Here's your full day's report - just the 1554 words of it...
The First National Cricket Web Meetup didn't start auspiciously. I made the mistaken assumption that Richard, having lived in Exeter for 10 years, could find his way from my house to the station without direction. Wrong. That resulted in our watching the 0738 leaving St David's station rather than being on it, and a 17-minute wait for the delayed 0752 instead, before arriving in Taunton for Rich Hingston [Langeveldt] to pick us up for leg two, onwards to Bridgwater (or close enough) to collect Anna from the side of the road.
Back onto the M5 on the way to Birmingham, we passed the time recalling the last four years of our Cricket Web forumhood, the times both Richards were banned, members from the long-forgotten past of 2002 and 2003. We arrived at Edgbaston, despite Anna's best efforts to confuse left and right as we approached. We took our seats, nestled under the old scorebox, and watched the opening balls being left alone by Ian Westwood.
Little did we know the omens this would have for the rest of the day - but more about that later. After an hour's play, we had been joined by Alex Crampton [the Baconator], who looked scared of us, and Matt Pitt [Barney Rubble], who as we've already established looks like me just a bit bigger and fatter. With Westwood on six, and the run rate struggling to burst past one an over, we decided on a sweepstake as to when he would pass ten - naturally, the next ball was edged through the slips. As was the one after that.
Mark Wagh and Jonathan Trott searched out Jason Lewry in the slips, accompanied by chanting from three ten-year-old kids in the top of the Eric Hollies stand, as we turned our attention to abusing Richard instead. Not content with mispronouncing 'demeanour' as 'dem-en-err' when commenting on my suggestion that Ian Bell resembled a choirboy in the headlights of articulated lorry, he promptly proceeded to suggest that a) Steve Harmison was rubbish and b) Salamuddin Khan was the reincarnate of Malcolm Marshall, or something equally wild.
Next up, the radio proceeded to inform us of Steve Harmison's double strike at Old Trafford. It's all in the timing. By the time lunch came around, Westwood had finally been put out of his misery by RMJ, and we were getting bored. By now, we were ten - having been joined by Tarick Weber [Kweek], Glenn Stiemens, Oli Norwell, and Oli's little brother Wes, who's 14 but has the face of a ten year old and looked even more scared than Alex. Tarick told us he was still scared of the telephone and as a result we had no net session.
We then decided that, as it was 1.15, we needed to go and find some food. Unfortunately, Rich lost his ticket, and received a string of abuse from the man on the gate. He then received plenty more later, once he found it again. A random wander outside Edgbaston found us a variety of stores in an area that seemed exclusively Asian - surreal for people who've lived all their lives in white cities - and none of them sold sandwiches or owt. We finally tracked down the Saj Kebab House, failed to prevent ourselves making jokes about Lancashire's finest, and ate. Happily, the feared after effects - i.e. giving our digestive tracts the same degree of control as Mr Mahmood - never came to pass.
We established that it made us feel much better about ourselves knowing that we weren't like Richard (copyright R.Hingston), missed the first half hour of the afternoon session where Alex Loudon got out, and spent the next 90 minutes partially watching Nick Knight and Mike Powell accumulate, and mainly abusing Richard. The news that Steve Harmison had taken 6/19, booming over the tannoy as it did, was enough to spark a new round of sarcasm - mainly in relief that England wouldn't have to suffer the onslaught of Salamuddin later in the day - as he would surely have taken all ten England wickets without conceding a run.
A long chat about computer game development and match engines succeeded in boring the hell out of Anna, who went for a walk somewhere and nicked some posters. Matteh - complete with suit - had joined us by now, but we'd lost Alex to Sutton Coldfield U15s - and when Glenn commented that Michael Powell must have increased his aggression meter, we knew it was time to leave. Whilst we sent Tarick to make up for failing to book a net by going to the shop for plastic stumps, we messed around in the street outside the ground - where Matt stole the show. He a) beamed Richard from ten yards with his first ball, b) was bowled first ball and second ball by Rich H, and c) sent a return throw from the car park into... the car park fence.
Relocating to the park opposite, we were pleased to find a square marked out. We didn't have any stumps (it turned out that Tarick was too scared of something else to get them). Me and Rich batted first, Tarick lumbered in, and I proceeded to swat everything over cow corner, reaching the retirement mark of 20 in about 10 balls.
The two Richards were clearly less suited to the rather frantic pace of the game, and despite my attempts to make things happen by fielding at forward short leg, the scoring rate struggled along. The combination of a rather dry wicket, an orange windball and a disarming tendency on the part of every bowler to hit the pitch was making runscoring straightforward, at least until the introduction of me.
Finally bowling a full length, the extra bounce made things difficult, and coupled to the fact that the ball was turning square, batting was suddenly a little more awkward. Hingston eventually retired, but Dickinson was the first to fall, the ball skidding into the collection of bags and objects that formed our wicket. Holland U19 star Tarick Weber was next to grace the middle, however he showed no signs whatsoever of being any good at all, chipping Anna to Matteh at cover having barely troubled the scorers.
Left-hander Glenn bludgeoned his way to 13 before turning to accumulation to reach his 20, whilst Matt Pitt did more running than he has ever done before in his life. Seemingly all of his innings was run, but it did include a candidate for shot-of-the-day, with a sweetly timed flick over midwicket off one of the few balls I sent down leg.
Matteh's batting proved a disappointment, completely failing to come to terms with my flight and guile as a ball dipped late on him and elicited a mistimed skew, aerially to keeper Weber. Had Tarick known what this meant would happen next, he would probably have dropped it. Oli's brother Wes must have been the only person alive to appreciate Ian Westwood's earlier stodge, as he set about recreating it.
Both myself and Richard had time to complete another innings of 20 during the course of Norwell junior's innings. I was dropped on 2 at slip by Glenn as I attempted to swat a ball through midwicket from two feet outside off stump, but seeing as that was the only shot I had played all day, it didn't stop me from repeating it ad infinitum. Rich H lost his leg bottle to Matteh second ball, giving Wes a fifth partner in the shape of Tarick.
Following my innings, I decided that silly mid off would be the optimal fielding position for Wes, however - with hindsight - this merely removed the push to cover from his range of shots, reducing it to the leave, the block, the nick-and-get-dropped, and the miss. It felt like his score was starting to go backwards after about forty minutes, but I was unable to bring myself to begin sledging him as he looked too innocent and I'd feel guilty for the rest of the week.
As we began to realise that the Edgbaston car park would close before long if he kept hanging around, we set a deadline of 18.50 for Wes to reach his retirement. This had two effects - one, he stopped letting Tarick (who showed one glimpse of class with a gorgeous straight drive for four off Rich) steal the strike, and two, he actually started trying to hit the ball hard.
One shot inches out of my reach at silly mid off - though whether I had either the reactions or catching ability to take it even if it was straight at me is doubtful - before, with seconds to go, he finally attempted to open his shoulders and hit Rich over the top. It looped back for a gentle caught and bowled, and it was time to go home - but not before I demonstrated to Tarick how to ask someone something by grabbing a random stranger for a group photo.
One stop at Evesham services for outrageously overpriced food later, we were in Taunton station once more - this time greeted by the news that the 2217 had been delayed for 13 minutes due to extreme weather conditions at Preston. Some things you just can't make up.
Awesome. A bit scary hearing Neil got some runs though.
