Devastating bowling spells see Carpe triumph

To adequately describe the scenes at Wandsworth Common’s cricket ground a few weeks ago would require a level of hyperbole not heard since Dennis Lillee was hurling balls at stumps.

Carpe Vinum CC spent its off-season recruiting heavily and these new additions have brought added energy to the field, aggression to the batting, but most notably, venom to the bowling. The match started in typical Carpe fashion however – that is to say, the stumps arrived seconds before play was due to start and some players got lost on their way to the ground.

Put into bat under the glorious summer sun by The Baker Street Irregulars, Carpe’s openers set about their task. Freddie Cunningham and Will Finch formed a strong partnership to blunt the attack of the new ball, smearing boundaries and rotating the strike whenever possible. They looked to be building comfortably before a humdinger of a ball from Bailey clattered into Finch’s stumps and brought aggressive batsmen Jason Quick to the crease. While Cunningham continued to build his score through a series of singles, Quick attacked the bowlers. Spin bowler Rahull was enraged to see a series of balls thundering to boundary, but was howling when he hit the wicket, only to see the bails remain resolutely on the stumps. Quick’s innings, though entertaining, was overshadowed by his stupendous dismissal. Lining up for a mammoth swing against Harrod, he missed the ball, lost his balance and, spinning round a few times, collapsed into his stumps. He returned to the boundary with fifteen runs, welcomed by howls of laughter.

The next two batsmen, Charlie Whitting and captain Ben Wilson, added little to the score, but Johnny Hilliard strode to the middle with real intent. As Cunningham made his half century, Hilliard was bludgeoning balls with merry abandon. While the partnership lasted, Carpe looked well set, but once Cunningham was found out lbw, the inevitable Carpe collapse left Hilliard stranded on 35. Tom Nias left with two runs, Australian debutant Lewis Barker made a composed five and Charlie Southgate contributed a run to the total. Adam Rostrum, asked to bat twice with Carpe fielding only ten men, failed to add to his initial duck, caught out first ball in his second ‘innings’ to leave with a king pair in a 27-over innings.

With a total of 167 and only ten men to defend it, Carpe knew that they would have to depend on their bowlers to be accurate. And boy were they. Rostrum opened the bowling, clearly determined that, if he couldn’t score any runs, then no one from BSI would either. The ball was whistling past the bat, past the chin, past the ears, and the umpires even felt it necessary to ‘have a word’.

After a vicious opening maiden over, the batsmen might have expected some light relief from Nias. They got none of it, his first ball clattering into the stumps and sending the man back to the hutch runless. His replacement didn’t add to the score. Then the carnage really began. After a snorter had unsettled his target, Rostrum’s next delivery was awkwardly edged to the slips. The following ball sent the bails flying and the next was spooned into the air and grasped by a chasing Wilson. In three overs, BSI had lost four wickets without troubling the scoreboard. Charging like a rhino about to miss the last train, Rostrum struck terror into the hearts and minds of every batsmen that shuffled nervously to the wicket, while at the other end dead-eyed Nias was no less terrifying.

After six overs of brutality that saw six wickets fall for a handful of runs, Wilson dragged Nias and Rostrum away and slowed things down with some spin, starting with himself. He was initially rewarded with two wickets in two balls to leave the BSI innings hanging by a thread. But then the inevitable fightback happened. Without the quicks terrorising them Bailey and Harrod started to claw back into the contest, gaining revenge on Wilson by slogging 27 runs off one over.

Carpe might have entertained thoughts that this flurry of runs in the lower order was merely making a game of what could have been an absolute hammering, but watching each over pass with the ball passing over their heads and the boundary, nonchalance turned to amusement, then irritation, then downright concern. The history of Carpe is littered with plenty of ignominious defeats but to lose from this position – surely not?

Chances were coming, with Hilliard coming close and Barker enduring a litany of dropped catches and edges not going to hand, but there was no breakthrough. Then, just after BSI had sailed past 100, Wilson decided enough was enough, and brought Rostrum and Nias back to the attack. With almost immediate effect. The final two wickets fell and Carpe Vinum had triumphed by 48 runs. But for Harrod’s 74 not out, more than half his side’s total, the winning margin could well have been 148.

While such a commanding display might not be necessarily familiar to all Carpe fans, the lengthy celebrations at the nearby County Arms certainly were.