I arrived late, as I often do. On the way from South London I had been involved in a police pursuit, as a car attempted to apprehend a youth on a pedal bike who was cycling alongside me. As the police car pulled alongside the officers inside suddenly opened the door in an attempted to knock him off his bike. He escaped down a side street though.
I was reminded of this sudden, unexpected violence when, as I parked my bike, I was just in time to see a ball from JK rear up out of nowhere off the track and fly over the wicketkeeper’s head. Springfield Park certainly living up to its name.
We were playing against Camel CC and Springfield Park was their stomping ground, though camels don't really stomp, they plant their wide feet carefully to avoid sinking into the sand. Pacific won the toss and elected to field and for some reason Camel CC chose to position their encampment right behind the bowler's arm for their own innings.
The Pacific bowling and fielding performance was as disciplined as the pitch was wild. Pacific newcomer Jay had the opening Camel, Hugo, caught in his first over, driving hard in the air and taken brilliantly by Rowan at cover. Jay then followed up with wickets in 3 of his first four before a maiden to round it off. Not to be outdone JK had a wicket maiden in his third, leaving the camels thirsty for runs even with the short boundaries. Both JK's wickets came from flattening the camel's stumps, including the very important one of Reuben, who on 33 was the Camel's top scorer and was looking dangerous having just hit a 4 and a 6 at the beginning of the over.
The big hits were occasionally a cause for consternation, one bisecting a blissfully unaware family picnic and the other millimetres from cutting short the life of a very short chihuahua being walked on the boundary. Incidents like these and the ongoing Wray Saga mean that the subject of how we make cricket safer for bystanders continues to be a staple of the Pacific WhatsApp.
As well as those risking injury by not paying attention on the boundary there were some of the camels who eschewed head protection on what continued to be an exceptionally unpredictable and occasionally very lovely wicket, a decision almost as baffling as setting up your team camp behind the bowler's arm.
We continued to make good progress through the camels, after passing the hump that was Reuben. Two good wickets for Rowan to go with his two catches, half of the four taken in the innings, including the second wicket maiden. A third wicket maiden was taken by skipper Tim, contributing to his excellent figures of 1 for 3. Finally Jack took a well deserved final wicket, having bowled well for his spell, leaving Camel all out for 131 after 27 overs.
After a brief tea/lunch break we kicked off the Pacific innings. Myself and Tristan opened up and it was clear that bowling was the camels' stronger suit. Captain Kit opened for them and he was immediately able to get the pitch to misbehave. However we were able to use the pace to get nine off the over and set us up well for the chase. Our openers proceeded somewhat warily, because of the unpredictable pitch, through the opening bowlers.
The first change bowler was called Cameron, Cam for short, hailing from New Zealand. Camel CC's banter/sledging was mid-table, but they didn't get the hump as some teams do, generally playing and bantering in good spirits. The main thrust of their banter was Cam puns by the keeper, so talking about dollys and zooms, but mainly, perhaps telling, talking about OnlyFans style webcams. I kept expecting a reference to SteadiCam, a well known brand of mount introduced in the 1970s but it never came: https://gbr01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.m.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSteadicam&data=05%7C02%7Cjahangir.khan%40hmtreasury.gov.uk%7Ca9196682ee504fdc8b8008dcef590455%7Ced1644c505e049e6bc39fcf7ac51c18c%7C0%7C0%7C638648412836297760%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=OqyimuY5G3A04CVpPLcszQ%2F4s%2BrDT0SkscQ8V8oSRto%3D&reserved=0.
Perhaps he was never referred to as Steadicam because he had an odd action, bowling off the wrong foot, which, combined with the unpredictable pitch led to me having completed a stroke before the ball had arrived and taking it in the chest, leaving a large yellow dot for the a couple of weeks after. This was not the only one I accumulated, ending up with more dots than an Eastenders cosplay convention. Following Tristan's unfortunate dismissal for 38 we lost a few wickets cheaply until Eppy arrived, Sibley like, to steady the ship.
After I was given out LBW, having been fortunate to survive a shout earlier that the umpire ruled as bat pad but was in fact pad pad, Jai arrived. With Eppy's support, they guided us home, winning by 5 wickets with 6 overs remaining.
It was moderately emotional to win this one but funnily enough more emotional to write it, namely because I started penning this as a father of one and finished it as a father of two, having used a two night wait in the hospital to finally, more than a month late, start it. I then finished it while waiting overnight again for the final checks before baby Nina is allowed home (Turns out a lot of people decide to have babies around Christmas and New Year so the Labour Ward has been rammed).
