For anyone whose ever played this 6 a side game, you will
know how frantic and at times dangerous (I.E. Kevin who hit the wall and broke
his wrist) it can be. Having played it for probably more than 30 years now, it
has moved from a game where when batting, the ability to guide and caress the
ball gently to the wall between the sparse fielders was the thing (AKA Nigel
who was one of the greats at this), to a brutal clubbing affair that at most
times leaves the bowlers and fielders feeling somewhat wounded. This probably
reflects todays 20/20 world of biffing it as hard as you can. Admittingly the
halls have got a bit smaller which makes running more risky, so its the back
wall which is the 4 or 6 boundary that takes a pounding along with the fielders
fingers and the bowlers pride. Eastwood, up against the teams of Hadleigh and
Thundersley Rayleigh and the like, often take a bit of a slapping. Our regular first
teamer in the game Pragash, wields a heavy bat, smashing it to all parts, but
if he gets out our challenge is normally blunted. Whoever opens with Prag, gets
a ring side seat and is in the firing line, mainly Kevin or Henry this year, and
on one occasion used just one over to get to the retirement figure of 25,
before the rest of our batting collapsed in a heap. Kevs more sedate opening
generally sees him stay in for longer, but he also isn’t a stranger to the odd
retirement not out. Danny Fullers has played a couple of games, and its handy
to have his ability with bat and ball in the side, but he’s all babied up now,
so his Wednesday evenings are spent wiping sick off shoulders instead. Other
players who have featured this year are Reece Tomlin, who normally bowls with
good control but like all of us can have the nightmare night. He has also discovered
batting and is beginning to show some craft with the stick. Mikey Styrup bowls
well and has also known to bludgeon a 6 into the spectators area. Luke Harp
keeps wicket, mainly so he doesn’t bowl continuous short “no balls”. He tries
hard to make it look hard behind the stumps, and in a recent game had his first
ever batting retirement top score of 26 not out, a game against Canewdon we
actually won. Civic Centre have about 15 teams in this league, in which their
skipper Dave Colville features in all of them and is often a thorn in our
sides. But a recent venture against them saw a rare victory, with on the night
skipper Kev getting some revenge on Dave. In our last 2 or 3 games we have
actually looked like a team that know what their doing. It does take a while to
get your head around this game, and our fielding and bowling has gone up a
gear.
As skipper there’s not much to do really other than point at
some one to bowl and do the batting order. Fielding is fairly standard placings
with the odd move to put all men on the back wall and see if we can cling on.
Frankly we haven’t generally fielded that well in here. We probably drop more
than our fair share of chances (yours truly included) and when you do it
flippin hurts. I quite enjoy bowling leg spin balls into the rafters and see
how high it can go before it sometimes lands somewhere near the bat. Sometimes
it works, and the batsmen think “where’s that gone” or he just smashes it back
over my head for six (normally the latter). In a recent game against Rayleigh
my last over went 3, wide,6, dot,6,6,4,Dot. We never got close batting.
In our final game against one of the Civics we bowled them
out for 70 and cruised to the score with batsman and overs to spare, Henry
putting in a fine performance with the bat, and some great bowling and fielding
from all. So we are on a winning run.
All in all those that do take part quite enjoy this little
hour long micro game. It would be nice if more players would come forward and
give it a go, I think it keeps you quite sharp through the long winter nights
of Cricket wilderness, so if your up for it give Kev a shout.