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

Wednesday 18th July 2018

As the hot, dry summer wears on, last night saw yet higher scores, but unfortunately for the Caribs the third heavy defeat in the row.

St Martin’s fielded a strong side (Giles’s famous Indian phone book coming to their aid) despite missing the vicar and keen cricketer, Sam, and only having 9 available. But quite a 9 it was.

Best endeavours were being made on all sides to arrive early. But those were rapidly undone by extensive travel disruption at both Victoria and Waterloo playing havoc with the Carib arrivals. Rarely have we had quite so many WhatsApp messages before a game. Mr Cordey was threatening to go home when he appeared stranded at Waterloo. He probably would have found it easier to make it from his typical recent destinations of Singapore and Santiago. Curiously, St Martin’s seemed remarkably unaffected. Whether it was an inside job or they had had some advance notice, it served to play a few tricks on the Caribs’ morale as they arrived in dribs and drabs.

St Martin’s won the toss, elected to bat and we finally got underway at 6.30. They started as they meant to go on. There was a brief glimmer for the Caribs as Nitin dismissed Tim, clean bowled early on. But that proved to be the solitary wicket as St Martin’s motored on to 176 for just 1 wicket (perhaps a new record high score and low wicket tally?) Five batsmen in all made it to the retirement at 25.

In truth, the strong batting was helped by the conditions. The parched, rock-hard surface proved an assistance to the batsmen. Partly in evening out the wicket’s notorious bounce at Battersea Park. But particularly in making fielding difficult, if not hazardous. The ball sped past and through many of the Caribs for fours, often assisted by the fast, uneven bounce. Mr Holmes had a particularly fraught time down at River end, but he was not the only one. Mr Worthy took one for the team with a nasty hit on the finger. Credit, however, must go to Goochie, who was displaying some of the finest technique from the MCC Coaching Manual, getting his body behind the ball, stopping several boundaries in the deep at the Clapham end..

The daunting total seemed to have a demoralising effect, giving many Caribs a listless demeanour at the interval. However, Mr Holmes was raring to get going and Captain Martin thought he’d try to do his best to get us off to a start.

After some ‘incidents’ at the boundary at this fixture in previous seasons, we managed to avoid any controversies over the practice of scoring this year. Captain Martin had been deciding to take a strong line, looking to instil observance of scoring best practice. Mr Moss then followed up as the man of reason, the voice of compromise and managed to soothe things over about not needing to be quite as strict as Captain Martin was directly, with the result that it was altogether more harmonious this year.

That said, chasing down a score approaching 9 an over, the mood on the Carib bench was grim-faced. Unlike the last fixture at Battersea Park, we weren’t even treated to any of Goochie’s disquisitions on matters of military history or the merits (or not) of Leonardo da Vinci’s works. Instead, questions were being raised about Captain Martin’s captaincy.

After returning from his customary mid-season break, Mr Willis declared that he liked nothing less than going out to make up the numbers and field for the opposition. But he gallantly went on to do so, with the result that he was involved in opener Mr Holmes’s dismissal, a superb catch on the run in the deep, just in front of the Carib bench.

Captain Martin got off to a slow start, but made up for some of that with a big over including a straight six.

To contrast with the St Martin’s innings, there was a steady stream of Carib wickets. Notable features were good innings from Mr Holmes at the start and Mr Bowen at the finale with five good, clean strikes of the ball for boundaries in short succession. Indeed, of late, Mr Bowen has been developing a more successful, calm, assured and languid style of batting. Mr Worthy scored more than he probably expected as Mr Willis was encouraging him to run in proper T20 style. That was before he proceeded to call Mr Willis himself through for a run, before sending him back to an easy, sacrificial run out. Mr Moss, never one for big foot movement, hit two vigorous fours from the crease.. Mr Berry had had to leave early owing to the disruption and his reliance on the notorious Uckfield branch line. So we ended up 133 for 8, our last stand seeing out the 20 overs for us. Such as score would normally be competitive, but the parched, hard conditions – not to mention the small detail of the formidable opposition batting line-up – meant that the result was a defeat by 43 runs.

Well done to St Martin’s. But well played, with many spirited performances in tough conditions by the Caribs. The Caribs are hoping that their luck turns soon.

Carib Beer XI Lose by 43 Runs

Scorecard