Over the years the Jags have had a rotating cast of characters. In the years where it was a company team, we had to give some preference to staff, even those staff who had never played cricket and didn't know any of the rules. It also meant we had some incredibly diverse player types, with quirks and personality traits and just general hilarity that made it, actually in retrospect, quite fun to write about.
I have some longer prose written down on various of these personalities, but as an attempt to put some copy into writing ahead of the pending season, I thought I would share a few ditties here and there from the inner reaches of my brain, more as anecdotes than memoirs.
Arun Gowda always sneaks into my mind for some reason. He played a couple of seasons as a genuine Jagex employee (the literally disappeared into the ether), offspin like bowling and reasonably competent with the bat. The two things about him that always come to mind are his shouts of "CATCH IT!" every single time he bowled, for each and every ball he balled that collided with bat, pad, ground or anything else. Wherever a ball he bowled went, in the air, on the ground, through to the keeper, he had to say it - no matter what, desperate for the joy of a wicket. This was made even more hilarious by the fact he was, despite bowling/batting reasonably well, a useless fielder. He would just amble around the pitch into random positions nowhere near those he had been assigned, and goodness if the ball came towards him you knew there was zero chance of if being caught, stopped, slowed down or returned to the middle. He actually once turned a dot ball played into the infield near the covers into a 4, and in the 8/9 years since I saw it, I still have no idea how he did it.
Jay Atkinson was a personal favourite - a strapping South African with decent banter, a devilish smiling demeanour, and a hearty laugh that belied his small frame. When he departed the team he went to live in rural France, which is something I share purely as it made me sad at the time, but I then also hoped he would take the world of French cricket by storm in some alternative universe. He bowled very fast for a short run up, but had a skill of bowling really rather well with a touch of swing and too much pace for this level, but at no point could he bowl it anywhere near the actual stumps - so often went wicketless but economic. He bowled almost 30 overs in one season, conceded fewer than 100 runs from these overs, but got no wickets. Now those are some figures. He also had a wonderful batting tendency, for the same entire season he got 3 different scores - 4, 8 or 12 off 1, 2 or 3 balls. All of his shots were pure as the driven snow, hit through the line straight over midwicket, making the sound a cricket ball colliding with a bat should always make. No defence, no ducks, every shot a "wow", but no big scores as every ball had to go in his mind...
Jeroen Van Daal was another of the South African contingent. He couldn't really bowl, and his fielding wasn't bad, although he couldn't throw it more than 2 yards from where he was standing, but his batting was lovely. Pure wristy hand eye coordination stuff and an air that he had more time than anyone else to pick his spot. He created one of my favourite moments on a field, when on 30 odd shall we say, a medium paced ball was bowled in his arc, and as-it-bounced he shouted, "YEAH!", and a full second later it soared for 6 over the deep square boundary. Magical moment it was, celebrating his shot before he'd even hit it.
A final little ditty, and this is not intended to be mean, but Dani Jeffries. He was a nice guy who really wanted to participate, but had never really played cricket and contributed not very much in terms of runs, wickets, catches or fielding. But he turned up, and gave us 11 players when it was hard to find 11 players, and for that I shall remain grateful as an organiser. In his last ever game for the Jags (and as far as I know, his last ever game of cricket) he dived to field one, stopped it, and then said in a quiet tone that he had hurt his finger. I was nearby and, let's just say his finger was no longer at a biologically appropriate angle for a human hand. No scream, no fuss, he just mid game, "Sorry Mark, I'm going to have to go" and ran off the pitch to his car, drove himself to hospital to secure medical attention, and it transpired he had broken his little finger (socket and all) and was strapped up for a month or so whilst it healed. He never played again.
A few more to follow as I get the time, but these stuck in my head, and I thought they were worth sharing as we look forward to the forthcoming season.
If you join our merry band, I may write about you - so be good or be funny. Preferably both.
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