.
After sneaking home with a mere eight overs, nine wickets and three hours to spare, a repeat 18 over ‘blast’ was proposed - ironically longer than the original fixture, such was the praiseworthy efficiency with which the Hendrick’s XI had engineered their initial defeat. Not since the ferociously incompetent Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 has a contest ever been so poorly planned, one sided and hastily concluded.
Match Two and a Half vs. Fairlands CC (lost by 31 runs)
Fairlands CC 127-5
Hendrick's XI 96 all out
Batting and bowling line ups for ‘El Scorchio’, as the inaugural blast was dubbed, were reversed, with every player taking a couple of overs with ball in hand, in a socialist-inspired display of sporting solidarity. With the troops charging once more unto the breach, the energy was high, the commitment faultless, and the defeat, again, swift.
Fielding first, notable highlights included Pitt and Treglow becoming awkwardly entangled as they pirouetted around each other, both attempting to take a high, spiralling catch. Miraculously the chance was eventually held by Pitt despite the rather physically and socially uncomfortable proximity he now found himself to his evidently nonplussed teammate. A wicket maiden was also sent down, making their eventual defeat even more impressive, by Paul, the benign septuagenarian loaned to them by their accommodating opposition who whirled away in a Wickhamesque display of poor sportsmanship after the scalp was chalked up.
Another temporary loanee, Max, also chipped in with a wicket, despite his good natured disdain for the sport and all those who played it, emulating the forceful ennui of the absent Quest. Never since Ajay Shah’s debut season has a man looked so ill at ease and in total shock to find himself wearing cricket whites in the middle of a large field. The flurry of early dismissals continued with Trigs, who picked up a handy couple to become the seventh successive debutant in as many seasons to immediately surpass the achievements of every other player on the team.
After Fairlands sailed past the 100 mark, an unlikely Hendrick’s victory seemed to be growing ever more remote, and the response with the bat began thoughtfully, almost philosophically. Hewlett opened and dropped anchor in customarily diligent fashion, playing with a thoughtfulness and careful shot selection not seen since the limpet-like adhesion of the stodgiest Boycott years. Wickham played another fleeting four-ball cameo, lacing successive boundaries before being ushered away from proceedings by Umpire Patel - given out leg before. He was, however, immediately reprieved upon returning to the pavilion, the fourth umpire having reviewed the video footage studiously and adjudged the impact to be too high.
Making the most of his bizarre second chance he payed a true captain’s innings of 14, before Gilbert and Rollett bedded down with determination to set a solid platform. A swashbuckling final outing of the Trigs-Patel Show would not, sadly, prove to be enough to rescue lost pride or salve open wounds, but the manner of their performance at least ensured a more theatrical defeat. Which, at the end of the day, as all any proud British citizen can ever ask for.
Enjoying a restorative Captain Morgan’s and Coke in the faded plushness of the clubhouse post-game, Wickham reflected even handedly on his time back at the helm. “I’ll always point out the positives, and despite two crippling losses there’s plenty to be proud of. How many skippers can claim to have captained their team in back-to-back defeats on the same day? You need real character to take such a raw pounding and plough blindly on regardless, and personally I’m happy to join that elite list and tick another achievement off the old bucket list”.
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While the season’s tantalising beginning has not exactly been the saucy romp of unadulterated success which some may have hoped for, a more robust climax, one feels, is only ever teasingly around the corner.
As famous gin lush and accomplished brick layer Winston Churchill legendarily opined, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”, and it is precisely this buoyant spirit which will continue to ferry the temporarily beached vessel that is The Good Ship Hendricks.
For what are defeats if not merely a mechanism with which to make eventual triumphs seem all the more impressive? With the sales unfurling and the buccaneering heroes of years past still sharpening their swords, there is undoubtedly a good deal more thrillingly mediocre cricket and indulgent storytelling still to come.