Home to Roost

Home at last. After a season on the road, Victoria Park finally had a fixture in their homeland. Both teams were greeted by a Park pitch bathed in sunshine, outfield trimmed and clean, boundary (mostly) marked out crisply, and a 22 yard strip, straw coloured, hard, flat(ish), and looking like Edgebaston on a Thursday morning. There wasn’t even that much broken glass to clean up around the pavillion, and one of the two toilets had a working flush, the council had really pulled out all the stops for our big weekend.
Having lost the toss, (nice one Dave) Park were out in the field to start. A solid warm up of chucking the ball really high and catching it most of the time really got the team going and we started off with a bang. Dave bowled their opener with only 1 run on the board, here we go boys, lets skittle these clowns and get back in for some food. Alas, it was not to be, the next pair hanging around for a very handy spell, the lack of a breakthrough for Park looking like a parody of England v Steve Smith.
The next wicket finally came, Tom Anderson with his sneaky, run up free, pace bowling getting a handsome bounce through the gate and removing the bails, Witheridge’s big hitter finally removed. The scoring from the opposition never really kept any pace, thanks to some sharp fielding and tight bowling. And then up steps the new bowler, Mark ‘one wicket’ Lee, a man who likes to provide batters with the chance to get the run rate up on his way to his obligatory weekly wicket. A mixture of tidy off stump bowling and hideous all over the shop dross tempted their second highest scoring batsman to open his shoulders. Thankfully he decided to try and send one over the head of possibly our best fielder, Brownie taking a running catch over the shoulder.
Harry was up next, a first over to forget bringing boos from the fielders when he was given a second go! But H proved the doubters wrong, 3 wickets, all bowled, just about put a stop to the sledging from his own teammates.
Parky had a lot of time waiting for a sky shot off of Toms bowling, but safely pouched the catch, but the catch of the day clearly has to go to Mr Joe Wolfe. An elegant little diving catch, some may argue just one step forward would have made it a regulation catch at waist height, but with the North Devon Journal cameraman lurking in the bushes with his long zoom lens, this one will surely make the third page in from the back, just above the sofa adverts.

114 the target, Park’s batsmen were licking their lips at the prospect of getting out there and knocking that off in double quick time. The much questioned pitch, literally a rugby training pitch just weeks before, had held up well and offered their batsmen enough bounce and pace to play their shots. Unfortunately, one innings may have been its limit, as the pitch seemed to lose all of its energy as the day went on. Mez fell victim first, an absolute pea roller going under the bat and into the stumps. In comes Brownie, not a hangover in sight this week, and having given the first ball a look, he gets about dismantling some poor chaps bowling figures with a series of boundaries, raising the run rate from 2 to almost 5 an over in about 10 balls. It was short but sweet though, nicking off to the wicketkeeper for 17 from about 7 balls. A shrug on the way back, we’ve got plenty of wickets left to get the rest…

And then came the collapse. The pitch was now quite clearly not giving much height, Wolfie succumbing to a grass cutter. Mitch walked out there, collected a rather valuable looking water based bird, and walked back in. Parky popped up a catch, giving their bowler a 3 wicket over which rocked Park and put a real spring in the step of the Witheridge boys.

At moments like these you need a cool head on your shoulders, we had plenty of overs to get to the total, just keep wickets in hand. Veterans of the North Devon League Tom ‘Big Tom’ Anderson and Dave ‘David’ Branch, formed a 50+ partnership based on sensible decisions, smart running, big boundaries and digging out the ever increasing number of lifeless bowls. It would have been a fitting end to see them finish the game together, I was already picturing the scene, two lifelong friends hugging in the middle as the crowd on the side goes crazy. Alas Tom went big one time too many and fell with just a handful of runs remaining. Adrian came in with my voice ringing in his ears, ‘don’t you dare get out and make me have to bat!’ An inch perfect shot over the fielder finished 1cm over the boundary to cap off another fine victory for the mighty VPCC. Next on the agenda, a top of the table showdown with Lynton