London Erratics Cricket Club

Founded 1974 for recreation and refreshment

Sunday 1 September 2002
London Erratics v Charlbury
at Charlbury

You just can’t rely on young people today (to be as feckless as you want them to be)
Lovely sunny day. Bill Bush won the toss, and elected to field — to howls of protest from certain team members who pointed to the extreme youth of the opposition.
With the exception of the portly keeper batting at No. 2, the top order were indeed fresh-faced lads, but they proved to be no lightweights. Giles Middleton and Matthew Neal failed to find a good line and length, and were seen off easily. It required an awesome slip catch to take the first wicket — short ball outside the left-hander’s off-stump, fierce top-edge slash, John Truscott moving the wrong way, somehow sticks out his right hand to catch a ball that’s surely past him — a privilege to witness it.
A second success for Matthew Eltringham brought no relief, as the third-wicket pairing of youngsters set about the Erratics bowling. This wasn’t slogging, it was skilful, well-judged, well-coached hard hitting, and the Erratics had no response. Ball after ball was despatched to or beyond the boundary — retrieving the ball from the surrounding fields provided welcome interludes. The hundred partnership came and went, and as the onslaught accelerated, the later bowlers suffered badly (James Rivington had an unhappy time). Finally the No. 3 was well caught in the deep by Tony Poulter.
When they declared shortly afterwards, Charlbury had scored at 7 an over, in just 34 overs faced.
CHARLBURY — batting
1   b Eltringham 50
2   c Truscott b Eltringham 17
3   c Poulter b Stephenson 77
4   not out 59
5   not out 6
6  
7  
8  
9  
10  
11  
241 for 3 dec
Fall of wickets: 1–74, 2–92, 3–230

LONDON ERRATICS — bowling
Middleton 7 0 31 0
Neal 5 0 21 0
Eltringham 9 0 54 2
Truscott 7 0 48 0
Stephenson 4 0 36 1
Rivington 2 0 31 0
The Erratics openers were sent out with clear instructions to bat safely. The Charlbury attack found life and movement in the pitch that had eluded the more wayward Erratics bowlers — Tristan Ward even sent for a helmet when the ball started flying around. But he and James together ground out an opening fifty stand.
Tony looked slightly out of sorts, unable to time the ball or pierce the extremely athletic field. With James continuing to bat carefully, a run chase in the last 20 overs never materialised — though Tony did hit one very nice six.
James negotiated his fifty and promptly got out. The next batsmen had a swish with varying success, and the return of the Charlbury quick in the descending gloom livened up the last few overs. When Matthew N was out in the final over, Michael Evans sportingly dropped down the order to deny James the bottle of champagne that would have been due had he gone to the crease (under the obscure terms of the longstanding bet between the two of them).
With the hindsight of a game safely drawn, some of team inevitably wondered whether more of an assault might have been made on the target in the 45 overs faced; but the fall of early wickets might easily have led to one of this season’s classic Erratics collapses, and skipper Bill was happy with the draw.
Is Tibor Bertok the first Hungarian to turn out for the Erratics?
LONDON ERRATICS — batting 4s  6s 
† Ward lbw 14 2   
Rivington bowled 51 6   
Poulter bowled 31 3  1 
Truscott caught 4 1   
Eltringham NOT OUT  14 2   
Neal caught 16 3   
Stephenson NOT OUT  6 1   
Evans    
Middleton    
Bertok    
* Bush    
160 for 5
Fall of wickets:  1–55, 2–106, 3–111, 4–126, 5–154
Match drawn
2002 Season
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