That is sooooo village - Scottish Special Edition

The Jags 175-7 (Sawyer 76*, Baines 53, Wade-Glehill 2-14) beat The Swaffhams 134-10 (Wilson 50*, Westbrook 18, Baines 4-19) by 41 runs

MOTM - Baines

Off the back of two consecutive league defeats, and a less than blistering start to our league season we found ourselves amongst the village environment of the Swaffhams. This is one of those fen conglomerates of multiple villages close together that have multiple connected Olde English sounding names that evoke the spirit of King Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood and what not. There is a Swaffham Prior, and a Swaffham Bulbeck - one word I understand, the other I had to use the internet to discern that it means "small stream".

The setting here is glorious, a village green with a road that is close enough to make access easy and put cars in danger of errant cricket balls (definitely not if I'm batting) with a modest but picturesque pavilion, mature trees, benches liberally littered around, where locals perch for libation and sustenance to watch the local folk engaged in a spot of English entertainment. It is, quite simply what village cricket is all about. Top that off with a welcoming looking old pub to one corner of the field, and you have the constant prospect of all the fun things happening in one place. The weather was insanely nice as well, just perfect all round.

Opening the batting this week, we lost the toss and were pushed this way, Baines and Meldal, Baines opening for us for the first time. Goodness me did he get off to a flyer, looking for all the world as though he was ready to open the batting for a modestly sized suburb that is North of the border with England that has a lot of oil, apparently (and some 'history', apparently). He hit a straight driven 4 in his first 3 balls, and then walloped a giant great 6 that hit a car, of course it did, on the full. The car pulled over, inspected the damage, and a kindly local actually gave the man the club's details on a card so he could know who to contact for insurance matters.

Nice work, wee man

Baines has endeared himself to Histon and the Jags, with a commendable bowling talent, solid fielding, it turns out he can bat, and he also calls every single youngster he meets, "wee man" irrespective of their size or shape, such is his commitment to not learning any of their names. Meldal hit a nice 4 I can recall, but the first few overs were brutal, with Baines in particular absolutely cutting loose. Meldal hit a classical pull for 4, Baines hit another walloping great 6, before Freddie fell playing an attempted cut through point straight to the man stationed there. He was chuffing annoyed.

Parrish joined Baines for a bit, and things continued with Baines scoring almost 30 odd in a one sided partnership. Matt fell to a ludicrous ball. The pitch had played true for the most part and the first absolute grubber of a ball bit, pea rolled and hit him on the pads plumb in front of leg stump. It was horribly unlucky, as cricket can often be. Threadgold joined for a bit running nicely before he received an absolute worldy, pitching outside leg, moving in and that was that, stumps splattered. Sawyer joined Baines for a bit and Baines got his 50, hitting a 4 before perishing next ball, caught high for a rollicking great 50 setting us off at a canter.

I joined Sawyer and, absolutely determined to enjoy the best seat in the house, I left my first couple of easy sighters with a slightly exaggerated leave - my current best shot. Sawyer then took up the mantle from Baines, hitting a straight driven 6, two off side 4's and generally just having a whale of a time. I ran for him, and played a lot of dots, chatted to him in the middle, did some fist bumps, but was otherwise just enjoying the view. To give you some perspective, we shared a 59 run partnership, facing almost the same number of balls, and I scored 7 of those 59 runs. It was absolutely glorious to watch, and oddly almost risk free, with Sawyer picking his spots and monstering a 6 to square leg as well as his favoured off side shots. The thing I would say though, and there is a lesson here for anyone finding batting a challenge, is he played everything with a smile on his face, chatting and chirping and generally looking for all the world as if he was playing in his garden with his son. If you relax, you cash in.

I scored a weird 4 before missing a left arm off spinner and being bowled. Sawyer told me he was a left arm off spinner, and I then spent the next 3 balls before being bowled trying to remember what that meant - did it turn this was or that - who knows. Certainly not me! 

Andy Strachan joined Sawyer for a bit, ably running and fist bumping and offering kind words, before he fell caught. Sawyer got his 50 in short order, more applause even from the bench full of locals. Matt, Threadgold and I were sat on a separate bench with Freddie - let's call it the "we didn't score many runs" bench - we clapped too. Cricket is a team sport and we were on for a monster total. Barker fell first ball LBW, and Cooper managed to rotate strike and get Sawyer back on strike where he finished on 76*, an absolute shoo in for man of the match you would think, helping us post our second highest ever total of 175-7. The organiser was visibly shocked it was that good. 

I would add a word of thanks to some of the fielding and field placement from the Swaffhams, which I think helped add 20 runs to our total at least. 

We opened with Baines (opening the batting and bowling, you cad) and O Savage, and one of their opening batsmen decided that he quite fancied trying to hit a car as well, hitting two straight driven 6's in the first two overs. The other man fell to O Savage quite early, an absolute dream of a catch by the man Strachan at long off. Baines looks every inch the happy/angry Scotsman, Strachan is as English as tea and crumpets, but he has a name that suggests a similarly fierce ancestry.

Baines took the other opener with Barker taking the catch, then bowled another with a peach to leave himself on a early hat trick, determined to get the man of the match award. He bowled seam up, it wobbled, and with the field in the bats-boy edged to first slip, kindly taking the pace off to make sure it was extra especially easy for O Savage to take. He shelled it, of course he did. Baines didn't even managed to say "unlucky wee man", he was that angry.

Ollie, Mate, if he can do it, then surely you can too

The Swaffhams were never really on the rate. Ollie didn't at all make up for his horror drop by bowling one. We did celebrate. I think. Phillips had taken the gloves behind the stumps and mostly did a nice job with the odd sneaking through. Baines took the fielders out of the occasion by bowling his 3rd and stepping out of the attack. Cooper and Barker took bowling duty and at 6 or 7 down for 47, the game was all but done. A couple of their younger batsmen got halfway going, and dragged them to 74-8, with Cooper being bashed about a bit, but taking a sharp caught and bowled having missing a difficult one earlier in the ring. Cooper's spikes got stuck in the turf at one point, so we were treated to Parrish seeing out the over with his best Mark Fardell impression. The book says 0.5 overs for 2 runs, but the book does not tell the full story (fire in the hole!).

The number 10 batsman had clearly eaten his ready brek as he hit 50 off 26 balls, 2 4's, 2 6's and generally looked like he really should have joined the fray earlier. The result was never in doubt, so the latter part of the game saw Baines get a fourth and verbally challenge me to give anyone else the man of the match award. Sawyer had an over, eventful, but also bowled one. Barker had mental figures of 2 overs 2 runs, no wickets - and we will miss his all action all energy run in to deliver a ball when he heads off to Mordor later this summer (New Zealand). I remember Threadgold doing some good fielding, and Meldal got some tap from their number 10. I'm also pretty sure Ollie dropped another. He must have, the amount of abuse he got.

The end of the game was a carnival atmosphere, cantering to the end and hoping for the pub. I asked the opposition to update the scoreboard despite it being irrelevant - and it felt like absolute troll behaviour on my part as the response from one of the assembled throng was, "we need lots, far too many in fact!". So they fell 41 runs short, the last wicket bowled by Freddie.

Pub attendance was good, as it should be with the pub literally all you can see whilst fielding or batting, and there were chips, onion bhajis and general mirth and banter. I had a sterling chat about random celebrity encounters with Andy and Ben that will stick in the mind, and we all laughed at Ollie - who bowled well for his 3 wickets, fielded well mostly, but was still comedically the butt of every joke in the pub. 

First league win, onwards and upwards and many thanks to the Swaffhams, Bulbeck and Prior, for the game, the mirth, the chips and the weather. Tamil Sangnam next week.