40/40 game. Beddington won the toss and chose to field. Sanderstead 34 ao from 28.3 overs. Beddington 35/0 from 8.4 – scorecard
For the first time I had an umpiring colleague, not just players standing in when not otherwise engaged. When standing with a player-umpire I’ve felt constrained in what I can say to him in breaks in play – don’t want to give away information on what the bowlers are doing, for example, and it was nice to not have that.
Sanderstead only have one field of their own, which was in use by their 1st XI, so our match was a short walk away in the public recreation ground. It’s still a pleasant environment though, with its own changing rooms. The ground slopes from one side to the other but the square is level, so there’s a noticeable drop-off when standing at square leg. If I was shorter I might have considered standing on the wrong side to get a better view of the crease. There had been light rain during the night, and no covers, so as well as the outfield being a bit damp and slow, the wicket itself was a bit soft. I was concerned about the bowlers’ footholds, but decided they were OK and we could go ahead. I kept an eye on them, with an eye towards stopping to let them dry out a bit if they needed it, but the ground held up.
Sanderstead struggled to score, although there was a moment after the drinks break when two of their middle order batsman scored 5 off an over – a great improvement over the 1-ish they were going at before then – and I thought they might heroically rescue the situation as England’s middle order have been wont to do in recent years, but it wasn’t to be. There was another brief flurry of excitement when two very young players were in for the last wicket, they did an excellent job of communicating with each other. I found out afterwards that one of them plays for the county girls’ side in her age group, so presumably that’s something they coach.
With Beddington getting Sanderstead all out so quickly we just had a short turnaround before Beddington went in to bat, on the grounds that tea wouldn’t have been ready anyway. My colleague and I did briefly discuss the league timing regulations, but decided that Law 43, “Use Common Sense” applied so we didn’t bother looking them up. I expected that the match would be over before the normally scheduled tea break anyway, and most importantly both sides were happy to get straight back out there.
As I expected, Sanderstead’s two young tail-enders opened the bowling. I thought that the girl I talked about earlier did an excellent job. She didn’t get any wickets, but only went for 4 an over against a side that bats well, and she had some decent variations.
As for my own performance – I gave two controversial decisions. I denied an appeal for caught behind off an edge, because I didn’t hear anything as it went through. The bowler was cross with me and discussed it afterwards, and I explained my decision. I’m not umpiring next weekend so he’s got time to forgive me before we meet again! The second was that I gave a batsman out caught. He was grumpy about it, as batsmen usually are if they haven’t just walked. I was convinced that it had gone straight to the fielder, he thought he’d hit it down into the ground first, and when I talked about it with my colleague afterwards he wasn’t sure, so if I had consulted him at the time I would have stuck with my decision anyway.
I made two out and out errors. The biggest was in adjudicating wides. I gave two of them in one of the Beddington bowlers’ first over, and he was clearly peeved and thought I was being harsh and should have just warned him after the first one. When I gave them I thought they were only just wide, but only just is still wide. I might warn a bowler if he’s creeping towards a front-foot no ball, but I’ll still call a no-ball when I see one, just like I’ll call a wide when I see one. But I let that get to me, and I gave a bit more leeway in later overs. This means that my performance was inconsistent, and I think in umpiring consistency, especially in very close decisions like those, is just as important as correctness. There was also one ball when I was standing at square leg when I thought it had gone through over waist height without pitching and so should have been a no-ball. My colleague at the bowler’s end didn’t call it, and while it was his call I think I should have been more assertive in bringing it to his attention.
Thankfully my errors had no impact on the result.
Larval Stage Umpire 