KCL Match v British Embassy - July 29, 2003

Ichihara CC: All out for 45. (Yes, 45.)
British Embassy: 1 for more than us, in pretty quick time.
Won by British Embassy.

Man of the match for Ichihara: Expired dog on the road acting as a landmark for the ground.

The friendly match after:
British Embassy: All out for 130 odd.
Ichihara CC: All out for about bloody 40 again.
Won by British Embassy.

Man of the match for Ichihara: Brett, with 4 well-deserved wickets.

Well, it wasn't auspicious, but it was a start.

After a few just-wait-at-the-stations, we'll-be-there-soons and how-do-we-get-there-again?s we all managed to meet up basically on time at Hasaki, in Timbukt...I mean, Ibaraki. The ground itself probably rates up there as with the best for cricket in Japan, in terms of condition and size, anyway (the pitch was well, you know, the pitch). Ignoring the less-than-encouraging omen of a dog lying on the road outside the ground, one which had left us to fetch the T-bone Frisbees they use up there in the canine afterlife, the Ichihara CC collective piled into the all-grass arena, all enthusiasm and naive optimism.

Having spent hours, and wearing out 3 or 4 whiteboards, deep in the fortified bunkers of Ichihara HQ the week before sweating over team tactics we were happy that fearless leader Hasib won the toss, and gave the Embassy boys the bad news that they would be chasing leather stroked by Ichihara willow for the next 3 or 4 hours. After confirming with the Embassy that we meant we would bat, the rest of the team started their finger stretches to applaud Hasib and Joff on their soon to be completed centuries.

Then, before we knew it, we were all out for 45. These things happen.

Some good deliveries, interesting bounces and strokes you'll only find in cricket manuals with big skulls and cross bones next to them saw the Ichihara 10 (Aki-chan unable to escape work) back under the scorer's umbrella in pretty quick succession, holding our heads in our hands. Chris got out to a good ball, yours truly still reckons there was daylight between glove and ball in my dismissal (I'll shut up now), but generally speaking, everyone would probably rather forget that innings. Which will be easy, because it was very forgettable.

The Embassy guys went in and got the runs pretty quickly (I'm not purposely trying to avoid saying 45), for the loss of one wicket.

Seeing as we finished up in about 2 hours flat, and considering that we would be paying the good people at Hasegawa Ryokan ground fees for a whole day, both teams decided to play a 20-over-a-side friendly, in which Ichihara CC would crush our foe brutally in a merciless act of devasting revenge.

Things did go a little better in this match. We put up a reasonable fielding performance, with some dropped catches, sure, but we also saw Jef gun out the non-striker running to the batting end with some help from Chris, Chris doing some fancy work himself running out an indecisive striker debating the pros and cons of taking a single with his partner, and Brett snapping up 4 wickets with some accurate medium pace (Hasib, Prasanth and yours truly may want to ask Brett for some tips at some stage). Jason pulled off some stylish sliding stops in the outfield to delirious calls of "Cherry Boy!" from an appreciative captain, Vipul contributed in the field with some slick work in the covers, and Shiwaj added to his top score in the first match by backing up as keeper when Chris joined up with Brett to teach us all a lesson in bowling. Joff bowled some good deliveries, too, while also doing an excellent job of digging up the rough outside leg for Warney, should he have decided to drop by.

We did manage to bowl the Embassy all out for about 130, which was pretty good really.

Our second batting performance wasn't, though. In fact it was deja vu all over again, us being skittled for another 40-something, and it doesn't require a rocket surgeon to tell us that next time we will have to apply ourselves a little bit more when out in the middle (anybody got 10 yen for the Cliche Jar?).

Thanks to the umpires (Matsubara-san and Mikutsu-san - sorry if that's incorrect!) for coming out and helping us to sort out the ground and officiate the match. Much appreciated.

Team on the day: Hasib, Chris, Jeff, Jason, Brett, Vipul, Shiwaj, Prasanth, Joff, David. With us in spirit: Aki-chan.