As predicted in #27, the Headingley Test came to an epic conclusion although even the most optimistic England supporter could not have guessed that the timing would be so perfect for an epic Middleton Stoney CC tea.

To make everything all the more delicious, the two most voluble members of our opposition, Simmons CC, sounded Australian and had appealed themselves hoarse almost from the 2 o’clock start. I put ‘almost’ because the faster bowler of the pair arrived late, missed the first over, and took his time putting on his boots when Simmons decided he should still bowl the second over of the day.

He was annoyingly quick and good as a bowler, while the one at first slip proved to be an accomplished off-spinner, with just three fielders on the off-side and six on the leg-side. The fact that one of these bowlers was swinging the ball in and the other was turning it prodigiously did not stop them believing that every time they hit the pads, the batsman should have been given out LBW. Our visiting Australians had no reviews left, however, because we don’t have any technology at all. What we did have was our number 4, student Joe Moorman, hitting them for 144 on one of the hottest afternoons.

He had come in to save a hat-trick which he did by cover driving a good ball from the quicker Australian for 4. Two drinks breaks later, he looked to be capable of amassing our highest ever individual score but was out at 4.20, ten minutes before our tea and just after the Headingley Test victory.  We declared at 227-3.

The icing on the cake of a tea replete with comments about events at Headingley was the Victoria sponge baked by our second youngest player, Jack Morris, who celebrates his fifteenth birthday this week. His extended family provided the tea, having given his father, Richard, and Howard Lancaster, our opening batsmen, some testing practice before the match started.

A variety of sandwiches were accompanied by pickle and, soon enough, Simmons CC got themselves into a pickle in their run chase. At 52 for 1, and that off-spinner turning out to be a hard-hitting batsman at number three, the target of 227 looked vulnerable but then he was well caught at mid-off by the afore-mentioned Joe Moorman. In came the faster bowler at number four and out he went, irony of ironies, given out LBW by one of his team-mates taking an umpiring stint and receiving a sustained glare from the affronted batsman. Funnily enough, he seemed to think that the delivery was going down the leg-side.

By now, Rob Barton sensed that he might make the honours board reserved for those who score centuries or take five wickets. When I brought on his son, Elliot, at the other end, it looked at first as if Elliot was preserving as many options as possible for his father by bowling wides. But then he joined in the family pastime of taking wickets. The father took 5-26 off 9 overs and the son 3-28 off 6 overs. Jack Morris took one, caught by me, diving low at silly mid-on (just saying), having earlier himself caught one of Rob’s wickets in the slip cordon. Their last pair kept us at bay for ten overs until George Williams, another student, came back for a second spell and comprehensively bowled out their number eleven.

http://www.middletonstoneycc.co.uk/club-news/2019/mscc-vs-simmons-2019/

Our match didn’t quite have the ups and downs of the Headingley Test but champagne moments kept bubbling to the surface. The winner this time was father Rob’s stunning catch for one of son Elliot’s wickets. I hadn’t noticed quite the same vigour in the field when the roles were reversed, by the way, but this was a special sight to see.

Rob’s perfectly judged pace, his agility and his determination to hold on to what started as a remote opportunity spiralling way over his head and seemingly out of reach was, in its own way, a fielding microcosm of Ben Stokes’s magnificent batting at Headingley, except without the slow start. Part of the magic of cricket is that hundreds of miles away from the highest level of the game, even in the field rather than batting or bowling, you can witness something wonderful which you didn’t think was possible. The privilege of captaincy is not simply then to claim that it was partly down to the bowling change or field-placing (inspired though those might have been, #justsaying), but to see how best to celebrate such moments, to inspire more epic performances and to take them into life beyond boundaries.