A Cowdrey team largely unchanged from that which blew Blue Bell Hill away the previous week turned out for this grudge match against Yalding. Seb Lewis was power-boating, or yachting, or otherwise engaged; Rob Prastka stepped in… just to keep the scorer on his toes. However with Yalding’s opening bowler sporting a name like Gnanappiragasam there was little competition for the eraser. This, combined with his two run contribution must have made for an uplifting day. The Yalding team was much-changed from the one that had embarrassingly beaten Cowdrey in the first match of the season: it notably lacked six-wicket man Shepherd; in fact, it was an entirely new bowling attack.

Taking full advantage of the home-ground edge, after “putting all the stuff out” Cowdrey elected their inveterate pre-match tactic of standing in a loose circle outside the boundary, occasionally tossing a ball to each other and deriving almost as much amusement from the regular fielding bloopers as from the bowling actions and tea-making-capabilities of the Yalding boys who, in full whites, were warming up in the nets.

Hardly the place of a bowler to comment on batting preparation, but having been put in after skipper Warner, fresh from his nuptial duties of “joke”-cracking and dry-cleaning, had lost the toss, Cowdrey’s openers seemed a little surprised when Yalding’s bowlers were tight from ball one. Unlike his compatriots two days previously, the much-hyped Yalding overseas player, Britz, was not particularly pacy but bowled good lines and got movement from a responsive pitch. Onlookers from the boundary felt that perhaps, contrasting the big man Smith, Yalding’s captain had read the perplexing Swanmead deck correctly and that application and watchfulness would be required to score runs as the afternoon progressed.

Openers Hammond and Southwart Jnr. however clearly shared no such apprehensions. Deciding that it was darstedly unfair of opening bowlers in a Kent Feeder League to bowl well, they opted to continue as though they were not. Both were dismissed playing extravagant shots with the score on 10. This brought Wright and Warner to the crease. The captain and vice applied themselves well to the daunting task ahead of them. Without the solid platform of the previous week “Ratty” and (one assumes) “Mole” played without their characteristic fluency, but put on 56 before the latter was bowled by Yalding’s off-spinner, Tataria, who was extracting turn that seemed to get greater with the report of each successive fallen batsmen. The Rat continued to battle, joined by Joe “Desmond” Southwart, who was unlucky to be startlingly well caught in the slips. With Wright finally dismissed for 44 (accompanying his 49 in the away leg), the only other man to get double figures was gloveman Willcox, who would have scored 12 if he hadn’t run one short.

By running myself out I managed, spikeless, to advent tea one-ball earlier than scheduled. This was doubtless of great excitement to many of the Cowdrey team, to say nothing of the Yalding lot, for whom teas this week seemed to be of paramount interest. It is difficult to complement the Murray effort without lapsing into parody, so let it suffice to say that they were excellent. After some heated discussion of what tactics the South Africans should employ in their Test chase, Cowdrey set about preparing what all hoped would be a rather better performance in the second half.

Warner decided that a huddle was in order just to make sure that everybody knew what the match situation was, namely that we hadn’t scored that many runs and that we need to take ten wickets. Because everyone enjoyed it so much we agreed before parting to have another one as soon as we got a wicket. Opening the bowling, Murray and myself were successful in our objective of emulating Yalding’s attack… not a lot of pace but good areas, which seemed to be the way to go on this particular Swanmead track. We were both quite successful, and both should have had two early wickets. As it turned out Mark only got one, Clarkie, with an inspired piece of man-of-the-match-avoidance, spilling a catch that our South African paceman would have been angry about back in the U14s.

“JC” redeemed himself however by coming on to have a bowl from the pavilion end and taking four good wickets, including that of Cowdrey’s mysterious, and gangly, nemesis “Dougie”, well-caught by Hammond over his shoulder. Britz showed signs of resistance, (which, in this game, seemed to mean anybody who could play a defensive shot), frustrating Cowdrey’s bowlers past drinks. However, he met his match in Cowdrey’s answer to André Nel, the indefatigable Gary Marshall.

Yalding’s tail showed signs of depriving Cowdrey of the last bowling point, particularly youngster Swaine who played some good-looking shots. An inspired bit of captaincy from Warner brought Hammond into the attack, a last throw of the dice equivalent to Vaughan throwing the ball to Alistair Cook. After testing Yalding’s number 10 out with some beamers, Hammond got his reward, a soft push back into his hands. Bowling Yalding out for 75, Cowdrey took maximum points from a game that shan’t be remembered for its cricket… evidenced by the fact that extras second-top-scored in both innings. It has however placed Cowdrey second in the table, one point behind next week’s adversaries.

TP