Fun (and muscle fatigue) was had last Friday, when a small group of the ‘fittest’ and most able people in KMi met on the playing fields of Walton Hall.
Our illustrious Director joined us for the first half-hour, although no proof of this exists as he left before the photo-shoot, stating that he had important KMi things to do, but it is suspected that even the cut and thrust of a KMi board meeting in no way prepared him for the tough competition and aggressive tactics seen on the field that day and he had to bow-out prematurely!
The fact that Alan ‘got him’ caught and bowled might also have had something to do with it, and we all wondered whether Alan should have had his future career prospects more firmly in his mind at the time!
The satisfying and quintessential English sound of ball on bat was drowned out by creaking joints and soft groans, as under-used and long forgotten muscles were forced into action as the participants realised that this was going to be ‘serious’ and not the ‘fun lunch time break’ as advertised. Reputations could be won or lost here!
Tactics were varied. There was some pretty aggressive bowling at times (i.e. under-arm tossing in the general direction of the guy holding the bat) – that even Botham routing the Aussies would have been proud of! There seemed to be two main types of batting technique – those who kept their eyes open and those who didn’t – and people with glasses wondered whether they might hit the ball better if they took them off?
A very sneaky batting tactic was used by Kevin who decided he would hit the ball so far over fielder Harriett that the ball disappeared! When she finally got to where she supposed the ball to be, she solicited the help of some kindly passerby to find the elusive projectile! Kevin could have capitalised on this by running around the posts quite a few times, but once seemed quite enough for him!
In fact, this is one of the drawbacks of the game – if you are lucky enough to hit the ball any distance (or in Paul’s general direction, which amounts to the same thing…) you are expected to dig your heels in and run a complete circuit passing all the posts! Yep, no stopping to admire the view, take a quick break or insult a fielder… head down and charge for the final post, to collect the well deserved congratulations from your team mates, and shouts of "lucky" (or worse) from the ‘sporting’ members of the opposition.
So those who had ‘more important things to do’ and missed it, will maybe consider joining in a future rematch, or even just participating in the traditional crowd heckling, that makes an English sporting event such a great occasion!
