Whispering Dons

We had three games remaining in the 2000 season the first of which was a trip to play at Frinton. In the first meeting we had bowled them out for just under 100 to become handsome winners. We didn’t expect it to be quite so easy this time around. We made one change from the side that had beaten Exning one week earlier. That change was Jap, who had been a controversial figure in that earlier game, was replaced by Rare. We lost the toss and Frinton decided that they would make first use of their home pitch. Within 10 minutes it looked like a bad decision as we struck twice in the first two overs making great use of the new ball. Trevaskis removed one opener with his 4th delivery but Spaggs improved on this by claiming a wicket with his very 1st ball of the game. Toby and Ruddy took the catches to leave Frinton 1 for 2. This included the wicket of their overseas all-rounder who had been promoted to open the innings. A period of consolidation followed and after 10 overs they had progressed to 31-2. The 3rd wicket fell in the 16th over as Toby struck, another caught behind for Ruddy and the score was 55-3. Frinton then grabbed the initiative and after 30 overs had moved on to 112-3 sitting nicely poised to accelerate beyond 200. We managed to grab 3 wickets in a hurry in the 37th, 40th and 41st overs. Rubber grabbed two of these but it was Trevaskis who grabbed the wicket of Russell Everson for 86, he had looked thirsty for more so it was great to send him packing! At 151-6 with 9 overs remaining we felt in with a chance of keeping the total below 200. It wasn’t to be as the seasoned campaigners of Tony Stubbs and Pat Patel put us to the sword by adding an unbroken 61 to end on 212-6. Stubbs finished with 45 not out and was the mainstay of the flourish that concluded the innings. Partnerships of 54, 85 and 61* had been key to the Frinton total and wickets had fallen in clusters. We need to guard against the second of these features to overcome a fairly challenging chase. Our bowling figures were led by Rubber who returned 2-29 off 9, whilst Trevaskis claimed 2-80 off 17. Spaggs had 1-14 off 6, Toby 1-44 off 11 whilst Legend went wicketless through 7 overs. At this point of the season our skipper, Spaggs, only had 153 runs to his name at an average of just under 20. That was all about to change as he walked to the crease at Frinton. Every team needs its leader to step up at moments of truth and in the final weeks of our title charge our big man was about to play his part. He shared an opening stand of 47 with Rubber who made just 7 before being caught in the 12th over. He then joined forces with Dubbers to avoid the phenomena of wickets falling in clusters and add a pivotal 84 runs in 22 overs. It was against the run of play when Spaggs was out for 80 to make the score 131-2. His total for the season became 233 now at an average of 26. Dubbers and Arkle added another 21 before the former fell for 53, his 5th half century of the campaign to go with his 2 tons. This left us needing another 61 off 10 overs to finish the job. I joined Arkle at the crease and it soon became evident that we would have to deal with some inconsistent bounce as the spinner Lawes got a couple to roll along the ground from back of a length. At the other end we managed to take 9 off an over from Stubbs and he was quickly withdrawn in favour of the Aussie, Rogers, who had opened both the batting and the bowling. It was the 44th over, bowled by off-spinner Lawes, that turned the tide in our favour. I took a boundary and a single off the first 4 balls and was at the non strikers end watching in awe as Arkle swept him to the boundary off each of the last 2 balls. On the second occasion he hit it slightly squarer to negate the a field change as Frinton tried to stem the bleeding. The 13 we took of that over left us needing just 21 off the last 5 overs and although Arkle departed in the next over for 17 he’d made the total one that we knew was within our range. A few overs later Trevaskis burned himself, always my version of a run out, for 11 with just 3 needed to win and 13 balls remaining. We inched away over the line by using all but 3 of those as myself and Rare got the job done. He ended with 2 not out whilst I had compiled 33 not out boosting my season total to 316 at an average of 45 (helped by quite a few of these red inked scores)! It was a very significant win as it left us needing only one more win plus some decent bonus points from the title. Several of us wanted a repeat of the very noisy singing that had greeted our win at Wivenhoe. Spaggs put the lid on that, insisting that we didn’t want to reignite the tension from our earlier clash with Frinton. We duly obliged with some light bat tapping and a whispered rendition of “The Dons are coming for the kill”. Even that was deeply satisfying though. Next up was our final home game against Copdock and Old I’s. Our side contained just one change with Legend making way for James Ellis. It was ours to win and the excitement was building.