40/40 game, Beddington won the toss and chose to field. Addiscombe 255/7, Beddington 201/6 – scorecard
Addiscombe provided an umpire for this game, who was also keeping score on a fancy computer-machine so the scorecard (linked above) has ball-by-ball stats. Very posh, and also meant that I could alternate standing behind the wicket and out at square leg as is right and proper. It was a hot sunny day, mitigated by a breeze throughout the game. The out field was scorched dry and brown, but the square had been watered and was green, although the wicket we were using was brown, firm and dry, becoming dusty as the game progressed. It didn’t break up as much as I expected. The bone dry out field was fast, with a short boundary on one side and while the other side was much longer it was also substantially down hill, so we were in for a quite high scoring game.
Beddington’s first over with the ball went for 12, as the bowler struggled to find his length and release point. Of those 12, 6 were off no-balls and 1 a wide. Those warm-up flubs aside, he bowled well, going for an average of 4.2 an over which is respectable especially given the fast out field. Beddington’s problem wasn’t the bowling (even if, as you would expect at this level, there were bad balls a-plenty), but the fielding. Too many balls went past the fielders and once past were hopeless chases on the fast field which went to the boundary. Two of Addiscombe’s batsmen made well-deserved half-centuries, and another was one run short at the end of the innings.
With the bat, Beddington got off to an excellent start, with ten off the first over, but they couldn’t keep up with the required run rate mostly due to Addiscombe’s more effective fielding. It became clear that the game wasn’t realistically winnable but the league rules still incentivise teams to play positive cricket by offering bonus points. In particular there are bonus points for reaching 200 runs, which was achieved with two balls to go.
I’m afraid that I think I made a serious mistake in this game, giving one of Beddington’s batsmen out LBW incorrectly. The ball pitched outside off, hit him in line, I thought it was going to go on to just hit leg stump, so I gave him out. He wasn’t happy, but then, batsmen never are. After some muttering and grumbling he went off. However, discussing it afterwards it seems he had come further forward than I thought, and so after hitting him the ball would have missed the stumps.
Larval Stage Umpire 