Tuesday 3 May 2011

30/04/11 - Jesus College, Cambridge

Better writers than I have attempted to encapsulate the rarefied atmosphere of a city that, in the pure architectural pulchritude stakes, tops any other in England. Maybe the best way is to describe it in terms of what it's not: it's not Oxford. Oxford is a relatively bustling city with a large university scattered throughout it - Cambridge is more of a university with a city bolted on as an afterthought.

Of course that's hardly the freshest of comparisons, but it matters because it's so intrinsic to Cambridge's sense of place. The centre of town is full of young people all caught in a snapshot: it's the same moment in all their lives. Almost without exception, they're a little unsure of themselves. They are in the process of formulating their beliefs, be it how far they're willing to accept Marx's Labour Theory of Value or whether it's acceptable to snog someone ten minutes after they've seen them puking on the College lawn.

In a decade or so, life will have washed away a bit of that excitement and optimism. They'll be a bit fatter, a bit slower, a bit more worried about kids, marriages and mortgages than abstruse intellectual concerns or the gossip of their peers. They'll have plenty more regrets. They'll be older, calmer, wiser - and perhaps they'll be lesser people. This city will seem like a desert island they half-glimpsed in a dream. Going back won't help, because their Cambridge will be long gone, quietly replaced with a new set of confused, excited and above all, happy faces.

But what a dream they had. Here's our pitch for the day:


Hardly a verbal affectation that one goes 'down' from a university like this. From the other side:



Rather stunning. To business: captain wins the toss and bats on a wicket that looks pretty flat, though with a covering of live green grass. Very unusual for English club cricket, this is a quick pitch. The opening bowlers are pacy enough, but aren't what you'd call express; still the keeper's taking half the length balls around chest height.

Both our openers make a good start, but one goes to a great slip catch (pacy wickets really do encourage proper cricket, which is why it's a good job we don't usually encounter them). I forget how the other went. The opposition are only on 10 for the day so we're lending a fielder, and I draw the short straw for the second stint. I'm standing at gully when the batsman slices one straight up in the air. Fears have I three:

1) I'm going to drop it because I'm utterly terrible at catching.
2) I'm going to catch it which will piss off the batsman because he knows I'm utterly terrible at catching.
3) The first slip is racing towards it like a man possessed and is going to cabbage me.

I'm about to run away from the horrific impending situation (possibly all the way, straight into the college bar) when he calls for it, and I adroitly step aside to let him complete the take. Thank. Fuck.

The change bowlers don't look much at all from the boundary, but are in fact far more handy than they appear - the captain, and a slow but ultimately decent off spinner. The captain I have faced before. Played club cricket in Luton and while not much quicker than a spinner, has every single ball in the locker and then some. Leg cutters merge with off cutters merge with in swing and outswing, all at a totally different pace every ball. It's the kind of bowling that requires patience and diligence. Two things in somewhat short supply among our batsmen. He nips out two of our best players - gets a little bit of luck on one dismissal (bat to pad to other pad to - eventually - stumps, whereupon the bails agonizingly plop off), but it's deserved.

So this brings me to the wicket (and already cricket fatigue has set in - I think we were 120-6 but have no idea, the grand total of two days later). The skipper is still on, and starts bowling some little bastards - off cutters (moving away from me) pitching on a perfect, full length well outside off and encouraging the gigantic slash through the offside. Takes some restraint to watch these pass through. The desert-island dwelling CC of ten years ago would have been throwing the hands at everything, and he'd have lasted two overs at most. Would he have had more fun? Ah, therein lies the rub.

Anyway, I'm more interested in the midwicket boundary, as there's a chance of causing thousands of pounds worth of architectural damage.



Never has the slog sweep been so appealing.

CC makes his way, slowly, to a 30 something. Definite cricket fatigue here too. There was a nice off drive from the returning opener. There was a leg glance just past the square leg umpire's head. I'm not sure there was much else of note beside some nurdling. I remember the plan was to get to 4pm, then have a slog until 4.15, and declare with whatever we had. At about 4.05 I've started hitting out, and we've got to about 200, with help from nos 7 & 8 - eight being the wonderful bloke who runs the local brewery and whom we've roped in - he knows the ground like the back of his hand, and he knows that off the quicks the late cut to the short third man boundary is the only way to go, which he does brilliantly. Here we are discussing tactics before the game:



Despite the beard, he's actually a bowler.

Anyway, it's at about 4.05pm that things go tits up and what was a rather good rearguard innings becomes something else, in the minds of our team, anyway. The Captain has clearly had enough of our lower order, and decides it's just time to get his men off the pitch. To that effect, he sticks a girl on to bowl. And not one of those annoyingly good girls, either. She bowls ridiculously slow donkey drops which give me about five minutes to choose where it's going to get belted. No, the challenge isn't one of technique: it's one of etiquette. I have three options here:

1) Show mercy and pat it back to her. Arses to that.
2) Murder absolutely everything. Appealing, but the predictable calls of "Well done hitting that girl for all those fours" almost make it impossible.
3) The option I choose - the middle ground. I try and swing at everything as hard as I can, but without going for placement - it works rather well for the first over. The fielders on the leg side are kept busy but stop most of them, I don't look like a complete shit (by either being too patronising or too ruthless), and we're getting a few more runs, which we need. In the second over it doesn't work quite so well - either three or four of them go for four - I can't remember - and I am, as feared, the wanker who made a 50 by spanking a girl round the park. Sod it, I was never going to win that one.

We take a rather good tea and head out defending 220-odd, which on a pitch with some life in it isn't too bad a total. However, last year we set nigh-on 300 and it wasn't enough. Canny oppo skipper keeps his best bats for 6,7, and 8, knowing that they can easily bat out the draw and (in the case of last year's game) possibly club our bowlers everywhere to set up an unlikely win.

Well, I take the new ball and give it everything I can. There's a holy trinity of factors which encourage me to step up the pace - good batsmen, a fast, true wicket, and a lack of any pace among most of our other bowlers. Of course it's a pretty terrible spell. I don't think I get a single ball to swing, and more often than not the openers watch it fizz through to the keeper (but just look at the carry!) Rather in keeping with this post that I'm raging against the dying of the light - will I be able to bowl like that in five years' time? I think not.

It's our slow/medium bowlers who do the damage, helped by their accuracy, good fielding and the kind of sporting umpiring that you'd never see in a league game (batsmen who are out but are actually a long way down the track being given, batsmen given out when only the bowler appeals - it's all happening. A cynic might say they wanted to hit the pub, but not I). Aforementioned girl sticks one of our bowlers through the covers for four, which leads to much hilarity. They're 88 all out, though at least a couple of them have had to go and do something more important, which either involves vital research into cancer or well, boozing.

We go to the college bar, then a pub, then out for dinner with the remaining members of the opposition. The girl whose bowling I laid into is researching MS in mice. I didn't know mice could get MS. But then you could talk to pretty much anyone in this city for long enough and learn something new and interesting. Most of our team have gone home by the time the opposition and the remaining three of us make it to the pub. I only stay till about 1am, but still have a colossal hangover the next day.

On one of my first tours here the whole team stayed out till 3am. I drank Blue WKDs until I had to run around the market to get the sugar out of my system, before I passed out on a college pool table, and still felt fresh as a daisy the next day. How times change.


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