Copdock and Old I’s - The double miracle

We made a trip to the recently formed C&OI’s for the first time with 5 wins under our belt and sitting pretty at the top of the table. In my view the new club was a merger between a fading club with a good ground and bar together with a good team with several grounds none of which had a bar. We’d played against Old I’s at a variety of venues (I recall Jon Zagni scattering his fielders to all parts with an instruction to “go through” at one as Spaggs put him to the sword and who could forget our leader heaving Ray East over the elegantly named Luca Brasi library at another) but having a bar to enjoy after the game was definitely a positive so it was a merger we liked. Our team included two changes from the convincing victory we’d enjoyed over Frinton a week earlier. Marc Gozzett and Tom Hawkridge returned in place of James Ellis and Paul Davis, that made us a stronger batting unit for this trip which was our fourth away game out of six so far. I called correctly to win my third toss in a row since Spaggs enforced absence with his severely bruised digit. Spaggs took the role of scorer as our regular, Andy Elliott, couldnt make this one...take a look at the card produced by our Mechanic! As always I elected to bat first and with our strengthened line-up I felt confident that we would post a good total despite only getting to 188 a week earlier. We suffered an early setback when Elmo was cleaned up for only 7 in the 3rd over. This was bad news as he was our most talented batsman and always regarded as the key wicket by the opposition. Worse news was to follow though as on my first lap of the outfield I got to chat to Elmo who was sitting quietly far from the pavilion in a rare moment of introspection. He confided that he’d seen a Dr about the knee injury he’d been carrying and was troubling him more each week. The Dr had suggested surgery would be needed and in a few short weeks his season would end. It was a huge blow to our title aspirations and one that would require the whole team to step up in order to fill the very big hole he would leave. One person who could improve on his start to the season was 15 year old David Randall, Arkle as he was known. His 4 innings had only netted him 33 runs to this point and even though he was incredibly young we knew that his talent as well as his maturity would bring him runs sooner rather than later. On that basis we persevered with him in the top 4 and when Elmo departed early it was Arkle who strode to the crease. On this occasion he would only amass 15 but he added 53 with make-shift opener Dubbers (himself nursing a broken metatarsal - not sure if it was a Cricket or Unidentified Beer Injury {UBI} - but manfully soldering on). We appeared to be on-track to post a good total but a crisis appeared quickly as we subsided from 61-1 to 70-5 in the space of 3 painful overs as Arkle, Rubber (0), Dubbers who was run out (33) and Goz (4) all made the dressing room a highly congested space. We’d only used 18 overs so we had some work to do in order to utilise our full allocation. Rare, himself only 18 years old, curbed his natural attacking instincts as he and I added an extra laden 42 for the 6th wicket before I was caught behind for 14. Shortly after Rare was sent on his way for a patient 18 and we were 117-7 after 25 overs...not a good halftime score by any stretch of the imagination. Our saviour was to be our number 8, Jay Trevaskis who was most certainly a bowler who batted but aspired to be regarded as an all-rounder. This was the only time that he exceeded 25 all season and boy did we need the runs that he added with 18 year old Steven Rudd who’s share of their 26 run stand was just 5. We also really required the 28 runs that he added with the slightly older Paul Symons who contributed just 6 to their combined total. These two partnerships got us to 171-9 as Jay nursed the tail with all his god-given power. He even scrapped another 12 with Jap who got just the 4 as we closed our innings at 182 all out in the 48th over. Extras had helped by adding 28 but Jay was easily our top scorer with 48 and it was a shame he holed out before he reached what would have been a well deserved half century. He had shepherded the tail brilliantly and scored more than 70% of the 65 runs added for the final 3 wickets. It was the second away game in a row where none of us had made a 50, this wasn’t a trend we could afford to continue. Our total of 182 felt like it would be tough to defend and in the first hour of the C&OI’s reply it looked like it would be easily surpassed. Jap had grabbed a wicket in his first over to reduce our hosts to 2-1 but their number 3, Tristan Jervis, seemed to be batting on a different pitch to everyone else. He bashed us to all parts as he very quickly posted 50 with 8 fours and 2 sixes...for the mathematicians amongst the readers that doesn’t leave many that needed running, save your legs indeed! All our bowlers suffered and the only positive for us was that runs weren’t being added at the same rate by his partner. I rung the changes a few times and after Trevaskis, Jap, Rubber, Legend and Elmo hadn’t grabbed the breakthrough I ran out of good options and took the ball for my only bowl of the season. I also disappeared way over the boundary rope but in my second over I managed to get a tiring Jervis to nick one to Goz (who was in the process of keeping a clean sheet with no byes) and he hung on to it! Two miracles in one ball! Trevaskis must have rubbed the lamp pretty hard to make that happen! Jervis had smashed 84 in a partnership of 115 and another 3 or 4 overs of similar carnage would have been more than enough to end our winning run. At this point the score was 117-2 after 25 overs which was the same total we had only we had lost 5 more wickets at this stage. I knew we had to go back to our most threatening bowlers and this meant an immediate return to the attack for both Trevaskis and Rubber. It worked in dramatic fashion as the pair instigated a massive collapse which saw the last 9 wickets fall for just 36 in the space of 19 overs to leave us winners by 29 runs. The C&OI’s scorecard made sorry reading and included 5 ducks. An hour earlier that outcome seemed like a 100 to 1 shot! Rubber’s spell saw him grab 5-18 whilst Trevaskis, who for once played second fiddle, took 3-15 in a great few overs for us and to bolster his already impressive bowling stats for the season. In amongst the procession of wickets something quite incredible happened. I say this as someone who played for Maldon 1st XI during 4 decades and witnessed tied games, double hundreds, hat-tricks, bats being wielded as weapons on the field and a number of other oddities over this time. The moment in question came deep in the sudden ending to C&OI’s innings. I’ve seen some stunning catches, some easy drops and everything in between. What we witnessed on that day though doesn’t fit between those book-ends. The most gentle catch ever was floated towards Steven Rudd who was fielding in the ring with no other fielders anywhere near him. It was a catch that any of his three sisters, his mother, his father, the family dog and any other living relative would have swallowed. Sadly Steven, who as a wicket-keeper was generally regarded as a safe pair of hands, let it slide between his fingers like melting ice cream and it came to a halt at his feet. Probably a 1 in 10,000 drop would be my crude estimate. Fortunately for Rocket Rudd it was not to prove costly as the batsman was dismissed almost immediately. It’s true to say that it certainly didn’t prove as costly as the penny Rocket spent on Colchester High Street a few weeks later which resulted in the long arm of the law playing a hand. The subsequent newspaper article gave us a reason beyond this dropped catch to share a joke at Rocket’s expense. The win over C&OI’s meant we were now 6 from 6 and needed only to beat Braintree the following week in our clash at Drapers Farm to reach the halfway point of the season unbeaten. They had been promoted with us having won Division Two but had found the adjustment to the higher level a little more challenging than us so we were optimistic we could end the first half with our record intact. What’s more, for the first time, we would have an unchanged team for this next fixture.