Oedipus Lex

Like the half-starved, exhausted rem­nants of Charles Edward’s army at Cul­loden, an Itin­er­ant team, lack­ing the dash­ing verve of their bats­men, gathered at a ground famil­iar only to a few vet­er­ans. Among their hast­ily assembled ranks there numbered the hung-over, the unprac­tised and the per­en­ni­ally untal­en­ted. Yet a dogged determ­in­a­tion pre­vailed: these men would stand together, they would drop catches together and they would sac­ri­fice their wick­ets together and like no other.

To the field they took. Most just wanted a rest, some pork based fan­cies or a cup of tea but it wasn’t to hap­pen. Led by the irre­press­ible Bon­nie Prince Tan­ner they formed their battle lines and awaited the onslaught stoic­ally. The House of Han­nover (Not the MCC) opened hos­til­it­ies with Perks and the pre­dict­ably Ger­man sound­ing Hamer das Boot. Sens­ing an easy vic­tory, they strode out pur­pose­fully. Tan­ner led from the front and staked his inten­tions from the off. They may have been weakened but they were by no means out of the fight. He bowled with pin­point accur­acy swinging the ball in off a length. While the bats­men showed young Tan­ner a fine array of flour­ished defenses and streaky singles, their arrog­ance was to be their down­fall as Behl showed the awe-inspiring effect­ive­ness of the high­land charge (or a big Aus­sie with lamb chop sidies steam­ing in). The first five wick­ets all fell to the big man, includ­ing 3 with tim­bers shattered in con­sec­ut­ive blows. Yet this team were no one man band, this was not a duel but a battle. Wilson took two stun­ning catches in the field: one com­ing out the sun, from his ver­sat­ile leader’s devi­ous bowl­ing and one low to his right (his dive for the cam­eras, mak­ing it look harder than it actu­ally was). MacKin­non behind the stumps let noth­ing through and threatened, con­stantly, to stump any errant bats­man: his fine per­form­ance was capped with a full length dive to his left to take a sub­lime catch in his weaker hand, from the maraud­ing Beck­man. Davis, brist­ling with venom as usual, broke any rem­nants of a stand while Hutchin­son mopped up the sur­viv­ors. Finally, Behl struck once more with the assist­ance of a well held catch from the hither­to­fore lack­a­dais­ical Bowman.

198 was the final score pos­ted in a little past 35 overs. With a full strength unit the LICCs could expect to mop this up with time to spare, yet they were without their main hit­ter and it showed. Wilson and MacKin­non, two her­oes in the field, strapped up and stepped out to face the best their enemy could throw at them. MacKin­non play­ing with flare in his usual cava­lier man­ner was cut short after 4 balls: it seems so many hours behind the stumps had taken their toll as he fell for a duck. Don, undeterred by the loss of such a big name stepped into his place and played a vital role with Wilson in see­ing off the new ball. Indeed, the latter’s score of 10 before his unlucky demise did not reflect fairly the actions of the man. Bow­man, another clearly exhausted by the efforts earlier in the day, fell for a primary. Yet there was a glim­mer of hope. Galagedera, who had been in self-imposed exile for so long, stepped into the breach and stemmed the flow, swinging his way to a well fought 49. With Don fall­ing on 6, Sadler stepped for­ward next, offer­ing res­ol­ute defi­ance with every non­chal­ant leave. He held out for sev­eral overs, yet he could do little in the face of such over­whelm­ing odds. Davis, hos­tile as ever, swore, cursed and flailed his was to 21 but could do no more. Behl, the hero of so many engage­ments held his own and plundered one last defi­ant six, as his cap­tain cut his way to 4 and then out.

67 runs short was the even­tual total. Not the MCC may have had their vic­tory but it was cer­tain to be Pyrrhic, such was the intens­ity and fero­city with which the Itin­er­ants defen­ded their rain soaked patch of Wandsworth that day.

(Due to the kind of memory that means he annu­ally for­gets his girlfriend’s birth­day, the author can not vouch for the accur­acy of any facts, crick­et­ing or historical.)