Sarisbury At Lord's
By Ray Hammond
Ventnor, 25th February 2007
Some time during the winter of 2006/7 a group of Sarisbury Athletic cricketers stumbled into a Southampton night club and happened upon a mob of pleasantly bleary players from a variety of Cricket clubs from around the area. The somewhat slurred conversation turned to the subject of indoor cricket. One of the Sarisbury boys remarked "Have you heard, we are going to Lords for the National Finals" Mr Damien Shirazi, former Hampshire youth star, former Captain of England under-15s, ex-lords ground staff and current BAT batting star, quickly pointed out "Not yet you ain't, you've gotta get there first!" Sarisbury quickly replied "We've already beaten Ventnor, we will win the West of England knockout, no bother, then it's Lords, just you see!" Shirazi grinned "No ******* chance! You're just village!" Thanks for the vote Damien!
The whole idea seemed a bit preposterous really. We were the only non-premiership club in the competition and the indoor campaigns at the RoseBowl and Fleming hadn't been going that well, plus of course, Clarky had gone and was sorely missed. Replacement? Joe Humby stepped into the Rosebowl side for the winter so when the call came for the national K.O. to start, Jumbo automatically stayed in the side. Once again, Matt Journeaux lost out because his university commitments prevented him from playing at the Rose Bowl on Monday nights. Was that a mistake? Well judge for yourselves, in the 3 matches played on the way to Lords, Joe took 7 (seven!) wickets and scored 56 runs!!
Truth is, it was all very exciting, the whole journey, I mean The Isle of Wight, Taunton and finally the big city itself. It was a bonus for all of us, players, officials, supporters, proud Dads with cameras!
Secretary Penny got an email from a man at Lords telling us that we had to clear a preliminary round against Ventnor to decide who took part in the West of England Finals. Ventnor were a strong club who were dominating the 2nd Division of the Premiership but weren't allowed up to the top level because of issues with their Steep Hill ground. We weren't sure how seriously the Island teams took their indoor cricket but in any case, nobody seemed that concerned about the match, since there was a day out in the offing! Penny offered to organise a coach but in the end it was decided that everyone would make their way by car So on a breezy spring Sunday afternoon, all the Sarisbury players and supporters followed their maps/AA guides/Satnavs across the Isle of Wight and slowly wandered in to the car park of a leisure centre in the middle of the island that no one had heard of. (We had hoped for Ventnor's own superb indoor cricket school but strangely that was not considered) There were several tales of getting lost, etc. to be told but none so alarming as Dominic Ducellier's. He had travelled over with his Mum, Sally, and his grandparents, with elderly Grandad driving. At one point, apparently, Grandad had failed to observe an approaching sharp bend. Eventually the shrieks and hysterical yells of the passengers warned him and, with some difficulty, he made it round the corner, narrowly missing death for all concerned. At least that was Dom's story, and he did look a bit pale....
The pitch was narrow and rather gloomy but nothing the boys hadn't seen before. What was new, however was the Badminton Club. They played here every Sunday, EVERY SUNDAY and now, completely out of the blue, a bunch of cricketers turn up and the Badminton club are expected to just, well, move over. I mean, who do they think they are, coming here, ruining our Sunday shuttlecock, its just disgraceful..etc, etc. To add to the strained atmosphere Lyn Joyce, Pete Hammond and a few other smokers lit up and started to pollute the atmosphere in the bar. Real athletes like badminton players don't smoke so they opened all the windows and glared. Pete gratefully flicked his fag end out of the open window and Lyn muttering "It's a bit bloody breezy in here!" pulled her collar up and lit another! Fortunately the match soon started so the atmosphere eased a little!
The home team appeared and Ventnor were fielding a strong side, this wasn't going to be easy. Now we were in a National Competition, the rules had a slight change which took a bit of getting used to. Wides went to normal cricket laws, no more 3 runs and no extra ball. Bowl a wide, and you have to bowl it again plus a one run penalty, of course.
Sarisbury batted first and hit problems straight away. Bondy was clean bowled for a duck and Simon was run out for 4. However Pete steadied things with Dom and they had got the scoring rate going ok when Dom went for 10, also run out. Joe came in and looked confident straight away and when Pete retired Sarisbury were scoring 10 an over. Keith came in and threw the bat (honest!) scoring 20 in no time including a big 6 which got him a rousing cheer. Keith ran himself out rather suicidaly but that brought back Pete and he and Joe pushed the total up to 128 which was competitive though neither side was sure how good it was. Significantly, Ventnor had bowled loads of wides so one target for Sarisbury was simply "keep the extras under control!"
In the end the difference between the two sides was Joe Humby. He hardly bowled a bad ball and his quick, late swinging deliveries caused serious problems and yielded figures of 3 for 16. Both openers were removed quickly but Bevan at number 3 looked very good and picked up the scoring rate. Burchal, at number 4 had scored a comfortable 5 when Joe bowled him a short ball which he pulled brutally for a big six..if he had been out doors... but he wasn't.. he was indoors, and the ball hit the side wall and looped gently back to keeper Simon! 3 down and looking good. But Bevan continued to score comfortably and Ventnor dragged themselves back into a winning situation. With 2 overs left, Ventnor were 4 down with Bevan back in and not many runs needed. Pete had the penultimate over and he had gone for 27 off 2 so far. Therefore it was a great relief that this over was superbly tight and backed up by the boys fielding at their dynamic best. Only 3 runs were scored and the target was looking rather distant for Ventnor. Now Dom had to bowl the last over and still the Islanders were pinned down, quite unable to get the score moving and to their immense frustration the game slipped away until they needed 11 off the final ball. Ok, so it went for 6 but still left Sarisbury triumphant by 5 runs and another premiership team had been dumped out by the underdogs.
