Cholmondeley
23/09/20 13:16 Filed in: 2013
Austere times mean fewer barristers than before, doing less each. That is how Liverpool Bar CC chose to take on Cholmondeley CC. After the experiment with eight men against the Wirral Solicitors, nine seemed the ideal balance of resources at a proportionate cost. The sun shone, and in the absence of any car rally there was rural peace and quiet as leather hit ball, stump, hand, pad or chest, etc etc etc. Cholmondeley fielded four jockeys from India; the lack of any racing this day made Shannon Eastwood’s absence hard to explain, but it may have been out of reflex sympathy with David Tinkler’s absence.
The pick of our bowlers was a “ringer” – Peter Barnett of Mossley Hill – whom Tim Kenward had persuaded to play the night before by binding and gagging him and driving him down to Cheshire in the boot of a car. Ben Murphy and Charles Prior had to open the bowling with much effort and little reward, until the ringer became accustomed to the light. Between wides - and off an inexplicably-long run-up - Barnett produced wicket-taking deliveries which thumped into the hands and chests of Tim Kenward, Michael Armstrong and Simon Gorton. Behind the stumps Peter Harthan got the fourth Barnett dismissal as a surprise leg side delivery dollied up into the iron gloves. All was going well with Orr bowling a tight line, and Kenward bowling around the wicket without waiting for the batsman to be ready. Then Cholmondeley’s equality and diversity officer got going, and somewhat ruined everyone’s bowling figures. Kenward bowled him with a full toss, and declared it a no-ball, before going back to full length somewhere short of a yorker. The one controversy was Barnett’s unlikely catch, which the batsman, in a state of utter confusion from Orr’s change of pace through the over, thought a bump-ball. 199 was the score, after 40 overs (with 8 down).
Harthan took the game to Cholmondeley, indeed presented it to Cholmondeley by playing straight but straight around a straight one in the first over. Enter Kenward, flustered from having had his two-hour pre-batting preparation compressed into two minutes. A series of run-outs nearly occurred when it was far from clear how Cholmondeley’s jockey opening bowler was actually bowling. Kenward, dropped a couple of times (one perhaps being a favour from Cholmondeley’s multi-cultural officer, whom Kenward had given not out when he was the bowler), went breezily on to 92. Around him Andrew Sinker came, hit a cover driver, and went; Ben Murphy came, tried to run two while Tim tried not to run at all, and went; and Pete Barnett came, shaped up and got out to easily the best ball of the day, if not the best ball ever bowled at the ground. And it also kept low. Simon Gorton however was the mainstay with TK, though later claiming that the scorers had numerically understated his endeavours in the book, and demanding a recount/ accountancy balancing exercise. Prior managed to hit the ball, but, with the score on about 170 and with three overs to reach 200, Liverpool’s hopes faded with Kenward being run-out by an off-stump yorker. Orr fussed about having a runner. This distracted him from giving the runner anything to do, because he too ran himself out immediately to an off-stump yorker. An injured Michael Armstrong was the last man, and he overcame injury to whack a four. He had his revenge on Prior’s birthday celebrations of two or three years ago (when Prior extravagantly called both Armstrong and Chester through, having hit the ball first to silly point and second to leg gully) by calling a hesitant Prior back for a second run in the covers. He, despite being fleet of foot, was turning to start this second run as the game ended on another run-out. The strategy, let along the tactic, behind this second run was questionable: the Bar needed about 18 off five balls, and Armstrong, true to name, tended to score a boundary a ball, whereas Prior tended to make a boundary a season.
Team: Peter Harthan (cpt)(wkt); Andrew Sinker, Tim Kenward, Ben Murphy, Simon Gorton, Peter Barnett, Charles Prior, Nick Orr, Michael Armstrong.
The pick of our bowlers was a “ringer” – Peter Barnett of Mossley Hill – whom Tim Kenward had persuaded to play the night before by binding and gagging him and driving him down to Cheshire in the boot of a car. Ben Murphy and Charles Prior had to open the bowling with much effort and little reward, until the ringer became accustomed to the light. Between wides - and off an inexplicably-long run-up - Barnett produced wicket-taking deliveries which thumped into the hands and chests of Tim Kenward, Michael Armstrong and Simon Gorton. Behind the stumps Peter Harthan got the fourth Barnett dismissal as a surprise leg side delivery dollied up into the iron gloves. All was going well with Orr bowling a tight line, and Kenward bowling around the wicket without waiting for the batsman to be ready. Then Cholmondeley’s equality and diversity officer got going, and somewhat ruined everyone’s bowling figures. Kenward bowled him with a full toss, and declared it a no-ball, before going back to full length somewhere short of a yorker. The one controversy was Barnett’s unlikely catch, which the batsman, in a state of utter confusion from Orr’s change of pace through the over, thought a bump-ball. 199 was the score, after 40 overs (with 8 down).
Harthan took the game to Cholmondeley, indeed presented it to Cholmondeley by playing straight but straight around a straight one in the first over. Enter Kenward, flustered from having had his two-hour pre-batting preparation compressed into two minutes. A series of run-outs nearly occurred when it was far from clear how Cholmondeley’s jockey opening bowler was actually bowling. Kenward, dropped a couple of times (one perhaps being a favour from Cholmondeley’s multi-cultural officer, whom Kenward had given not out when he was the bowler), went breezily on to 92. Around him Andrew Sinker came, hit a cover driver, and went; Ben Murphy came, tried to run two while Tim tried not to run at all, and went; and Pete Barnett came, shaped up and got out to easily the best ball of the day, if not the best ball ever bowled at the ground. And it also kept low. Simon Gorton however was the mainstay with TK, though later claiming that the scorers had numerically understated his endeavours in the book, and demanding a recount/ accountancy balancing exercise. Prior managed to hit the ball, but, with the score on about 170 and with three overs to reach 200, Liverpool’s hopes faded with Kenward being run-out by an off-stump yorker. Orr fussed about having a runner. This distracted him from giving the runner anything to do, because he too ran himself out immediately to an off-stump yorker. An injured Michael Armstrong was the last man, and he overcame injury to whack a four. He had his revenge on Prior’s birthday celebrations of two or three years ago (when Prior extravagantly called both Armstrong and Chester through, having hit the ball first to silly point and second to leg gully) by calling a hesitant Prior back for a second run in the covers. He, despite being fleet of foot, was turning to start this second run as the game ended on another run-out. The strategy, let along the tactic, behind this second run was questionable: the Bar needed about 18 off five balls, and Armstrong, true to name, tended to score a boundary a ball, whereas Prior tended to make a boundary a season.
Team: Peter Harthan (cpt)(wkt); Andrew Sinker, Tim Kenward, Ben Murphy, Simon Gorton, Peter Barnett, Charles Prior, Nick Orr, Michael Armstrong.