Concorde v London Theatres

Match Report

THEATRES XI DECIDE THE SHOW MUST GO ON AND BRING THE CURTAIN DOWN ON
OUR SEASON BY RE-WRITING THE RECORD BOOKS!

Last Sunday saw us conclude our season with our traditional fixture against London Theatres, always strong opposition but a very sociable & affable team. It appeared all week that the game probably wouldn’t go ahead but the predicted rain scheduled for all day, came early and with the opposition very keen to play, we agreed to put back the start from 12noon until 1.30pm and play 35 overs a side. When often asked why we don’t play limited overs games regularly, we always say because timed games offer all three results and overs games are only good if the sides are evenly matched. This game completely reinforced our views!

The visitors won the toss and elected to bat in surprisingly warm sunshine at 1.30pm. Visiting skipper Dean Chisnall, taking a day off from playing lead role Jean Valjean in ‘Les Mis’ opened with Michael Waugh, son of Theatre’s stalwart Duncan but by the end of the innings we would have easily believed he was the son of either Mark or Steve Waugh! We have all seen what Dean is capable of in the past and have encountered Michael before as a promising young off spinner but since we last saw him he has now become a 6’5’’ tall p, hard hitting batsman. The previous week these two had successfully chased down over 250 to win a game by 10 wickets and now we suddenly found ourselves in the ‘Lion’s den’!

On paper we had a reasonable bowling attack (whilst admittedly lacking the penetration of a ‘Simon Duke or a Tom Barton’) but It started badly with both captain Ash & John Wilson going for at least 6 an over from the start, and got steadily worse. Ash turned to Matt Stockbridge, one of our most successful bowlers this season, & debutant Prashant Kumar to try to break the partnership but to no avail. Unfortunately they went further & harder than Ash & John, and successive changes to the bowling of Edgar, Jody & myself made no difference to the batsman who both went on to score 100 n.o. each before retiring to give others a bat. Dean had a ‘life’ on 20 when Nick F. failed to hang on to an edged drive off JW, and Michael Waugh ‘technically’ gave a chance whilst in the 30’s with a thunderous straight drive which burst through bowler Prashant’s hands, hit so hard it almost carried to Matt S. at long off! But those two occasions were as close as we got with those two. The number three also scored 60 n.o. in double quick time before Edgar finally took a wicket securing a caught & bowled from Johnny Kusten for 15 but at tea the Theatres had made an intimidating 286-1 off their 35 overs! I won’t list the bowling figures to save our embarrassment but you can do the maths, everybody went between 6-9 an over!

Our bowling and fielding had been weakened when Phil H. withdrew overnight with a niggling injury reducing us to 10 men but when he arrived at tea time to watch he was hastily recruited into the batting line up. Alas, it was to make no material difference in the end as we endured a calamitous and inexplicable collapse for the second week running against a decent but not over strong bowling attack. Maybe it was the psychological ‘mountain’ we had to climb chasing 286 but it got off to the worst possible start as Jody was comically run out at the non-strikers end without facing a ball off the very first delivery of our reply when John W. knocked a ‘loosener’ from Duncan Waugh past mid on; it was an easy single but never a two and Jody was 2-3 yards out when the return throw came in! Phil came in at no.3 and in typical fashion despatched two rasping drives down the ground for 4’s before mistiming the third drive and Duncan Waugh took a good return catch to reduce us to 14-2. Edgar, joined John and together they looked to be staging a mini recovery when suddenly it all changed when first Edgar was bowled by the opening bowler, misjudging a pull shot for 10, then John was bowled by the same bowler attempting a drive for a good looking 24 having hit 5 boundaries, to make it 42-4. Nick F. and new recruit Prashant Kumar found themselves together in the middle, the latter playing his first game for about 8 years but soon Nick was walking back to the pavilion ‘bamboozled’ & bowled for 0 by veteran left arm spinner Mike Vivian, who had replaced Duncan at the mansion end and almost immediately, Rob Symondson chipped his second ball straight to mid on for 0 and we were floundering at 63-6. There was a brief entertaining interlude whilst Prashant reminded himself of the feel of ‘willow against leather’ and supported by Luca pushed the score up to 80 before he was also bowled by Mr Vivian for a spirited 35 including four 4’s and two 6’s, one hit like a ‘shell’ that went straight through the sight screen! Then to put the ‘icing on our batting cake’ , skipper Ashley, mysteriously batting at no.9, was bowled first ball by Vivian to register our 4th duck of the innings. At 90-8, Matt Stockbridge, probably the best no.10 we’ve had in recent years, decided it was probably a ‘bridge too far’ and promptly played across a straight one to be lbw for 4, leaving Luca and the writer to hoist us to 108 before Luca skied one to mid wicket to end the innings, leaving the writer stranded on 5 n.o.

It was by any standards a humiliating defeat, and almost certainly our biggest ever margin of loss by 178 runs. For Dean it really was a case of ‘Master of the House’, Michael Waugh & Mike Vivian with 5-24, both certainly ‘dreamed the dream’ and there was no chance of ‘empty chairs at empty tables’ for the visitors afterwards who were understandably fairly buoyant but still gracious in victory.

For us, it marked the end of a season with a lot of positives, but it was just a shame we lost form so badly in the last 2 games and it all rather ended on a whimper!