Carib Beer XI vs St Peter's Dad

Battersea Park, Tuesday 20th June 2019

The eve of the Summer Solstice resulted in a remarkable continuation of fate for the Carib's in 2019. Our record from 2018 read - IBM won, UKGI won, NT game called off, St Peter's Dad lost. 2019 has read IBM lost, UKGI lost, NT game called off and 4th up were St Peter's Dad again, so a guaranteed win was sure to ensue. Similarly to 2018, this was also our first visit to Battersea of the season and thus a great opportunity for the ornithologists within the Carib ranks to observe the varied plumage's of parakeets and other birds.

Arrival for the evenings affairs were somewhat hampered by Industrial action on South Western trains, I'm not quite sure what's going on with the railways, but considering half the Carib Beer membership have had historic ties with the railway infrastructure of the UK, I would hope they can put in a word. As it was, the delays did mean that Carib's Nitin and Rayner spotted a lost and bewildered Carib's Horn, Moss and Swanand strolling aimlessly between platforms 10 and 13 at Waterloo. The Bank of England detachment was subsequently bailed out after being given a helpful pointer to the 1722 to Epsom departing from platform 23 at 1727.

Upon arrival at Queenstown Road, the long walk to Battersea park, with cricket bags, not coffins dragging behind, began. The good news for the ornithologists was that the twitching began almost immediately. A rare greater breasted blonde was spotted at the junction who was quickly followed by the sighting of the equally rare long legged, short skirted lesser spotted brunette, a great double that all you bird lovers will appreciate is a very fine treat, so fine, that it is worthy of a few minutes of appreciation and contemplation at this point……..

The Battersea Park pitch was looking fine after the recent bouts of rain and sunshine, so much so that our Captain announced that he would put us in to bat should he win the toss, to any regular readers of these reports, you will know that this comment was worthy of the derision it received from the listening Carib members, bearing in mind that the Carib's toss record is tossed 97 lost 96 with one toss un-tossed due to a gentlemen's agreement to elect to bat due to lack of available fielders at the time of the tossing. No surprise then that tosser losing Captain Haigh lost the toss. However, our luck was obviously changing as St Peter's Dad, having won the toss elected to field, so in a way, we won the toss, whilst simultaneously losing the toss. At this point I'd like to contact the Guinness Book of World Records to see if this paragraph is a record for the most uses of the word toss and its derivatives in one place. I will report back with their findings in due course.

At this point Captain Haigh played his Trump card, off the back of his Golden duck two weeks ago, Captain Haigh could see that Carib Rayner was desperate to get back to the crease, and so the opening batsmen pairing of Rayner and Nitin was written in the scorebook. Knowing that things must change, Carib Rayner elected to put on a helmet for the first time in his cricketing career. At the other end off the back of his 12 from 12 against UKGI, Carib Nitin took guard and awaited the opening ball.

An incredibly short time later Carib Nitin was back in the hutch having amassed a mighty 1 from 3 balls, a remarkable strike rate when compared to what was happening at the other end, as Carib Rayner amassed a possible Carib record number of dot balls (Statistics on this matter need to be verified)

With Nitin seen off, Rayner awaited his next partner, out strode Mossy, a fellow golden duck specialist who needed to do better. A blistering feat of run scoring saw Mossy amass 7 from 7 before finding his stumps uprooted and going back home to take up his regular perch as scorer. This bought out Ringer Callum for his Carib debut. The Kiwi had earlier been heard saying he used to play Cricket, but hadn't played for some time, was an all-rounder but was more a bowler than a batsman. The Carib's wondered what this would mean in the real world when the first delivery came down. What it meant was Ka-Pow as is written in comic books at these sorts of times, as Callum smashed the ball to record his first Carib boundary. Over the course of the next 9 balls faced by Callum he hit 3 more boundaries and a selfish single to keep the strike at the end of one of the overs. At the other end, taking his inspiration from Geoffrey Boycott, Carib Rayner continued to keep the score book stagnant and allow the other batsmen to take the glory. Carib Rayner apparently felt he was also helping by seeing off the better St Peter's Dad bowlers by recording 3 straight maidens, a fine sacrifice that in war would probably be worthy of medals for gallantry. During this time, a desperate dive to avoid a run out and protect other Carib's from having to come to the crease was performed, this bravery in the face of the enemy would also be worthy of a medal for valor, or in our case, consideration for other mentions at end of season summaries.

With all this excitement, Carib Callum was subsequently bowled having amassed 17 runs from 10 and so Rayner was preparing to meet yet another partner, Carib Statistician and part time treasurer Gordon came out.

Knowing that the Carib ship was now steadied, it was time for Rayner to open his shoulders, one mighty 4 later and it was time for Rayner to depart, having increased his run tally for the season by 225%, or to put it another way, by 9 runs from 34 painstaking deliveries.

This bought out Captain Haigh who would also go on to score 9, whilst the impressive hitting of Gordon registered 4 from 6. Further innings of not many runs from Swanand, Tom and Alex plus tight bowling from St Peter's Dad and the final wicket falling to the final ball, meant that the Carib's had a total of 81 well earned runs to defend. It is a well-known fact that the St Peter's Dad outfit is better suited to batting than bowling and so everyone was given a pep talk by the Captain and everyone knew without doubt that we couldn't drop catches, misfield or bowl wides, no balls or give away runs unnecessarily.

With those words ringing in our ears we took to the field to begin our attack. At this point the twitching took precedence, over the course of the next two hours a few fine specimens were seen with the following being particular crowd pleasers, The Lesser Known Scooter Wheeler and the Black Dressed Fast Walker being personal highlights.

Opening the bowling was Carib Swanand, 4 straight overs around the wicket of pace and aggression was exactly what the captain ordered, bowling a beautiful line he took 3 wickets with great catches from Mossy, Callum and Nitin. Sorry, slight error there, 2 of those 3 forgot to stop the birdwatching, listen to the captain or help Swanand's figures. To be fair, post match, Swanand did say that he wasn't taking Nitin or Mossy's drops personally, although it will be interesting to see if that stance remains in place if end of year bowling figures are tight. The catch that was held by Callum, making his Carib debut, was miraculous, so far Callum was 2 for 2, having hit his first ball for a boundary and taking a catch with his first bit of fielding. Swanand therefore had one wicket that could have been so many more.

At the other end Carib Nitin went for a miserly 3 runs from 2 overs with 0 wickets, this did mean that his net contribution to the team was -2 runs when his single with the bat was taken in to account. Beyond this a dropped catch, that is generally seen as -5, means that Nitin's net return for the match was -7, Thankfully this will not be taken in to account during his mid-year review otherwise deportation papers maybe getting filed.

First change bowling saw the introduction of Ringer Callum, as an all-rounder who prefers bowling to batting we knew we were in for a treat. Alas, it seems that something had distracted his radar as his first delivery was simultaneously wide, went for byes and was above Robert Wadlow's head height. The second was not much better but after the extras column had been tickled a few times he began to find his rhythm with a series of in-swingers that kept the St Peter's Dad batsmen defending.

Next saw Martin introduce himself to the attack, with the few wickets and retirements that St Peter's Dad had to make, it meant that Martin found himself bowling at a brute of a man who proceeded to bludgeon poor Martin for numerous runs, boundaries and consecutive sixes. Always up for the fight, Martin quickly took himself out the firing line. Is there anything more inspiring than your leaders leading the charge? a genuine reincarnation of namesake Field Marshall Haigh. "Sir" Martin handed the baton to Gordon who was joined in the attack by Tom.

Gordon and Tom were always facing an uphill struggle, at this point, St Peters Dad needed a handful of runs, but some unorthodox deliveries and wild appeals for LBWs from the covers saw a few more batsmen dispatched, one appeal led to the slowest raising of the digit of death ever witnessed. Gordon's full toss delivery struck the batman flush in front of middle and wild celebrations rang out. Alas another dropped catch, this time by Tom off his own bowling and a few more boundaries saw St Peter's Dad cross the line with a few overs to spare.

All that was left of the evening was to decide who was on bag duty and to decide which pub we would retire to. At this point, please cast your mind back to the beginning of the third paragraph "Upon arrival at Queenstown Road, the long walk to Battersea park, with cricket bags, not coffins dragging behind, began".

The bag discussion is always awkward, Swanand regaled us with tales of China and the bag concierge service on offer. It seems that you can get bags (but not passport's as they are always left with mum, that's right isn't it Tom?) ferried around for you. Martin then started going off on tangents as he likes to, talking about "The Julian Alps" and that being a reason that he can't drink beer on a Thursday in June, Talking about The Germanic Wars and Barbarian hordes from the 15th Century and about professional cricketers and the Carib kit bag situation that was raised at the AGM. The last point it seems had been agreed that we needed bags with wheels and handles but not wheels, straps and no handles. Martin in his infinite wisdom stated we should have Coffins not bags for kit. Tom and I unsurprisingly looked confused, but it seems that a large wooden cricket kit box is available and is known as a coffin, hence the reference in paragraph 3 - It seems that tangents are rubbing off, thanks Martin.

And so, finally, the most important element, the Pub, much debate about Brexit, Bridge, Birds and Dot Balls. On the Bridge front, Carib Rayner met a future England Bridge representative who is off to Slovakia next week for the European Championships. According to Mossy she may have worked at the Bank of England once, but Mossy couldn't remember her name, if she came from Newcastle, or played Bridge, so it may not have been the same person. She was certainly a potential double bagger though and nothing compared to the various plumages we'd seen earlier in the night.

Carib Beer XI Lose by 3 Wickets

Scorecard