Stumped for words

The sharp thud of leather on willow. The desultory applause. The cries of fielders certain that a batsman is now out. The shake of the head of an umpire equally certain that he is not. The baa’ing of the sheep on the hillside above. Yes this was an actual cricket match that I was actually participating in, and oddly quite enjoying it.

Every summer Pilsdon enters a local league of amateur cricket teams who compete for a cup and a plate, although apparently no cutlery can be won. In order to reach the requisite number of players for our team (eleven) it was necessary to scrape quite hard at the bottom of the barrel which is how I managed to end up in the squad with literally zero experience of playing cricket. (This isn’t completely true, I have played French cricket in the back garden, and I do have some vague schooldays memory of being urged by my fellow team mates to get out as quickly as possible so that someone better could get to bat).

Pilsdon takes its training seriously and for the last week or so we have had “nets” up which allow us to practice bowling and batting without having to keep fetching the ball from some neighbouring field. Various people in the community have revealed themselves to be quite handy at the game which put us in a fairly optimistic frame of mind until we heard that our first game would be against the reputedly best team in the league, going by the shameful name of Shameless.

So earlier this evening we all piled into the minibus and drove for twenty minutes down tiny winding lanes until we arrived at the pitch at a small village called Symondsbury where eleven young and athletic-looking lads were hurtling the ball around in what can only be described as an intimidating manner. 

The game began with Shameless batting first. I couldn’t tell you what my fielding position is called but my job was essentially to prevent the ball from crossing the boundary if at all possible, and to catch the thing if it happened to hurtle near me. I carried out these duties to the best of my abilities, which is to say not particularly well but neither did I disgrace myself. I then got a chance to bowl an ‘over’ which in this game meant eight balls; focusing on accuracy over speed I astonished myself and everyone else by getting a wicket with one of my bowls. 

After 16 overs it was our turn to bat. I was batting seventh and it seemed to come round to my turn quite quickly. All padded up, I walked out to face the hostile bowling of West Dorset’s finest amateur cricketers and as it turned out, managed to hit a few and even score a couple of runs. In fact they never got me out at all because I started batting during their last over, which I am secretly and unjustifiably very pleased about.

I’ll pass swiftly over the final scoreline; suffice to say a glorious victory for Pilsdon still lies in the future. 

For those of you who have been ploughing through all this dull prose about cricket in order to find out what’s happened about Laura’s imminent delivery, your patience is now rewarded - he was born today! His name is River and weighed 8lb 8oz at birth, which ended up happening via caesarean at the hospital so we have yet to see him. Needless to say we can't wait!