Who is wearing the brighter whites? Chas or Ged?
A memorable match in many ways.
Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett and I had sloped off to the nets a couple of times ahead of this fixture, if I remember correctly. The tuition paid dividends for both of us. We both achieved scores of 20 not out (retired).
But…
…on this one occasion on Regent’s Park, Z/Yen was to prevail.
David Highton, with his reliable medium paced dobble-bowling, took a hat-trick for Z/Yen, ripping the heart out of the Children’s Society batting line up.
Charles kept his pads on, as the “retired not out” batsman was permitted to resume if the innings would otherwise be complete.
On resumption, Chas somehow managed to lob the simplest of catches to me at midwicket.
I wrote to Chas early the next day, a long and rather dull e-mail about work stuff, in which I concluded:
Look forward to seeing you Wednesday – oh and I have not yet told [anyone] about the dolly catch.
Chas replied that morning with one of the worst, laugh-out-loud excuses for a dismissal I have ever read:
As I recall I was being verbally abused by some of your close-in fielders – and to my dismay some of my own team on the sidelines!
In an attempt to satisfy everyone (low scoring but wickets tumbling around me!) and finding it almost impossible to get a bat near any ball. Wides, no balls and balls trickling along the ground. I attempted a pull shot to leg, only to be temporarily blinded by a shinning white vision, which turned out to be Ian’s brand new cricket whites!!
That is pretty much as I remember it!!
That “e-conversation has since been immortalised on the King Cricket website -a mere 23 years after the event:
If anything were ever to befall King Cricket, you can read that piece here.
One other vital matter that emerges from this piece of cricket archaeology is proof positive – we might call it silicon dating – that I bought my cricket troos that spring, 2001, confirming that they are significantly older than England cricketer Rehan Ahmed, which was a matter of some conjecture and debate in King Cricket circles when that lad had his debut. Indeed they are older than I suspected when I estimated 2002 or 2003 as the purchase date.
Here are the scorecards from that historic and seminal 2001 match, which Z/Yen won by a smidgeon – 4 runs:
