Rod Blackballed After Dropping Catch! • Bayshill Cricket Club

Bayshill vs Tewkesbury — *Steve P training the day before the game*

Colonel Mustard although not in the rudest of health, has decided after last week’s catastrophic contribution from Titussa Newt, that enough, as the French egg seller said, is enough! To this end, he has reluctantly put down his ebony ear trumpet, dusted off his favourite spats, tightened his silken cummerbund, buffed up his 18 carat gold pocket watch and honed his favourite white goose quill, to a point so sharp that it could, if called upon, acupunture its way into any thick-skinned pachyderm or indeed more likely pierce 15th century medieval plate armour. At times, buzzing the ground and nearby abbey in his powered hang-glider, the Colonel reports…

If the Battle of Tewkers, which flared up in 1471 had been won, not by the House of York, but by the House of Lancaster, things would be somewhat different today. For starters and most importantly, there’d be no bally Yorkie, it’d be a Lancie Bar by crikey! And, from that point onwards, things would have been different. I’m not going to speculate here, as cricket is what this article is all about and not any old history or even dare I suggest, Abbot Ale.

But before I move seamlessly on to the aforementioned cricket, I must however mention mustard balls. These are of course seamless as well and as it so happens, these little blighters made Tewkers the place it is today. Now, by that, I am not of course referencing the millions of enormous disability scooters that line and fill the pavements here to bursting point. No indeed, I am simply saying that the humble table condiment that is mustard, made little Tewkesbury the bustling and important town it is today. Even today well-heeled magnates from the ‘The Smoke’ (particularly Bromley I’ve heard) are relocating to Tewkesbury. A town built on mustard is a town that can and should be taken seriously by ‘the cricketer in the street’, for all the right reasons.

Cricket balls I must add, are like and unlike mustard balls in a number of ways. First, you can’t eat them, although I have seen a few players take one somewhat violently to the mouth, or as I’ve heard it called in cricketing lingo, ‘The Gob.’ A mustard ball can be wrapped in gold leaf and dear reader, it swells when a liquid, such as beer or cider is added (as indeed does a gold leaf monogrammed cricket ball). You can’t grind a cricket ball into a paste however, whereas a mustard ball is happy for such a procedure. Finally, you need to know that ‘Tewkesbury Mustard Balls’ was an expression from hundreds of years ago, actually referring to fire-balls hurled by ‘wrong ‘uns!’ It is ironic really that a cricket ball, badly bowled, can be referred to as a pie, and the launcher of it as a ‘pie-chucker!’ Pies, mustard, chuckers, balls, wrong ‘uns;- they go together to create a tasty and hot mustardy and crickety melange.

As my soubriquet dear reader, implies, I feel somewhat at ease in old Tewkers, but enough of this I say! To the game of cricket! Hurrah! And finally, I’ll not mention the fact that finely grated horseradish is added to mustard to give Tewkesbury Mustard its distinctive taste.

Today, the Bays weren’t to know that they were to play the part of the Lancastrians (who came a distinct second) in this modern day cricketing re-enactment of the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Chris Horner (VP no 2 & Didgeridoo player) captain for the day, won the toss and chose to bat on the bloody meadow, as it was to become. Searching for volunteer openers, Chris eventually turned to himself and Angus Guthrie. Alex Van Dyke rumoured injured (after hitting himself with a bat), Steve Pritchard (knife expert) recovering from Deya outing and Chris Wayman, lacking battle-ready underpants were all unavailable. Desperate measures were called upon and so it was that Bays tourist of many years Adrian Liley, raced back to his local Tudory abode to lend his unmentionables to Toffee Chrisp Wayman. Gratitude is not the word that best describes the response, to his act of cricketing chivalry. No thanks, just a poo pooing of the poo pooed garments. The less said the better. Wayman veritably raced from the battlefield determined to find a pair somewhere in Cheltenham (it’s happened to him before) to return triumphant some half an hour later bedecked in white finery. Shopping whilst the game is played! Remarkable! Well done to him I say. Does this open the door the door for a snifter at the local if things are going slowly? Seems a good idea to me I must say.

In the meantime, Horner and Guthrie moved the score to 99, ice cream’s best before Guthrie went for 26 off 49 with three 4s, bowled by Brown in his second over. Horner was already up to 56, having dismissed the aforementioned Brown for two sizzling sixes the previous over, over the long on boundary. Sadly, he too went bowled to Brown, getting his own back the very next over. Chris scored 59 off exactly the same with eight 4s and the two 6s.

Pritchard (not at his sharpest) and Tom Liley took up the reins for a partnership of 29, before Tom was also bowled, but this time by Dinesh. Tom made 19 off 25 with two 4s, with Steve P contributing six singles. Toffee Crisp Man then arrived in his resplendent underpants, to be bowled for 5 off six, with a single four, with the score up to 138.

Michael Harding joined Steve P, but before you could say, ‘There’s only two weeks’ school holidays left,’ Steve P went bowled by Dinesh for 14 off 28 with just the one four. Michael Harding was joined by Steve (VP No1) Liley and between them they put on 28, before Michael was bowled for a creditable 22 off 34 with four lusty 4s. With the score up to 174 Alex Van Dyke entered, to score 4 not out off 12. Forty overs were up and Alex and Steve L (6 off 19) left the field undefeated and the score now 181. Extras once again help contribute meaningfully to the score, this time being equal second scorer with a cool 26.

Tea-time came and went and nothing was recorded regarding Abbot Ale once again. More is the pity. Before we knew it, the Bays were in the field all fired up. Well at least 10 of them were. Mr Van Dyke (A), injured in Birmingham, a full day before the battle, was left unable to stand on the scorched grass. It mattered not that we had only 10 fielders, as the Tewkers batsmen made short work of the bowling on offer.

The first five overs bowled by Tom Liley and Alex Harding yielded just 16 runs and a wicket, giving the Bays hopes of an upset. Tom had M Penny bowled for just 3. The next three overs in contrast, saw a further 35 put on the score. It was 51 off 8 now and the hopes of containment seemingly gone. Michael Harding and Angus Guthrie now chipped away at the Tewkesbury batters, Michael removing Mac Vicker for 24 in the 10th over. By the seventeenth over the score had climbed to 119 and the result looked inevitable. Tom Liley came back on with Rod MacLeod at the other end. Both bowled economically. Tom seemingly had the ebullient Coats caught before he pushed the score on rapidly. The guilty party was Hibs season ticket holder MacLeod, who having dropped the ball somehow managed to hurt himself by diverting the projectile towards ‘the nether regions.’

Coats and Brown T finished the job in the 24th over, with the former on 91* and the latter 30*. Tewkesbury finished the game in a professional and clinical way, but it must be said that for their younger players, it can’t have been much of a game. It’s not much of a game, for the youngsters who can watch the big boys have their fun, but not have any themselves. The Bays wouldn’t do that, or would we?

Bayshill CC v Tewkesbury CC

Bayshill CC 181/6

Guthrie A 26 49 3 0

Horner C * 59 59 8 2

Pritchard S 14 28 1 0

Lilry T 19 25 2 0

Wayman C 5 6 1 0

Harding M 22 34 4 0

Liley S 6* 18 0 0

Van Dyke A 4* 12 0 0

Brown 8/0/39/3, Dinesh 8/0/27/2, Hay J 4/0/15/1

Tewkesbury CC 182/2