harpenden cavaliers cricket club

Match reports

Players and Jesters Cricket Club - Home 15/05/05

The Cavaliers ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again raised its ugly head last Sunday. This team has plenty of lads who are incapable of sealing the deal, but this is normally kept to the nightclubs of London or the world of IT solutions, not Rotho’s lower pitch.

Jay Wise, fresh from a spell away from cricket to organise the Hello! wedding of the year, and Jimmy Hat opened the batting and gave the rest of the Cavs a masterclass on batting on a bitch of a wicket. Putting on 142 for the first wicket is a record in Cavalier folklore and one that should have setup an easy victory for the purple and black caps. Nothing is ever certain, however, and the turning point of game was a P&J’s plan as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University. The Players & Jesters first slip, who was sick of watching Jay and Hat club his bowlers about, decided to take a superb diving catch whilst breaking his arm at the same time. Holding onto the ball was not an option, but JimmyHat – ever the gent – walked, given out “caught by a broken arm”. The lengthy delay seemed to knock the wind out of the Cavs sails and the 10 Jesters rallied in support of their one-arm bandit.

Jay followed shortly once he had reached 65, the same total as his opening partner. The long wait for Ellis had not helped and, coupled with (another) hangover, he could only scratch around for one run before feathering one behind. If only Elbow chatted up women in the same style that he batted….if you’re going to get nowhere, get it over and done with quickly. SNR and skipper Lloyd ticked things over for a while until SNR was run out whilst trying to avoid the incoming slow, looping throw. Amazingly the ball fell gently onto middle stump and umpire Paul Wise was all too keen to send his best mate back to the pavilion.

Then came the collapse. Jim Burton didn’t last too long and was fired back to hutch LBW by the trigger finger of Paul Wides. With 3 balls of the innings remaining Adam saw his stumps shattered which brought Nick “shellsuit” Francis to the wicket. Unfortunately, at that very moment Palace had just been sent tumbling into the championship so an angry, mumbling and distraught Toothie took guard. Still chatting to the fielders about the football results as the ball was bowled, Toothie took a frustrated swipe at the ball, which simply smashed into his stumps. This brought Meo to the crease with the bowler on a hattrick. A huge appeal went up as the ball rattled into Tim’s pads and his horror was complete when he looked up to find a grinning trigger finger pointing back at him. Cavs all out for 181.

The tea was fantastic with the only disappointment being the inability to cut Dave’s birthday cake. Although maybe 20runs short, a positive Cavaliers side took to the field and received another legendry team talk from Mr Motivator, Lager Lloyd. Opening spells from Tooth and TimmyF proved tight and economical, the latter picking up two wickets during an impressive spell. Firms and JB were struggling to find their radar and a huge number of wides certainly helped push the Jester’s score along at a healthy rate. Solid batting from experienced Jesters players proved too much as the score continued to mount and although Hat and SNR bowled beautifully to throw out the anchors towards the end the writing was on the wall. Two catches from Jay Wise held things back for a while but in the end the Jesters surpassed the Cavs total with 8balls to spare.