49ers banish demons to record first win

It was a new format and a new ground, and as Friday night drew to a close, the 49ers had a new taste in their mouths. Victory. The Calypso CC had edged past them in the sides’ previous meeting, their decent openers and resilient tail outlasting an inexperienced Brockwell team over 35 overs. Put into bat, the 49ers wobbled early, special guest Chris Mounsey-Thear putting a delivery into the hands of a fielder well short of Highgate’s compact boundaries.

But tonight at least, Calypso’s fielding came a distant second to their company. The ball was dropped, and Mounsey-Thear’s aggressive strokeplay made his opponents rue their missed chance. Boundaries came, and kept coming, the fence, small rubbish dump and neighbouring cricket pitch pierced again and again by balls that rushed along the ground and through the air, and frequently required small salvage teams to recover them. Bowlers Bugg and Bill watched in barely concealed admiration, fellow opener Ian “Banter” Tonkinson required no invitation to get in on the action, and the pair put on their fifty partnership with something approaching nonchalance.

It was a blistering opening, and Calypso were delighted to eventually take Tonkinson with a neat catch. But while the poor bastards might have escaped the frying pan, they were no match for Adam Taylor’s fiery innings. It was a little bit like watching the Terminator straggle a puppy, only with a better backlift and smarter whites. The bowlers rotated, the 49ers cheered, Mounsey-Thear retired unbeaten and the 49ers moved to over a hundred for the loss of only one wicket.

There is a cloud around every silver lining, and inspirational captain Gordon Cherrington, whose stern reminders and excellent administrative skills had ensured many of his team turned up on time, could only notch a scatchy eight before being clean-bowled by Lee. Tom Partridge walked out, and north London held its breath. Despite some impressive net form and a vivacious personality, the Northern Fist had only managed two golden ducks in his career. He began nervously, blocking, then swinging and missing, as Taylor continued his assault. Then something clicked, a ball skidded past a despairing fielder, and the Partridge was singing.

His increasingly cavalier innings found its foil in Nick “The Chief” Heath, who replaced a retiring Taylor and began a wonderfully idiosyncratic innings, mixing unexpected defensive plays with clattering drives and – in what was perhaps the shot of the match, a manouevre that was once known as “Doing a Dilshan” but must surely now be described as “Pulling a Heath”, something most of us would never dream of doing. The ball missed his beaming face by inches, wooshed over the wicketkeeper and set a new benchmark in 49ers flair. When the pair retired triumphant on 22 and 15 respectively, Brockwell had reached a hugely impressive 192 for 2, and the world had two more heroes.

The match was far from won, but no one seemed to have told Tom “Plumb” Husbands, who conceded a mere eight runs in his two overs, bamboozling openers Rawlings and Wallace with pace and five ferocious wides. Mike Stainthorpe’s classic medium pace kept the pressure on, and an increasingly frustrated Calypso lost their first wicket before they’d passed twenty, falling to wily Kiwi Dan, another welcome guest preacher in the 49ers temple of cricket, before Mounsey-Thear, returning to his churning leg-breaks, took another. Flack dug in with a patient performance at the crease, but Ellerby and Colin went with barely a whimper, Mounsey-Thear and Kiwi Dan forming a double act that made “shock and awe” look like the technologically assisted product of a misguided and greed-driven foreign policy.

The shadows lengthened and Graham inched his way to 18 with some careful batting, but any hopes Calypso had for mercy fell on the deaf ears of the Brockwell pack and their FWaGs, whose fair faces and impeccable dress sense lit up the evening. Calypso’s umpires had hit the lagers even before Orthodox left-armer James Smart, bearded wild-man Heath and dashing Cherrington teased the middle order. Then Ruari Dowdney, getting real swing in the long twilight, took the dangerous Graham to the cleaners and back with a splendid offside delivery that chat-happy wicketkeeper Tonkinson took with typical ablomb.

Taylor, who had bowled impressively in the 49ers’ opening games but failed to take a wicket, grabbed two in his third game, including a buoyant delivery that Bugg switched stance twice to. Partridge nicked another with his malevolent, unpredictable medium pace but the Calypso tail again proved hardy. A win might have been out of the question, but the boys from Walthamstow still had pride to play for.

Unfortunately for them, so did a returning Smart, who chucked a looping, inspinning bomb in the final over. It was clipped by the batsmen and snaffled by Tonkinson, and Calypso were down to their final two batsmen. Going for a 50/50 single, they failed to predict Dowdney’s pace in the field, the ball came back to Smart and the bails crumbled like a Messerschmitt Bf 109 under a hail of rosy-cheeked British propaganda leaflets. The pint-swigging umpire waited for a beat, raised his finger and everyone fucked off down the clubhouse for a bevy. Pakistan, according to a breathless Jonathan Agnew, were said to be “shitting it”. To France and beyond!

49ers innings

Tonkinson 30 Caught

Thear 50 Rtrd

Taylor 51 Rtrd

Cherrington 8 Bowled

Partridge 22 N/O

Heath 15 N/O

Total 192 for 2

Run rate 9.6 per over

Bugg 1 – 32

Bill 0 – 35

Lee 1 – 41

Pete 0 – 35

Colin 0 – 12

Banks 0 – 8

Flack 0 – 9

Calypso innings

Rawlings 7 bowled

Wallace 9 bowled

Flack 9 caught

Ellerby 0 bowled

Colin 1 bowled

Graham 18 caught

Herman 11 caught

Pete 1 bowled

Bugg 6 caught

Morgan 0 run out

Leon 0 not out

EXTRAS 32

Total 94 all out

Husbands 8-0

Stainthorpe 16-0

Kiwi Dan 13-2

Mounsey-Thear 0-2

Smart 16-1

Heath 9-0

Dowdney 5-1

Cherrington 15-0

Taylor 6-2

Partridge 16-1