Report by Cam Petrie:
In both games against Abington III last year, Romsey had seen a distinctive form of aggressive batting taken from an as yet unpublished hardcore zen cricketing manual believed to be entitled The Abington Way. The main tenant appears to be "blocking is for pussies - spank bad balls as hard as you can, and if you feel like it, have a go at spanking the good ones too." The potential benefits of adopting The Abington Way were highlighted in the merciless pounding we received at Old Field, followed by our solid run chase to victory at Granta Park, which was necessitated by a slightly less comprehensive Abington bash-fest mostly at the hands of one J. Kettridge in the return fixture. It was unclear whether The Abington Way was still in favor as Abington seem to have been having a worse time this season than us and are languishing at the bottom of the table. Nonetheless, despite claims that Abington II was poaching players, there were a surprising number of familiar faces, and Mr Kettridge was now captain and potentially leading by example.
The pitch in the middle of the perfectly oval Grant Park field with its bulldozer-sculpted landscaping looked flat and hard, but precisely how hard (and variable) was only revealed once Andy won the toss and opted to bowl. The wisdom of this choice was not immediately clear, both because i) we were without Daniel Mortlock (struck down mid-week by a dodgy snail) and ii) we also had probably our strongest batting line up of the season thus far. But the call at the toss was one of several perfect pieces of captaincy for the afternoon.
The new ball was given to late draftee Robin Eddington (0/14 off 7 overs) who bowl into the stiff breeze, while Ollie Rex (2/32 off 10 overs) had that breeze helping his left armers from the other end. As has been a strength this year, our bowling was tight from the get go, but it was quickly apparent that The Abington Way still had converts as the occasional bad(-ish) balls were quickly dispatched. The revelation of these early overs was the demonic nature of the pitch with balls from Ollie's end rearing viciously off a reasonable length (although, as it happened, it was only Romsey that suffered, as all but one Abington batsman wore a cap and survived unscathed. While we were fielding Andy was hit in the throat and then the facemask while standing up as 'keeper, and in our innings Nick Clarke was momentarily felled by a nasty one that snorted off a length and hit him in the shoulder).
The weakness of The Abington Way soon began to show, however, as Olly managed to bowl one free-swinging opener around his legs. New bat in and the tight bowling continued, but wickets weren't coming - cue bowling change. Ferdi Rex (4/14 of 8.2 overs) managed to exploit the building pressure immediately, starting with a perfect line that cramped the other opener and bowled him through the gate, securing his first wicket maiden. The Abington number four looked like a prime exponent of The Abington Way with a trigger movement of a half stride forward that had him perfectly placed for the swat over cow, but perhaps little else, and following several missed swipes, Ferdi bowled a superb bouncer into the batsman's arm pit, which he managed to ineffectually lob to Robin at square leg. At the end of Ferdi's second wicket maiden and our 11th over, we had Abington 38/3. This brought captain Kettridge to the wicket, the prime exponent of The Abington Way.
Ferdi soon bowled a neat slower ball that drew the Abington number three to mistime his inevitable big swing, and the ball popped to Faruk at gully, causing time to stand still as it took four grabs to bring the ball under control, but we soon had our fourth in the bag. The pressure was clearly on, but The Abington Way prevailed and next over Olly managed to draw captain Kettridge into a mistimed pull shot that hung just long enough for Ferdi to race the ten metres to take a perfectly judged low catch (perhaps re-enacting his catch off the same batsman last year?). We now had two new bats at the wicket who quickly adopted contrasting personalities perhaps best referred to as the clubber and the blocker. While the Abington number six seemed keen to have a go, their number seven quietly declaimed "We don't want to get ourselves out for 50 again!" and set about demonstrating that there was "an alternate way". Nonetheless, at drinks we had we had them 54/5 and although the Abington score was almost the same as at the same point last year, we had captain Kettridge in the pavilion this time. Truth be told, we could actually have had them seven down, had we managed to hold onto a few other fairly tricky chances.
We still had five wickets to snaffle, and Abington’s willingness to fight was shown when Ferdi managed to "wreck" his heretofore-peerless bowling figures (3/4 off 6 overs became 3/10 off 7) by bowling a low full toss that the clubber sent over the boundary. Andy then decided to rotate our bowlers while Abington alternated with the block or smash approach until a bad calling mix up saw Olly give a clean throw to Andy with the (now very unhappy) blocker short of his ground. The clubber looked even more sheepish next over when he drove a catchable ball back to Ferdi who couldn't hold it, but managed to deflect it onto the stumps with the non-striker short of his ground. The keen eyed reader will have noticed that the Abington innings to this point might also be subtitled the 'Ollie and Ferdi show', as between them they had a hand in each of the first seven wickets. The Abington number nine was advised to "have a look" and then preceded to smack his first ball through the covers, showing that The Abington Way was hard to suppress.
At 82/7 at the end of the 30th over, it was time for Andy to relinquish the pads and gloves, and the advice for the Abington number nine to "have another look", was ignored and Andy's first ball shot through to hit the top of middle stump. Faruk's next over saw the late but welcome appearance of the "Kara guile ball" (TM), which looked like a full toss until the fraction of a second before it dropped below the clubber's bat and he was too was clean bowled. Andy was unlucky not to get more as he drew three thick edges that all beat 'keeper Cam Petrie (standing up), but Ferdi completed the final trio of wickets clean bowled when he was brought back on and got the number eleven with a straight one. We had disposed of Abington for a miserly 94 in the 33rd over.
Aside from our epic chase against Ashdon at the start of the season, Romsey's top order has gone on to make a habit of making good starts only to then stumble and fall, and our middle and lower order has then struggled to solidify and see home a series of achievable chases. We threatened to do the same today as Robin Eddington (8 off 25 balls) and Nick Clarke (9 off 23 balls) quickly set about reducing the modest target with "heads down" batting, some lovely shots off loose balls, and plenty of extras, but we were then beset by a disastrous period of brain fade. Robin mistimed a drive that lofted into a gap, but then called for what was a risky run at best, and which proved to be suicidal when the gathering fielder collected and had a direct hit, winning Robin the award for second most unnecessary Romsey run out of the day. Having been caught on the boundary several times this year Cameron Petrie (1 off 5 balls) had been reciting the mantra "don't hit it in the air, don't hit it in the air" all week, but lost concentration after escaping an LBW appeal from a low squirter, and inexcusably lofted the next ball both high and directly into the breeze and was caught easily at mid-on. Very next ball saw Nick Clarke bowled, and our 27/0 was all too quickly 34/3 - so far, so sadly familiar.
However, today our middle order refused to conform to type, and Dominic Summers (26 off a fair few) and Rod Dennis (21 off a fair few more) set about i) regaining form, and ii) batting us into an almost impregnable position. Sensible singles were taken, and loose dross was punished, with Rod flicking some beautiful shots off his pads and pulling balls through the leg side for four, and Dom getting the drives working. At drinks we were sitting pretty at 78/3, and it looked like Dom and Rod would see us home until Dom claimed the prize for the most unnecessary Romsey run out of the day. Everyone on the hill could see that the drive to mid-off was stopped by the fielder, but thinking it was a mis-field Dom set off and was stranded well short by another direct hit (potentially by the same fielder). Nevertheless, Rod and Dom had batted us to within sight of the prize, and a quick cameo from Ferdi (6 off 5 balls, taken out by a bouncer that drew a catch, i.e., a little of his own medicine) got us to 92/5. With stolid Rod now being joined by the imperturbable Richard Rex, it was quite unlikely that we would screw it up from here - and so it proved with a deuce from Rod and Richard having the pleasure of a cut shot to get the winning run.
Leaving aside the fact that we had chased Abington's total down in the 26th over and the batting talents of Olly Rex, Andy Owen, Arnie Garside and Faruk Kara were not required, it was an enormous relief to have such a comprehensive win. Nonetheless, the caution of those on the hill was such that we were only confident enough to make jokes about the run rate required when we needed less than 0.1 runs per over, showing that our spirits were sorely in need of a lift. Although Abington continue to sit at the bottom of the table, it was nice to have yet another good bowling performance rewarded with relatively robust batting. At drinks the Abington 'keeper jogged to the pavilion loudly muttering "we are so shit", which was a slightly over-harsh summation. There is clearly some merit in trying The Abington Way, but the pitch today was truly tricky, and patient graft with the bat was clearly the recipe for success. Our middle order found form and saw us through, and if our top order can have enough time in the middle to ensure they return to the form they started the season with, then our near misses have every chance of being a thing of the past - for a little while at least!
