A Village Cricket Match
- A.G. Macdonell
The crisis was now desperate. The fieldsmen drew nearer and nearer to the batsman, excepting the youth in the blue jumper. Livingstone balanced himself on his toes. Mr. Shakespeare Pollock hopped about almost on top of the batsman, and breathed excitedly and audibly. Even the imperturbable Mr. Southcott discarded the piece of grass which he had been chewing so steadily. Mr. Hodge took himself off and put on the Major, who had by now somewhat lived down the quart and a half.
2. The batsmen crouched down upon their bats and defended stubbornly. A snick through the slips brought a single. A ball which eluded the publisher’s gigantic pads brought a bye. A desperate sweep at a straight half-volley sent the ball off the edge of the bat over third - man’s head and in normal circumstances would have certainly scored one, and possibly two, but Mr. Harcourt was on guard at third man, and the batsmen, by nature cautious men one being old and the sexton, the other the postman and therefore a Government official, were taking no risks. Then came another single off a mis-hit, and then an interminable period in which no wicket fell and no run was scored. It was broken at last disastrously, for the postman struck the ball sharply at Mr. Pollock, and Mr. Pollock picked it up and, in an ecstasy of zeal, flung it madly at the wicket. Two overthrows resulted.
3. The scores were level and there were two wickets to fall. Silence fell. The gaffers, victims simultaneously of excitement and senility could hardly raise their pint pots- for it was past 6 O’clock, and the front door of Three Horse-shoes was now as wide open officially as the back door had been unofficially all afternoon.
4. The Major, his red face redder than ever and his chin sticking out almost as far as the Napoleonic Mr. Ogilvy’s bowled a fast half-volley on the leg-stump. The sexton, a man of iron muscle from much digging, hit it fair and square with the middle of the bat, and it flashed like a thunderbolt, waist-high, straight at the youth in the blue jumper. With a shrill scream the youth sprang backwards out of its way and fell over on his back. Immediately behind him, so close were the fieldsmen clustered, stood the mighty Boone. There was no chance of escape for him. Even if he had possessed the figure and the agility to perform back-somersaults, he would have lacked the time.
He had been unsighted by the youth in the jumper. The thunderbolt struck him in the midriff like a red-hot cannon-ball upon a Spanish galleon, and with the sound of a drumstick upon an insufficiently stretched drum. With a fearful oath, Boone clapped his hands to his outraged stomach and found that the ball was in the way. He looked at it for a moment in astonishment and then threw it down angrily and started to massage the injured spot while the field rang with applause at the brilliance of the catch.
5 Donald walked up and shyly added his congratulations. Boone scowled at him.
6. ‘I didn’t want to catch the darned thing,’ he said sourly, massaging away like mad.
7. ‘But it may save the side’, ventured Donald.
8. ‘Blast the side’, said Boone.
9. Donald went back to his place.
10.The scores were level and there was one wicket to fall. The last man in was the blacksmith, leaning heavily upon the shoulder of the baker, who was going to run for him, and limping as if in great pain. He took guard and looked around, savagely. He was clearly still in great rage.
11.The first ball he received he lashed at wildly and hit straight up into the air to an enormous height. It went up and up, until it became difficult to focus on it properly against the deep, cloudless blue of the sky, and it carried with it the hopes and fears of an English village. Up and up it went, then at the top it seemed to hang motionless in the air, poised like a hawk, fighting as it were, a heroic but forlorn battle against the chief invention of Sir Isaac Newton, and then it began its slow descent.
12.In the meanwhile things were happening below, on the
terrestrial sphere. Indeed, the situation was rapidly becoming what the French call mouvemente. In the first place, the blacksmith forgot his sprained ankle and set out at a capital rate for the other end, roaring in a great voice as he went, “Come on, Joe!” The baker, who was running on behalf of the invalid, also set out, and he also roared, “Come on, Joe,” and side by side, like a pair of high-stepping hackneys, the pair cantered along. From the other end Joe set out on his mission, and he roared. “Come on, Bill!” So all three came on. And everything would have been all right, so far as the running was concerned, had it not been for the fact that Joe, very naturally, ran with his head thrown back and his eyes goggling, at the hawk-like cricket-ball. And this in itself would not have mattered if it had not been for the fact that the blacksmith and the baker, also very naturally, ran with their heads turned not only upwards but also backwards as well, so that they too gazed at the ball, with an alarming sort of squint and a truly terrific kink in their necks. Half-way down the pitch the three met with a magnificent clang, reminiscent of early, happy days in the tournament-ring at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and the hopes of the village fell with the resounding fall of their three champions.
13.But what of the fielding side? Things were not so well with them. If there was doubt and confusion among the warriors of Fordenden, there was also uncertainty and disorganization among the ranks of the invaders. Their main trouble was the excessive concentration of their force in the neighbourhood of the wicket. Napoleon laid it down that it was impossible to have too many men upon a battlefield, and he used to do everything in his power to call up every available man for a battle. Mr. Hodge, after a swift glance at the ascending ball and a swift glance at the disposition of his troops, disagreed profoundly with the Emperor’s dictum. He had too many men, far too many. And all, except the youth in the blue silk jumper, and the mighty Boone, were moving towards strategical positions underneath the ball, and not one of them appeared to be aware that any of the other existed. Boone had not moved because he was more or less in the right place, but then Boone was not likely to bring off the catch, especially after the episode of the last ball. Major Hawker, shouting, ‘Mine, mine!’ in a magnificently self-confident voice, was coming up from the bowler’s end like a battle-cruiser. Mr. Harcourt had obviously lost sight of the ball altogether, if indeed, he had ever seen it for he was running round and round Boone and giggling foolishly. Livingstone and Southcott, the two cracks, were approaching competently. Either of them would catch it easily. Mr. Hodge had not only to choose between them and, coming to a swift decision, he yelled above the din, “Yours, Livingstone!” Southcott, a disciplined cricketer, stopped dead. Then Mr. Hodge made a fatal mistake. He remembered Livingstone’s two missed sitters, and he reversed his decision and roared, ‘Yours, Bobby!’ Mr. Southcott obediently started again, while Livingstone, who had not heard the second order, went straight on. Captain Hodge had restored the status quo.
14.In the meantime the professor of ballistics had made a lightning calculation of angles, velocities, density of the air, barometer-readings and temperatures, and had arrived at the conclusion that the critical point, the spot which ought to be marked in the photographs with an X, was one yard to the north-east of Boone, and he proceeded to take up station here, colliding on the way with Donald and knocking him over. A moment later Bobby Southcott came racing up and tripped over the recumbent Donald and was shot head first into the Abraham-like bosom of Boone. Boone stepped backward under the impact and came down with his spiked boot, upon the professor’s toe. Almost simultaneously, the portly wicket-keeper, whose movements were a positive triumph of the spirit over the body, bumped the professor from behind. The learned man was thus neatly sandwiched between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the sandwich was instantly converted into a ragout by Livingstone, who made up for his lack of extra weight- for he was always in perfect training- by his extra momentum. And all the time Mr. Shakespeare Pollock hovered alertly upon the out-skirts like a rugby scrum-half, screaming American University cries in a piercingly high tenor voice.
15.At last the ball came down. To Mr. Hodge it seemed a long time before the invention of Sir Isaac Newton finally triumphed. And it was a striking testimony to the mathematical and ballistical skill of the Professor that the ball landed with a sharp report upon the top of his head. Thence it leapt up into the air a foot or so, cannoned on to Boone’s head, and then trickled slowly down the colossal expanse of the wicketkeeper’s back, bouncing slightly as it reached the massive lower portions. It was only a foot from the ground when Mr. Shakespeare Pollock sprang into the vortex with a last ear-splitting howl of victory and grabbed it off the seat of the wicket – keeper’s trousers. The match was a tie. And hardly anyone on the field knew it except Mr. Hodge, the youth in the blue jumper and Mr. Pollock himself. For the two batsmen and the runner, undaunted to the last, had picked themselves up and were bent on completing the single that was to give Fordenden the crown of victory. Unfortunately, dazed with their falls, with excitement and with the noise, they all three ran for the same wicket, simultaneously realized their error, and all three turned and ran for the other- the blacksmith, ankle and all, in the centre leading by a yard, so that they looked like pictures of the Russian troika. But their effort was in vain, for Mr. Pollock had grabbed the ball and the match was a tie.
16.And both the teams spent the evening at The Three Horse-shoes, and Mr. Harcourt made a speech in Italian about the glories of England and afterwards fell asleep in a corner, and Donald got home to Royal Avenue at 1 O’clock in the morning, feeling that he had not learnt very much about the English from his experience of their national game.
Glossary
jumper : outer garment coming up to the hips
imperturbable : calm
lived down the quart and a half : got over the effects of liquor
crouch : bend very low almost to the ground
eluded : escaped
sexton : person who does the works of the church like ringing the bell, cleaning, digging graves in the churchyard etc.
leg-bye : a run scored when the ball touches the batsman’s legs
intermittently : every now and then
ecstasy : joy, happiness, thrill
gaffers : elderly persons in the village
senility : old age, weakness of mind and body
pint pots : beer pots
The Three Horse-shoes: name of an inn
thunderbolt : sudden event which causes shock and anxiety
midriff : a humorous reference to the belly
Spanish galleon : a large ship used by the Spaniards in the 16th and 17th Centuries
darned : damn
lashed at : hit wildly
forlorn : unlikely to succeed
mouvemente : a French word indicating a dramatic incident
terrestrial : earthly
hackney : a horse
cantered : galloped
goggling : rolling
squint : eyes looking in different directions
kink in their neck : backward turn of their neck
clang : loud sound
Fordenden : the village where the match was played
dictum : saying, maxim
recumbent : lying down
surmounted : overcame
portly : round and fat
ragout : mixture of vegetable and meat cooked stuff
vortex : a mass of water or air that spins round and round so fast that it pulls objects into its centre
Ashby-de-la-Zouch : a village in Leicestershire, scene of a medieval tournament described in Scott’s famous novel, “Ivanhoe.”
status quo : the previous position
Abraham-like bosom : capacious bosom.
report : an explosive sound, like that of a gun being fired.
Troika : a Russian vehicle drawn by three horses
cracks : experts
Rugby Scrum-half : the half-back who puts the ball into the Scrum
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