After failing to bowl Ferring out last week, the Crescent travelled to the beautiful Rodmell ground with a decent side out that was hoping to make up for that disappointment. We had a good mix of youthful exuberance and advanced age (and therefore wisdom) which boded well. Once the ground was set up and cars moved away from the National Trust car park to the field next to the ground, we were ready to go.

The captaincy arrangement was a novel one, with Jon Morris doing the pre-match honours which found us batting first and Matt Lawson skippering our efforts in the field as Jon was keeping wicket (how were the back and legs on Monday Jon?). The youth and experience theme was kept going as Max Kidman opened the batting with Rob Eastwood – a partnership with an average age of 42 and therefore in the prime of life… Rodmell is a small ground with a good wicket which sometimes offered a little movement and bounce – in other words “a good cricket wicket” in modern parlance.

The outfield, however, was exceptionally slow, meaning that shots along the ground resulted in no more than a single more often than not, and even cracking shots into gaps in the field only occasionally led to two runs. There were no threes in the entire match. The way to go was aerial and Max did this well in an opening partnership of 45 with Rob before Rob went aerial and found a fielder when on 15. Alan Malby replaced Rob but soon found his pad in front of a straight one for a single.

Enter Joe Gatford, who I described as “out of sorts” last week. I’ve no idea what he had taken during the week to counteract this, but I want some! Starting sensibly against some good bowling, Joe eased himself into his innings while Max (28) fell to a catch and Matt Wood (4) and Rick Carter (1) came and went quickly. Matt Lawson joined Joe with the score on 86-4 and around the time when Rodmell – who all thoroughly enjoy their cricket independent of the situation – started to share the bowling so that eight bowlers were used in the match. This is not to say that we were faced with “buffet bowling”, far from it, but the occasional bad delivery tended to be either very short or a full-toss and Messrs. Gatford and Lawson are masters at dispatching such deliveries on a small ground.

Joe, especially, found his range (which was generally halfway across the adjacent fields) in a partnership of 82 until Matt missed a straight one when he was on 27. Dmitry Morgan went in and contributed precisely no runs in a partnership of 20 as Joe crashed the final runs to reach his century (101*) and the declaration on 187-7, probably 20-30 over par for this game. To their great credit, all the Rodmell players smiled and shook Joe’s hand as they left the field.

Tea was consumed with gusto while Matt, taking over the reins, pondered on his bowling options as we tried to go one better than last week. If the BHCCC opening batting went for a mix of age and experience, the bowling choice of Messrs. Brown and Eastwood (combined age 128½) was a mix of experience and more experience and was probably the most experienced “pace” bowling partnership in the history of BHCCC. The Rodmell batsmen know their wicket and their ground however, and when Mike bowled a couple of shortish balls outside the off stump in his first over, batsman Chapman took great glee in smashing them over midwicket and into the next field. There were furrowed brows in the Crescent ranks, but normal service resumed when Mike and Rob went for just 19 runs in the following 12 overs before Chapman tried to repeat the shot in Mike’s 6th over and was well-caught by Joe Gatford on the boundary.

Rob had the remarkable figures of 6-2-9-0 and was replaced by debutant Josh Pennycott, a compatriot of Matt Wood and Max Kidman (who were heard arguing over who should get the credit for bringing Josh along – “at least 70/30 to me” says Matt, “rubbish, 90% me” said Max). Whatever, Josh is a find as he bowled decent medium pace with some movement in the air and off the pitch, going for just 2 runs from his first 3 overs. Dmitry Morgan replaced a tiring Mike Brown (9-1-28-1) and got the stubborn opener Jones LBW in his second over. Josh then picked up a couple of wickets, both bowled with one bowling the batsman behind his legs with a delivery that pitched on and hit leg stump (said legs having jumped out of the way).

Life then started to get more difficult, just as it had against Ferring. Josh finished with exceptional figures of 7-2-5-2 and was replaced with Matt Wood, under orders to bowl slowly and sensibly, which he did (mostly), even closing out with a couple of overs of leg spin and looking remarkably like his father circa 1985 (and Matt will hate me for saying that!). Matt picked up a caught-and-bowled and a second wicket bowled with a superb delivery but was brought off (5-0-31-2) as a stubborn 6th wicket partnership developed. Matt Lawson had a go briefly (4-0-9-0), and Max Kidman (3-0-2-0) had a half-speed blast as the gloom descended. Dmitry wheeled away and finished with 9-1-22-1 in two spells as we tried without luck to prise Prosser and Bomford out. As it was, Rodmell held on for the draw with 98-6.

There was a rumour of it being quiz night at the local hostelry (the rather nice Abergavenny Arms), but as we descended en masse with Matt Wood herding those with higher qualifications unmercifully, we discovered that we’d have to come back next week if Matt was to achieve his ambition. In any case the beer was good and the conversation was better. As most of the team drifted away, the senior cadre of Morgan, Eastwood, Malby and Carter decided to have one for the road and it was all going so well until Alan said to (Economics lecturer) Rob “so why is the UK economy in such a mess?”. The pub was otherwise empty by the time we left.

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