RNVR Cricket Club

Scorecard

Cuckfield CC v RNVR Cricket Club on Wed 08 Aug 2007 at 11.30am
RNVR Cricket Club Lost by 18 runs

Match report A game to never forget….

I write this match report from my office in Hurstpierpoint pretty much 13 years later. Little did I know I was about to move here in 2009, or subsequently play cricket for Ditchling and with my son, albeit too briefly.
Whilst Vacher during lockdown has nearly completed his Opus Magnum of the RNVR back catalogue and many of these lost cards and stories have triggered memories born of 31 years a player, some games you will never forget. This is perhaps the most extraordinary game of cricket I have ever played…..

I don’t remember much about the morning of the game other than we got lost in Burgess Hill on the way to the ground. For anyone who doesn’t know Burgess Hill this is not the highlight of the Sussex idyll. For some reason I had allowed Massey senior to lead the convoy out of the Clayton hollow from the Smithson’s. Maybe it was because he was the least hung-over. That I can’t remember. The night before had seen the for runner of the popular, soon to be distilled, ‘whiskey and pizza’ night, though this time without the pizza’s.
We got to the ground at 11.32. Collins was actually worried. He was more worried as he looked me up and down in the middle, coin in hand. ‘I suppose you want to bowl’? Going greener by the second I merely nodded, shook hands and scuttled back to the changing room. For the exact intricacies of the game I have most of the salient pieces etched through the fog but I must thank the president, once again, for his meticulous ledger. For the record this includes a ‘5’ (not an 8) the ball hitting not 1 but 2 helmets on the field (this will have something to do with their bowling – more of that to come).

We however bowled 33 overs before lunch. Cuckfield were 158/1. Collins was smiling like a Cheshire cat and fish pie is not a hangover cure. For some reason I had two extra bottles of port in my boot. Quickly added to the 2 we already had and the one kindly proffered by the oppo we tucked into the said 5.
Now I wouldn’t profess this is much of a scientific experiment but I can contest that many of us felt much better after lunch. We huddled in anticipation. ‘ Now look I said, we are not going to sleep walk them to 290 and then have to bat for 70 overs. We attack from the top with Liddell and hold the bottom end with Will. We have 20 minutes to save this game’. Not quite Churchillian this would subsequently be known forever, as ‘Ford’s big 20 minutes’. The rest really is history.
You will see 6 of Anthony’s 8 wickets are caught, all so extraordinary in fact that Bruce has annotated several of them individually. Wyles at 4th slip low down one handed (though what he was doing there I have no idea), Bill juggling and eventually catching one in his pocket and Collins, by myself running from extra cover (I had given the gloves to Sinha so disconsolate at Lunch was I) to backward point, pursued by a rampant Major in his follow through. Collins stormed past me with a look of thunder ‘Port bloody fuelled’ he cursed. I think it is the only time I have ever seen him annoyed in 30 years. The best of the lot though was Trickha’s. He’d been creeping ever closer at short mid-off, so close in fact I’d warned him he was too close. Ajmal (yes him) hit a rocket that, he duly caught behind him. Unbelievable. [I will never forget that catch-😊 writes PT]
So 158/1 at lunch, then 167/1 to 226 all out or 59-9 whichever way you look at it, all in 20 incredible overs. As I walked off I didn’t really care what was about to happen, for me we had won the game anyway. I think I was still drunk.
The RNVR innings is dominated by one astonishing fact. Saeed Ajmal was soon to become the world’s no.1 bowler. He bowled 14 overs out of 53 or 26% of the deliveries at us. Is that fair? Probably, as amazingly we were only 18 short.
Recent comments have suggested I may have got the batting order array. It certainly looked odd and Liddell at 9 was all wrong (though he was last out with a gallant 35 and no doubt thought he could still win it) but maybe I had some idea about a rearguard, or protecting Bill from his Collins’ nemesis, or hiding Crichton as he loved Geoffrey’s bowling or maybe it was done on blood alcohol level. However, I don’t think it matters what the batting order is if you have that rabbit in your proverbial cricket cap.
12 years later and in the long room at the home of cricket I luckily sat next to Eoin Morgan at a world cup winner’s supper. ‘Best bowler I ever faced was Ajmal, couldn’t read him’ he said during the Q & A. ‘Me too I said. Got me with his doosra. Stumped’. 25 people looked on, speechless in astonishment at such a quip. The fact is, its true. And you would hardly forget that. Would you?


Paul Ford, Hurstpierpoint, 2020

On reflection Skipper Liddell recalled
I have long ago exhausted emotive adjectives to describe how it feels to play at Cuckfield and, of course, how I felt during and after that unforgettable game in particular. It will forever be my absolute favourite cricketing memory. I have always considered myself very fortunate to have been one of the RNVR XI that took the field that day. Indeed it may well have been the catalyst that finally prompted me to ask what became a life-changing question a matter of days later....and we’re still married!!

Dr Sinha self deprecatingly added:
I remember standing at the other end when Massey was pinned on his back foot bamboozled by the doosra. I kept sweeping Ajmal and he didn’t like it and I was so confident that I danced down the track to Geoffrey and was bowled and landed flat on my face!

Cuckfield CC Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
3nb 4w 10b 2lb 
for 10 wickets
19
226 (52.2 overs)		     
K MIrza ct  &b Liddell 31 6
T Butterworth lbw  Buckland 77 10 1
S Longfield + ct  Wyles, Liddell 45 9
P Collins * ct  Ford, Liddell 18 2 1
S Ajmal ct  Trikha, Liddell 8 2
P Miller lbw  Liddell 0
G Longfield ct  Allen, Liddell 10
M Hough ct  Perkin, Buckland 4 1
G Dixon Not Out  12 2
A A-Dumbrell lbw  Liddell 2
W Collins ct  Sinha, Liddell 0

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Anthony Liddell18.2294811.755.13
Piers Vacher6.002700.004.50
Anthony Massey8.003500.004.38
William Buckland17.0439219.502.29
Graham J Wyles3.011900.006.33

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
5nb 13w 9b 3lb 
for 10 wickets
30
208		        
Manas Sinha b  Geoffrey Longfield 38 3 1
Charles Perkin ct  Butterworth, Ajmal 5 1
Anthony Massey b  Ajmal 5 1
William Buckland ct  A-Dumbrell, Ajmal 18 3 1
Paul Ford st  S Longfield, Ajmal 7 1
Paul Trikha ct  S Longfield, Mirza 16 3 1
Bill Allen Run out  42 9 1
Charlie Crichton b  A A-Dumbrell 5
Anthony Liddell b  P Collins 35 3 2 1
Piers Vacher ct  Mirza, Ajmal 4
Graham J Wyles Not Out  3 1

Cuckfield CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
P Collins9.3220120.002.11
M Hough6.021300.002.17
S Ajmal14.033156.202.21
G Dixon8.042200.002.75
G Longfield5.0134134.006.80
K Mirza5.03515.001.00
W (Line&Length) Collins5.004000.008.00
B A-Dumbrell2.0027127.0013.50