Forsters CRE Cricket Day
On Thursday 4th July, Forsters CRE Cricket Club ("FCCC") made the journey over to Kew for the department’s annual cricket day. Blessed with glorious weather and a fantastic pitch, client teams The Crown Estate, Canmoor and La Salle completed the lineup and precisely on time at 11:21 the first ball was bowled.
FCCC's first match was against Canmoor and a solid performance with the ball saw Canmoor restricted to 49 runs off their five overs, James Carpenter proving particularly economical and keeping the batsman guessing with his cunning combination of pacy inswinging Yorkers, and wides. Matt Evans and Will Leney led the charge with the bat, both playing some genuine cricket shots, much to the surprise of the FCCC faithful. Despite clearly being the more aesthetically pleasing team, FCCC could not quite achieve the required run rate and fell just short of the Canmoor total by an undisclosed number of runs.
After a well-deserved lunch and some excellent cricket from the clients FCCC were put into bat against The Crown Estate. Dean "Geoffrey Boycott" Monk and Owen "Geoff Allott" Spencer (look that one up) defied conventional five-over cricketing wisdom of looking to hit boundaries and instead decided to slowly build an innings. Unfortunately just as they got their eye in and the dot balls had turned into singles, FCCC's innings was over. Unperturbed by the modest total and confident in their bowlers FCCC took to the field. If rain had stopped play after the first over then using the Duckworth-Lewis method FCCC would have recorded a famous victory. Unfortunately the sky remained cloudless and The Crown Estate started swinging for the rope, aided by a number of FCCC fielders who did an excellent impression of human colanders, failing to inhibit the ball's progress to the boundary. Needless to say victory just eluded FCCC, again by an undisclosed margin.
Hoping to restore some pride in the final game against La Salle, with the writer too scared to open the innings, the onus fell on Anthony Goodmaker to set the tone from the first ball. Unfortunately he just misread what would otherwise have been a very well judged leave and his off stump was sent cartwheeling to the boundary. Some fine stokes from Ed Glass (retired hurt from "hitting the ball too hard") saw FCCC scramble to a respectable 50 from their 5 overs. Unfortunately the opposition showed no respect for the FCCC score, or the home team’s bowlers, with shots more reminiscent of Babe Ruth than Bradman. Although credit must go to Owen and Anthony for picking up some wickets FCCC could not quite defend their total and La Salle claimed victory with an undisclosed number of balls remaining.
Whilst FCCC had been stumbling their way through the overs (some say as a cunning ruse to keep the clients happy others say owing to cricketing ineptitude) the client teams had been putting on a display of cricketing excellence and after the group games, the final was to be played between Canmoor and The Crown Estate. Despite a very tight final, Canmoor and their team of suspiciously young and talented interns walked away with the coveted trophy.
It was a genuinely excellent day and thanks go to Kew Cricket Club for hosting and all those who played and supported.