Light drizzle put a dampener on the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations and Crick boat show weekend, but no one told Crick Lions this as a delay of a mere 15 minutes was all that got in the way of a full day’s cricket (and Crick’s poor batting performance).

Regular opponents Marton Village were this week’s visitors to the CCG, with the artificial pitch making its debut in favour of the grass wicket, which would have been reduced to a quagmire had it been played on. There was nothing artificial about Marton’s big hitting batting line up which got off to a good start to the innings until Mike Rodley (6-0-34-1) broke the deadlock thanks to a good catch from Charlie Gibbins (this time caught in hands not in cleavage). Charlie was very unlucky not to take a wicket after bowling tightly to deliver a very respectable 6-0-24-0. They were soon 2 down after Andy Goldney (6-0-23-1), still wearing his cap, clean bowled their number 3 with the first ball of his spell, unfortunately that was Andy’s last wicket of the day most likely because he took his cap off after that. Paul Preece (6-0-37-0) returned very good figures in the middle overs to make sure Marton did not pile the runs up, whilst debutant Fin Newton (3-0-20-0) and Dave Allen (3-0-16-1) made sure Marton did not run away with it at the end, with Andy taking a collector’s item, medium-rare slip catch. Marton posted a decent 166-3 off their 30 overs, with two batsmen retiring on 50. Crick were satisfied with their bowling performance but knew the runs would be difficult to chase on such a wet outfield.

Rocky (22), keen that Charlie (20), and the rest of the team for that matter, would be there for the birth of his grandchild, was keen on running both the fielders and himself, ragged from the get-go. It was only after the game when we put a beer in his hand that he stopped calling “Yes!” and “Run!”. This was after a mix up between him and Jammy (0) (he doesn’t get out normal ways) led to the latter being ran out without facing a ball (something like a diamond, platinum, super-duper mega duck). That said, the most important dick, sorry, duck of the day award went to none other than Paul “it’s not a test match” Preece, who didn’t hang around after sweeping his first ball straight into the hands of fine leg to achieve Crick’s first (and undoubtedly not last) golden duck of the season and wrap up a fairly woeful batting collapse. In fairness, his last words before going out to bat were “pour me a beer I’ll be back in a minute”, and he remained true to his word. Statesman Pete Grant (24) glued the innings together before he also succumbed to a straight delivery (who’d have thought bowling the ball at the stumps would get wickets?). Apart from late-order resistance from Ed Newton (13), there was little to shout about in Crick’s batting, and the team skittled themselves out for a meagre 92 off of 25 overs.
This was a far cry from recent batting performances in the previous two games which have seen Crick amass an incredible combined score of 456-1 against Willoughby and Stoke Bruerne. The one wicket lost was Bobby Brooke who against Willoughby scored a superb 112, ably supported by Rocky (88). The Stoke Bruerne match last week had more retirees in it than a Bupa care home, when five Crick batsmen (Rocky-32, Jammy-33, Bobby-32, Mark-35 and Dave-31) retired on 30 or over to compile an intimidating 216-0 off of 30 overs. Stoke Bruerne were bowled out for 122, with the pick of the action in the field coming from three run outs, two of which were direct hits by Mark Jones and Mike Rodley.