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RED BAT STUMBLE AT LAST HURDLE AS MACMILLAN TROPHY STAYS OUTSIDE ENGLAND FOR FURTHER YEARFrom our man hiding behind the pavilion from an underfed and undercoached army of under 10's. Red Bat were left to ponder what might have been as the 2002 season went out with a whimper at Canon Frome on Monday and the dream of an unbeaten season melted away into the muck-enhanced Herefordshire air despite two decent wins on Saturday and Sunday. Looking back over a hectic three days it's tough to pinpoint just where the collective went wrong. Calm, focussed preparation was the watchword during a disciplined build-up which saw the tourists largely avoid last minute injuries with their specially designed light training regime. Injury-hit international coaches are thought to be keen to learn more about the collective's revolutionary methods which involve sitting at pc's and splitting into two groups. The first group keeps up a steady barrage of childish and incomprehensible emails while the other (shorter) group despatches emails complaining about the time which is wasted by the first group's emails. In order to avoid monotony the second group occasionally spice things up with references to their batting averages and how much work they have to do. The merits of the system were sharply underlined when Big Andy Lee left his keyboard for ten minutes and came back with a non-specific upper-body strain which restricted him to one tour appearance and no bowling. In an incident which almost degenerated into a replay of the Leicester/Denis Wise saga, skipper Gummer found himself pondering disciplinary action at one email training session when the perennial bad boy of the Red Bat dressing-room, Bruce "Rowdy" Kennedy, suggested that tour selection was always done in smoke filled rooms on the Friday night. The incident was later dismissed as "more playful than malicious", but perhaps it's just as well that the Abingdon hard man was at home changing nappies on Friday night when the burning selection issues were finally resolved. In a process supervised by the sinister figure of Paul "Mugabe" O'Connor illegible names were hurriedly drawn from a hat before UN observers had time to find their way through visibility reduced to about three feet in the public bar of the Talbot. Amidst a ballet of raised eyebrows and barely concealed smirks, the democratically achieved results were announced: All three teamsheets would include the shock name of Lloyd Peters and the controls of the Red Machine would be entrusted, successively, to Jon, Mike Redfern and ……………………Paul O'Connor. mmmm. Back at the Royal Oak T, shirts and CDs were distributed in a merry hale of tasteful jokes about it being just like Christmas because you get a load of things you don't want from people you only see once a year (and don't like much.). Saturday arrived more or less on time and the first day team gathered at a wather attwactive pwep thchool gwound in Colwall to face the Chasers ("Men of Steel"). Steel perhaps, but mostly it was encouragingly well sheathed in the kind of blubber which would have fitted nicely into a Red Bat line-up. The collective took note and Skipper Harry headed up the mountain for some tough negotiations on the terms of engagement. After a while he came back with some bits of stone no-one could read and explained the rules (or at least the ones he had been told about); 35 overs, ten men to bowl at least three each; wides to count for two but no extra ball, batters to retire at 30. Jon won the toss and sent out Matt and Dave Muir to test the waters. Two hours later the general verdict seemed to be "come on in, its lovely" as Red Bat rattled up their second successive 200-plus total. Extras had the advantage of not having to retire at 30 and finished comfortably ahead of the other main contributors to an eventual 212 off the allotted 35. Matt, Jon and Lloyd were all pensioned off in short order and more or less everyone kept things ticking along, but until the dingy depths of the collective's own bowling had been dredged no-one would really know just how tough a target had been set. Jon opted to rotate his regular bowlers at one end, reserving the other end for himself and the other unknown quantities. The theory was that there would always be another regular in reserve if anyone started scoring at a really frightening rate. As it turned out that never quite happened and tight spells from Paul, Bruce and Keith compensated for most things which happened at the other end. Unfortunately, there were two things they could do nothing about: Lloyd's antics under the Oak tree at backward square leg was one. A series of catches and groundstrokes were helped along their way to the boundary accompanied by strangled yelps and convulsive leaps which had no obvious connection with the trajectory of the ball. The second was the local rule no-one had explained beforehand but which allowed batsmen who trod on their stumps whilst hitting the ball to the boundary to stay in provided that the Umpire called a wide. Red Bat bore these vicissitudes with something a little bit like good grace and the final five overs were bowled by Paul and Bruce (winner of a points decision over Keith M). This co-incided with the appearance of the first batsman to take a close interest in the unfashionable subject of running between the wickets. Unfashionable maybe, but applying the basic principle of putting pressure on the fielders found a few Red Bats wanting and gave the skipper his only real furrowed brow moments of the afternoon (as much because of the prominent place he occupied amongst the wanting as anything else). The last over began with the Chasers needing a not impossible 12 to win. Not impossible in theory, but definitely ungettable off a fired-up Paul O'Connor who delivered when the collective needed delivery. He may only have managed one dot from six but the rest was 1,1,1 with two rather satisfying w's nestling in the middle and Red Bat ran out winners by 9. Sunday lunchtime found a purposeful-looking Red Bat squad back in Colwall to face that town's League of Gentlemen. with the help of one-night stands from two proud pater familias' in the contrasting shapes of Mike Welbrock and Steve Hewlett. The opposition turned out to be another set of converts to the in yer face democracy of "let them all bowl before they get any cake" and now it was Mike Redfern's turn to negotiate the commandments for the day. The unobtrusive and often surprising skill-set of the Dark Facilitator was to prove valuable throughout the day and he got off to a characteristically effective start by winning the toss, electing to bat and negotiating the retirement age for batsmen up to 35 in an otherwise unchanged match formula. Hardly a cliff-hanging, tenterhooked or nail biting moment to stop, but there it is. The rest of the tour will come under the microscope in due course and RBCC subscribers will of course receive the results exclusively in advance of syndication. Jon |