In 1889, the social reformer, educationist and author Dame Henrietta Barnett and her activist husband Samuel acquired a weekend home at Spaniard's End in Hampstead. The philanthropic couple set about purchasing 80 hectares of nearby Hampstead Heath for the public (protecting it from development by Eton College) before, in 1904, establishing trusts which bought 243 acres of land along the newly opened Northern Line extension to Golders Green, later encompassing over 800 acres and becoming Hampstead Garden Suburb. With the aim of restricting unchecked urban sprawl, and inspired by the garden city urban planning movement of the era, HGS was originally conceived of as providing housing for a so-called ‘garden community’, in which all classes could live together in a light and airy environment, with beautifully designed housing and gardens in a verdant landscape. The eminent architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner describes it as "the most nearly perfect example of that English invention and speciality, the garden suburb".
Turning to the present day: the modern Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust was set up in 1968 "to do all things possible to maintain and preserve the character" of Hampstead Garden Suburb, although responsibility for Lyttelton Playing Fields, the venue for Sunday’s game, nowadays vests in Barnet Borough Council. As the BBC website attests, “Lyttelton Playing Field is home to 3 tennis courts. These can be booked for free. Other facilities available within the park include: Cricket.” A further dig around the web reveals that “In the summer there is a cricket pitch available for hire with a pavilion. It is extremely popular so you will need to ensure that you book early!”.
While it may be popular, unlike the tennis courts, the cricket pitch is not available for free. In fact, at £170 a pop, it is pretty far from bloody gratis. Imagine, then, our team's abject horror to receive an early pitch update from Shadwell-based all-rounder and structural engineer Colin Pollard, who having beaten a path to North-West London via bicycle informed us that “today’s wicket has a big hole in it on a length”. The second pitch was Colts length and unusable. There was no pavilion.
Dame Henrietta would surely have been turning in her grave, and the pre-match news became too much for the recently capped Mark Mehta, whom, on arrival in the Garden Suburb, spontaneously vomited over a manicured lawn before even making it to the ground.
This incident was curious indeed. Academic literature posits that “Exercise-associated gastrointestinal (GI) distress can negatively impact athletic performance and interfere with exercise training. Although there are a few universal underlying causes of GI distress, each symptom often has its own unique triggers and, therefore, its own prevention and management strategies. One of the most troubling GI symptoms an athlete can experience during training and competition is nausea/vomiting” (Wilson PB. 'I think I'm gonna hurl': A Narrative Review of the Causes of Nausea and Vomiting in Sport. Sports (Basel). 2019;7(7):162).
While empirical data are inconclusive, the anecdotal evidence in this case suports the view that even the most accomplished, technically proficient opening batsman is vulnerable to being triggered by such an ominous pitch inspection; in future we might consider the preventative measure of not booking this ground. The circumstances of Mark's affliction were particularly unfortunate since he had been looking forward to marking his 28th birthday with a mature, authoritative innings, being so enthused by the prospect that he woke up early that morning at 2:50am to request a lift to the ground (at which time he was presumably also running through some pre-match drills).
Once the teams had eventually located the third pitch (not an easy task, given it was unrolled and barely distinguishable from the outfield), Washington unsurprisingly inserted us to bat. The scorecard tells you what you need to know. Sunday specialist Ben O’Connor put in a solid innings at the top of the order. He was the only one to do so, though, on an absolute shocker of a deck, which served up more gazundars than Brett Custard on a tour of Australia, and more poppers than, well, Brett on a tour of Amsterdam.
Things were looking bleak, before a recovery partnership of 70 between Riz and Rix helped us climb to a defendable 145, Riz batting within himself on the tricky wicket and performing a valuable mentoring role to bowling all-rounder Rix. We were also assisted by a dramatic psychological meltdown from Washington senior pro K Williams, who in his third over bowled 16 no balls (ooh matron!). This came after Williams had claimed three wickets in his first two overs, including the coveted scalp of Mehta C&B with a full toss, who got out playing, according to Rix, “one of the worst shots I have ever seen – like watching catching practice when you’re warming up and just trying to bat it back to someone”. Special commiserations must also go to Sam Farnham, who was out LBW to an absolute grubber first ball from Williams, despite Ahmed’s valiant attempts not to give the decision without prior lengthy verbal consultation with both the opposition and Farnham himself, before a consensus decision was reached.
Anyway, after a Bring Your Own Tea, the Wash were up next, and our bowlers ran through most of the team quite quickly. Mohan got 3, including some dangerous-looking subcontinental big hitters who paid insufficient heed to the treacherous greentop. Riz took a screamer at slip, while son Hishaam did well with the new ball. Effective spells of spin were spun by Hussain, Pollard and the rejuvenated Mehta. With all-time Pacific run machine legend T Chasseaud and eccentric sartorialist R Ravikrishnan now watching on and amusing themselves with a game of 'boundary bowls', Washington skipper Murrain dug in for a gritty innings. There were a few nervous moments in the field around the 30 over mark, as energy seemed to be sapped by the spring sun, if not the tedious spectacle of the game itself, before Riz managed to snaffle a couple to take us over the line. In the end it was a quite comfortable win, and a very different sort of match to the classic, high-scoring 2017 clash against Washington at North Middlesex CC.
Things took a turn for the surreal after the match, when a number of Pacific's XI drove back and forth, lost around the garden suburb, to an accompaniment of unsettling spoken-word folk music, before eventually holing up in the Spaniard's Inn (est. 1585) nestled in Hampstead Heath, the former Finchley tollgate and rumoured birthplace of highwayman Dick Turpin. A glance at our bill (pictured) demonstrates unequivocally that, whether a symptom of the cost of living crisis or not, daylight robbery persists there to this day. The Lynchian vibe was compounded by a truly bizarre interaction with a member of waiting staff whose brain appeared to occupy another dimension from the physical world, prompting the last men standing to retire to the N4 manor, and to safety.
