Gladiators, googlies and glory: the tale of Merstham U10s season in the NEC
But life is for taking risks, so we venture forward into the unknown - innocent, naive and desperately hoping we had remembered to wear a box.
It is therefore a shock when, under-strength, we win our opening game against Cheam. Sorry, that’s a lie. We thrash Cheam. The strength of our bowling, which we’d always hoped would keep us somewhat competitive, absolutely blitzes them - restricting them to a negative score (remember this is pairs cricket, with its weird scoring) and taking 10 wickets. We win by 60 runs.
Next game, against Banstead, and we cruise to a comfortable win. But… wait! We’d only fielded nine players, and under (utterly ludicrous) NEC rules that means a 16 point penalty. Oh Lordy… Do the maths, get the calculator out… and... breathe… A win by a single, measly, solitary run.
Back-to-back cup wins against Old Whits and Banstead (by 14 and 13 runs respectively). A 96-run drubbing of Sutton in the league, where an injured Matty Beggs takes three for zip in his two overs and we rack up 144 runs: Lyle Wesson and Jacob Law scoring over 20 and Matthew Cripps (“Crispy”) smashing 32 off 15 balls. A 21-run win against Spencer, where we only lose two wickets.
We are on a roll; confidence is high. The team is playing better and better.
But then a cup match against Sutton. A slow, low wicket that doesn't suit our big hitters, and even with Max Thomas and Jacob dismantling their two county spinners at the end we still have only a vaguely competitive score. We take regular wickets in Sutton’s reply, but we also miss chances, and Sutton creep over the line in the last over.
Tears. Lots of tears.
We move on, the next game is only three days away. A top of the table clash between the remaining two unbeaten teams. Old Ruts batting first. The third over, Old Ruts lose three wickets in three balls - including two direct hit run outs. A fantastic start. But a short, quick outfield and some wayward bowling sees Old Ruts post a net score of 300. A challenge.
And the pitch is showing inconsistent bounce, and their bowlers are good. Very good. But we do love challenges. Again our hard-hitting batsmen aren’t quite firing, but we guard our wicket as if it were the Colonel’s secret recipe for KFC. Only one wicket lost, four overs to go, 10 runs needed. Surely…?
No. Their death bowling is just too fast, too good. Two wickets, not enough runs, and we end up 11 runs short.
More tears.
No time to sulk. The next game is THE GAME. The local derby. Reigate Priory. Boys we’ve known from before we were born.
Priory bat first. And boy do they know how to bat. Our best bowling is dispatched, past our best fielding, to the boundary. So if our best is not good enough, we’ll need to bowl and field even better. And we do. One wide. Not in an over; one wide in the whole 20 overs. Matty catches a ball that has gone so high it comes down with moon-dust on it. Jacob takes three wickets in a single over of such ferocious pace that Mitchell Johnson would consider it too hostile.
The Priory score goes into reverse, finally alighting on 265. But 265 is still a lot of runs, particularly when they have great bowling. We need calm heads, solid defence, straight bats.
Hang that, that’s not how we bat. We’ll defend only when we’re ahead. So we come out fighting, gladiators dressed in white, bats blazing in the concrete-melting heat, not caring that the bowling is faster than the eye could see, because we are batting on pure adrenaline, pure instinct. Ahead; we’re ahead of their score. Pause for breath. A defensive shot at last. Matty knocked down by a vicious bouncer, but springs back up again. Because you can’t knock us boys down. But...
One wicket. Two. We’re behind again. So we score runs again. The last over, scores level. A time for more heroes to stand up and be counted. Two of them - Bailey Warren and Lyle - out in the middle, scoring runs, and then repelling everything a desperate Priory can throw at them. They’ve done it! A win by just three runs. But a win. A pulse-racing, heart-stopping, beautiful win. An incredible game that will live long in the memory. A game that proves beyond doubt that we are a team of fighters, a team of heroes, a team.
Three more games to go. Will it be downhill from here on in?
Don’t be ridiculous.
Another nail-biter against Wimbledon, this time Will John-Cox and Roman Cameron bring us home, and make sure we stay there. Six runs as the winning margin? Easy...
The two final games against Old Whits and Purley. No additional finger-nails required. Winning margins of 142 and 111. Fantastic in the field and brilliant at bat respectively.
The league has finished. We are runners up to a deserving Old Ruts side, but a side we could have, should have beaten on another day.
But, more importantly, we are not finished. We are still improving. Still learning.
These all-too-short few months of summer have left us with images and memories that we will treasure forever. Here are some of them, aggregated into a single match.
We bowl first (we always bowl first, because we always win the toss).
The ball is thrown to Hamdan Rashid, because: 1) that's what we do to wake him up, and 2) we know he will deliver a succession of beautiful out-swingers that will leave the opposition batsmen groping for the ball like an old man in a dark room groping for his glasses.
Will steams in and launches a thunderbolt at the batsman that makes them wish they’d taken up tiddlywinks instead. They’ll check their pads, their helmet, their box - and then start to cry a little bit.
At some point in the first five overs, some mad fool of an opposition batsman will edge the ball to Matty at third man and think he can sneak a run. Whoops - mistake. Big mistake. Because Matty will throw down the stumps (he always throws down the stumps) and the batsman will look utterly ridiculous.
Seb Parsons will do something, anything, everything, just to help the team. A self-sacrificing utility man who will do whatever's required - keeping, bowling, fielding, batting, being run out by Crispy.
Sam Gill will bowl two probing overs on a perfect line and length that will make the coaches check that this is the same boy who started the season never having played a cricket game in his life.
Roman will do something outrageous (good outrageous…) in the field that makes everyone who has just witnessed it gasp because how could someone do that? I mean, seriously?!? That stop / catch / run out is just not possible, is it?
Rayhan Ahamadali will bowl a wrong-un that spins so much, the opposition batsman will prod at the pitch thinking it must have a hit a stone, a ridge, a dead mouse. Something.
Because no ten-year-old boy should be able to bowl a googly at all, let alone one that spins that much.
With quick-silver hands Bailey will stump someone before they even realise that they’ve missed the ball. He’s not just the best keeper in the county, he’s the best keeper in the whole flippin' universe.
And Crispy will bowl the last over (he always bowls the last over). Because he’s so utterly, mesmerisingly, scarily brilliant at bowling.
And then we bat.
Lyle opens (he always opens - except when he closes) and life is good. Because he bats with confidence, with composure, and with the ability to hit the ball very hard indeed when he’s tired of defending.
Jacob will also hit the ball very hard. No... that’s not correct. Jacob doesn’t so much hit the ball as attack it, assault it, as if the ball had said something outrageously mean to him and he wants it out of his sight as quickly as possible.
Max will play a shot to the first ball he faces and the crowd as one will sigh in blissful pleasure. Because there is nothing better in life than to watch Max caress a drive through the covers. Except maybe to see him caress a late cut past backward point.
(Many others joined us on our odyssey, and contributed enormously to the adventure: Thomas Harris, Ruari Gibbs, Ollie Parsons, Harrison Brindley, Lucas Atterbury, Oliver White - we thank each and every one of you).
We’ll win by an uncomfortably small margin.
And when the coaches try to tell us how we can improve, we won’t listen. And the coaches will doubt whether they should not just give up and go and drink beer on a Friday night instead.
But the next match we will do it all again, except more so. And the coaches will know they have the best job in cricket...
Junior match reports are brought to you in conjunction with our sponsor, accountancy tutors 1VX Consultancy Limited, which is run by Merstham Cricket Club member Andy Baker. Full details on our sponsors' page.
