Match Summary
The Twenty Minuters alighted from their team minibus (whose driver was on the brink of achieving undying infamy) under ominously grey skies. But the sight of the exquisite Althorp pitch, with its magnificent view of the house, quickly revived debate on whether deliberately losing by a small margin was the best way to retain such a prestigious fixture. Fools that we are. The first alarm bells sounded when a Lashings-sponsored car was spotted behind the pavilion. Then Skip bumped into Hamish Marshall in the changing-room. Immediately and expertly trying to gain a psychological edge by asking 'Aren't you Hamish McMillan?', Skip was then forced to relay the unsettling news that the big lad who looked 'just like Chris Cairns' was, in fact, Chris Cairns. As a giggling panic swept through The Twenty Minuters, the toss was lost, and by gentlemanly agreement Althorp agreed to bat first. M Maxwell-Scott, resplendent in lab-coat and panama, would umpire his first full game, a role in which he was to uphold admirably his own and the team's noble traditions of sober professionalism.
To their eternal credit, Twenty Minuter workhorse W Scott and promising young shaver J Blenkin rose to the occasion, producing one of the tidiest opening spells seen to date. But there remained the daunting prospect that early wickets would only hasten the arrival at the crease of Spencer's Kiwi guests. Sure enough, Marshall wasn't in for long before driving a fullish delivery back over Scott's head for six, and flaying a brace of boundaries through square. The Twenty Minuters could only applaud, and feel new empathy for the Zimbabwe attack. When Marshall scooped what might have been Blenkin's slower ball to mid-off, premature celebrations erupted. The onslaught now began in earnest, despite Cannon's tidy line which left him with the most economical figures of the innings. Curtis, failing to find movement in the air or off the pitch, came in for particularly severe treatment. All the bowlers were, however, let down by some horrifyingly bad fielding in the deep. Like the casualty figures from some nightmarish Western Front battle, the true scale of the damage may never be known, but the Althorp centurion was dropped approximately eight times, and Cairns, when not thwacking it into the next field or ricocheting it off the tree, was being dropped four times on the boundary. The Althorp total of 301 didn't in any sense look 'gettable'.
The Twenty Minuters innings can be dealt with quickly, and was. Culbard's destructive combination of pace, line and length shot through the top order. Elwes and Blenkin, who weathered the opening storm, were able to play some shots to the more hospitable bowling that followed. This included the off-spin of C Cairns and some bumpers from Marshall, so the term 'hospitable' is used in a relative sense. R Scott played a characteristically unorthodox innings, preferring to stand and admire the result of his cover drive, which held up just short of the rope, rather than run it. He then bravely offered to teach C Cairns how to read off-spin, before charging down the wicket for an easy stumping. ARB Curtis kept up the mind games by striding to the crease padded as a left-hander. The field had to be hastily redeployed when it emerged he was merely a befuddled right-hand bat, but despite wrong-footing the opposition he failed to capitalise on this early advantage. W Scott, in what he may now (deceitfully) claim was a diplomatic offering, went backwards, sideways and then forwards to a double-bouncer from the opposition captain. As the ball trickled past Scott's outside edge, it retained just enough momentum to dislodge the bails, and end the innings. It had been a slaughter of epic proportions, the greatest rout in the history of The Twenty Minuters. But the team was pleased to have played their full part in an entertaining match, against such a distinguished and hospitable opposition, and in such glorious surroundings.
