Animal Spirits or Canterbury Tails

Monkey Business in That?

By Hippity
August 5 2009

Make sure you take all your medication before you read this, because the author doesn't seem to have taken all of his. Hippity reports on an inexplicably rollercoaster day at Canterbury. Or is it inexplicable? Could the content of this match report be an actual explanation of the monkey-business that went on?

It’s me, Hippity the Green Bunny.  My brother (Bananarama Monkey-Face) and I went to Canterbury for the day today to watch the first day of Kent v Middlesex. 

Monkey-Face, Absent Friend and Hippity

Monkey-Face was not too keen on the outing.  He supports Yorkshire and was happy to stay at home sitting on the bed waiting for the Yorkshire match to start on Sky.  But the thought of fresh air, live cricket and some fun persuaded him.

We hitched to Victoria and then stowed away on the 9.03 to Canterbury East.  It got us to the station at about half ten, which gave us plenty of time (even with our little legs) to get to the ground in time for the first ball of the day.

Monkey-Face is a terribly mischievous monkey and he can mimic almost anybody’s voice.  The first time Compo and Robbo were running, he shouted out in a voice which sounded just like Compo “there’s three there” which got both of our batsmen hopelessly confused and poor Robbo got run out. 

“What did you do that for?” I wailed.  “You said we’d have some fun today.  That was fun”, beamed Monkey-Face.  I knew I was in for a long day.

“You’re on your own, mate”, I said, and went off to find a nice low vantage point.  If anything I like to watch from ground level or below.  Monkey-Face went off to find the tree he used last time we were here at Canterbury, but it seemed to have gone missing, so he sat rather conspicuously on a rather feeble-looking young tree instead.

Two's Company, Tree's A Crowd 

“Oy, Ace”, called Monkey-Face just as Owais was about to play a shot; well of course Ace missed a straight one and was bowled.  And so it went on throughout the morning and I was powerless to stop that manic monkey.  His favorite trick was to mess up the running by calling out clearly in a voice that sounded just like one of the batsmen.  He can do Ben Scott’s voice really well (that did for Dawid Malan) and even Gareth Berg’s voice, which did for little Stevie Finn. 

All out for 155 – the humiliation of it.  Monkey-Face could not stop laughing.

“Anything you can do, I can do better”, I said, not really convinced by my own argument.  But I had tried really hard listening to the Kent boys while they were on the field and reckoned that I could at least pull off a passable impersonation of Joe Denley’s voice.  Well you all know what happened next and you have me to thank for Rob Key’s run out.

To be honest, I’m not as good at mischief-making as Monkey-Face.  But Middlesex bowled really well and Kent batted really badly, so despite all the disadvantages Middlesex managed to roll Kent for a few runs fewer than Middlesex had scored. 

All out for 141 – the joy of it.  Monkey-Face was not laughing so loud by that stage.

And then I had a brainwave.  “Your televised Yorkshire match must have started by now – let’s go to the Harris Room and watch TV instead”, I suggested.  Monkey-Face was off like a flash.  I watched the live cricket from there while Monkey-Face watched the TV.  And when Monkey-Face left our Middlesex batsmen alone they did fine, I think.  50/1 at stumps. 

We rushed for the train home so Monkey-Face wouldn’t miss too much of his Yorkshire game on TV.

Monkey-Face and I are not going to Canterbury tomorrow, so let’s hope that the game pans out in a slightly more sensible fashion Day 2. 

Meanwhile I have had the last laugh on Monkey-Face with the televised game as well; Hampshire snatched the match from Yorkshire scoring the winning runs off the last ball of the game.  That’s what comes to you when you try to mess with the Middle.

Thank you for reading this. 

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