Jesters vs Headley, Sunday 6^th August 2006

An arid fast scoring outfield, difficult to defend. A straw coloured pitch, rewarding length rather than velocity, patience rather than testosterone; one on which even high class spinners find it difficult to prosper. A sizeable, knowledgable crowd, appreciative of good cricket and the mini-contests within it. The Sky Sports cameras were at Headingley on Sunday 6^th August, but they could just as easily have truncated the venue and been at Headley; the viewing public would have lost little.

In humid conditions, Jesters won the toss, batted and were soon licking their collective lips at the prospect of watching the batsmanship of Taussif Mehdi, now a regular at this fixture. A newly qualified doctor, his recently acquired powers of prescription appeared to extend to the clinical administration of severe punishment to anything short or overpitched. It was as though, like swallowing cough mixture, retrieving a dispatched long hop from the boundary was a necessary, unpalatable exercise en route to salvation. Just as he threatened to cut loose he was caught from a ball that stopped and the germinating partnership with Matthew Ansbro that promised to define the game was extinguished.

Ansbro had a score to settle, having been caught out last year, nearing a hundred, by a fielder reclining languidly (legally, it transpired) like Noel Coward on the boundary rope. Such was his determination to put matters straight that he declared his availability for the 2006 fixture 364 days and 16 hours in advance and at approximately twice weekly intervals thereafter. Not even the gestation and safe birth of his first child could settle his troubled mind as he was to be found roaming Headley Heath, in a state of Lear-like madness, throughout the winter and spring.

Once at the crease, though, Lear became Errol Flynn, scything the bowling apart with a swashbuckling ferocity of which Zorro would have been proud. A splendid hundred was inevitable, but marked by a sleeping daughter and a conversation between wife and mother-in-law that led to a later enquiry as to whether had completed his round in par or over. He has some work to do at home.

For much of this display of fireworks, he was accompanied by William Orr, a cardiologist from Reading, whose annual appearance in flannels commands much attention. From Milan, Anglesey and St David’s his supporters journeyed, with a fanaticism that has not been witnessed, for a physician, since the whiskered one from Gloucester over a century ago. Initially, he did not disappoint, with a series of sumptuous drives leading to a migration of bodies towards the cricket and away from an increasingly agitated ice-cream seller in the Heath car park, concerned about his livelihood.

Sadly for the crowds, Dr Orr was undone by the pitch, but departed with a dignity that, according to legend, did not always attach itself to WG. The hordes returned, muttering, to the ice-cream man, whose mortgage was saved. In modern times, such adulation for a cricketer accompanies only the likes of Flintoff and Pieterson. The good doctor from Reading may need to invest in some tattoos and expensive auricular jewellery if he is to maintain such celebrity status. A clatter of wickets followed and the Jesters declared at 264/7 after 38 overs.

The opening attack took an over or two to find its range; a process facilitated by the fearless, immaculate wicket keeping of David Hancock, standing up to everyone on a pitch with inconsistent bounce. Any one of a series of stumping appeals would have necessitated a third umpire, but the benefit of the doubt was appropriately granted. Murphy made the breakthrough and a run-out followed, allowing the evergreen Sandy Ross and Patrick Orr, brother of William, to pose searching questions of the Headley middle order.

Using Newtonian physics to great effect, much of the substantial F=mv momentum acquired during Orr’s run-up was transduced into a heavy ball, frequently accompanied by inswing. Given that the ball had had a number of visits to the surrounding woods and, on more than one occasion, been retrieved and modified by a variety of dogs, this is unlikely to have been conventional swing. One must therefore conclude that this was the first, and almost certainly the last, exhibition of reverse swing in Jesters colours. He, Ross and a late burst from Murphy nibbled at the Headley batting, but the last two scalps remained elusive. In the end, a swarm of biting flies focused the collective mind of the cricketing protagonists that beer and sausages were long overdue.