NINEPINS DESTROYED IN 19 OVER GAME

Fenny Compton v Castlethorpe, Saturday 6^th August

Earlier in the season, fresh off the back of a close match against Grange Park, Castlethorpe spluttered to victory over Fenny Compton off the penultimate ball, courtesy of Jones and Jones accumulating runs against some wayward death bowling. This time, though, Castlethorpe were continuing from a 21 over drubbing of the same team which involved Dingers and Rusty bowling unchanged, and Yam being the only batsman to fall in our Herculean run chase of 39 in five overs.

 Captain Bell won the toss again, and gave Fenny first use of a green but soft pitch. Three overs in, Nick cleverly deceived opening batsman Buckingham with a long hop that looped into the batsman’s off stump. Delighted after having seen the whole thing from point, Gino disturbed the peace with cries of “OH, DING DONG BELL - TOP OF OFF, YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN!” He avoided being arrested by Detective Finson behind the stumps, and once Mark had changed his pants, play resumed.

  In came their number three who, egged on by the Devastating Demon of the Doosra under the hard hat at short leg, proceeded to spoon a straight ball straight to Junior Jones at cover who snaffled the chance as though he had been taking them all season. He hasn’t, but who’s counting? The number four, after the way he kept playing and missing, appeared to need a bell in the ball. We did the next best thing, giving the ball to a Bell, and he did indeed manage to hit the ball... very faintly, and Detective Finson collected his first nick of the day.

 As the captain continued to tear through their middle order, he found an obliging target in their next man in, who had admitted to our short-legged short leg that he didn’t want to hang around too long. He proceeded to treat the spectators to a sport medley: first with a baseball shot for two, returned by Mistry, the throw bouncing just twice; then a golf shot that he played and missed, and finally a textbook croquet swing just past a straight yorker. At last, Jones senior got his name into the scorebook... but not until their diminutive number six had continued the theme of the sports medley, thumping a cross-court forehand for four over extra cover from a rare long hop. He produced the perfect reply - a half-volley that was chipped to the waiting buckets of Quint at mid off. This was followed by their number seven coming and going to another of Nick Bell’s revolutionary straight balls, which seem to have served him well in the last two weeks.

Their number eight, who appeared to have been promoted three places since last time he played against us, soon explained that he was batting this high because he was Fenny’s last man. He too was bowled by the one-man wickets machine, who finished with the shockingly expensive figures of six for ten off 6.3 overs. Immediately after we had waited three minutes to see if Fenny could conjure a batsman from nowhere without him being timed out, a ninth player turned up all the way from Kent to find the Fenny Compton Saturday XI: a) didn’t have eleven and b) had been rolled for 30. Castlethorpe had skittled them like ninepins.

After the ten minute turnover, a game of boundary bowls was to be the primary sporting entertainment while Quint and the Northerner went out to open our innings. The five-strong competition was between Gino, the Headmaster, Dom and the Joneses. It was a close-fought contest that was eventually won by Currell (21) from Ginnelly (16), Jones Jr. (13), Jones Sr. (5) and Dom (2), who had to retire from the game to put his pads on. He was needed because Quint had called for a third run that Yam - tired already from the first two - was in no fit state to make. Keith then proceeded to hammer a pull shot to mid off. If it went as far forwards as it did up, it would have cleared the boundary easily.

 Never fear though, as Dom combined with Quint to nudge their way to victory by eight wickets (as many batsmen as Fenny had in their whole innings) with 197 balls remaining. Special mention should be made for Scott Eason, who fielded excellently; Mark Currell, who came out of the boundary bowls victorious; Jason Ginnelly, who provided excellent celebrations and Mitesh Mistry, who was also playing, although turned down the bowls game.