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Every
club cricketer harbours daydreams of playing a full, first-class-style-two-innings
match. If I’ve had this conversation once, I’ve had it a dozen times. “11am
start. Lunch and tea. No bowling restrictions, no over restrictions, just bat
till you’re out. Twice. Amazing – we should so do that!”
They
usually happen at either end of the season, these conversations, when
enthusiasm is high, or the prospect of the long cricketless months is looming
large again. Or in the depths of January, when the winter tours are in full
swing and we’re up into the early hours watching England toil in equatorial
sunshine.
The
conversations invariably conclude with the doubtless accurate assertion that it
would either result in a very long game with very low scores, or it’d be all
over inside a day. These are village cricketers we’re talking about, after all.
Besides, 22 blokes off work and domestic duty for three extra cricket days? The organisation alone is surely beyond us.
It’ll never happen.
I
like to delude myself that my batting lends itself to a longer game. You know
the sort of thing: patience, defend the good balls, leave anything off-line,
punish the bad balls. Brigadier Block. The Wall. I indulge this delusion,
despite a convincing pile of evidence to the contrary.
The
latest neatly provided by England’s attempts to staunchly bat out the draw for
a day and a half at Lord’s, crushed in 37 overs. TMS had a telling stat:
batting five sessions to save a Test has only ever happened five times.
But
that doesn’t stop us weekend warriors wanting a crack at it.
The
other factor is fitness. If I bat for 30 overs, I know about it all week. If I
bowl 10 overs of gentle leggies, my shoulder aches for days. Bat all day? Bowl
25 overs? Three days on the trot? Not sure I’d make it.
Doing
the fixtures this winter, a next-best-thing opportunity presented itself. Old
Wimbledonians, a big London club, were touring the New Forest and had one
fixture left to fill – did we fancy a game on the Monday?
With
a league game on Saturday, and a friendly scheduled for the Sunday, this could
be the closest I ever get to the full game. Not one three day game, admittedly,
but three consecutive days. To top it off, I’d be at Lord’s for the Test on
Friday. I’ve been looking forward to it all year. Would I survive this four day
endurance test!?
The
answer, somewhat predictably, was deeply disappointing. Saturday we got almost
as soundly thrashed as England at Lord’s. I was one of several ducks, clean bowled
through the Delusional Brigadier Block Wall. I’ve had more tiring bowel
movements. Sunday the opposition couldn’t raise a side so I spent the day being
dad-taxi, and Monday I was out for 8 in two overs and took 1 for 8 in two
overs, comprehensively cancelling myself out.
My four
day endurance test turned out to be basically a weekend off.
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