2025-06-29_Whalers

Salix vs Whalers on 2025-06-29 at Wandsworth Common (Season 2025)

Report by Davski

A homage to our renaissance man

These are strangely warm dry days in the formerly green and pleasant lands of England during which we can be excused a certain amount of heat-induced hallucinations such as those team-mates prior to the game comparing the conditions to those in South Asia, but it may in fact be an unrelated sign of the times that the biggest disappointment felt in the whole of another losing Sunday to the Whalers came before the game when our trainee laureate declared that this would not in fact be the occasion for another magnus opus of the written word on the performance of Salix Cricket Club and our tribulations written for the benefit of players old and new not to mention doubtless literary talent scouts searching for the next Cardus or CLR James. Amidst anguish at this sad turn of events came demands for possible explanations such as the possibility that we simply couldn’t afford the bandwidth for any more such epics of the descriptive art, though personally I prefer to believe that our man is simply building up to next season where he will be offering a complete War and Peace of the amateur London cricketing season, the lore according to Sai, the bestseller that brings our weekly struggles to find a team capable of winning to the masses who have been waiting all this time for just this work of the written art marrying the slightly-less-than-beautiful world of friendly cricket with the ongoing struggle to find eleven suitable boys in the London metropolis.

When it comes to finding players we are of course also grateful to the very same Sai, a modern-day Lord Kitchener of cricket, requesting so persuasively that Salix needs players as to bring forth suspicions that he may be prohibited from certain establishments in North-West London, a red circle and cross through the Trillionaire Gents logo or perhaps the cricketing coffin which is deployed during the week for suitable bribes to the unwary, an indication that he shall not be allowed to denude the area further of at least sufficient cricketing ability for our purposes of fielding a competent team that will initially scare the captain of the day Krutik on this occasion into thinking a record low score is on the way before recovering to raise the slight hope of victory yielding in the end only a final collapse removing us from contention and into the pub, at least for those who are not celebrating a year with their beloved by preparing a doubtless Nigella-style feast for the senses

Though Dills had entered into the act of persuasion with one of his neighbours, it was Sai’s athletic friend Jonty who was to be our star performer, with three catches including one apparently returning to earth from a short orbit in space, something perhaps an older player, name withheld to protect this author, might want to learn from in dropping one opportunity three times while exacerbating an injury that at least offered the opportunity that we wouldn’t this week be in trouble with head statistician Steve-O for another incomplete scorebook once he retired to the sidelines coming out only to earn an all-too-rare nought not out.

Back though to the main subject for this match report, and of course our hero also bowls, dancing to the crease in the style of a cricketing Nureyev, with a grace to apparently induce light-headedness among opposition batters facing his delicately looped deliveries unerringly aimed as would be expected from all of that archery training with our former Director, figures of 2-14 a central part of us apparently pinning down the Whalers batting, though CK would also like to note his opening spell of four overs for no runs with one wicket, if only their number 7, 8, and 9 batters didn’t between them score 110 in the last few overs to set a testing looking 193.

Our equivalent top order scored roughly similar to theirs, while our lower order managed about 100 fewer, on which basis unsurprisingly we were well beaten, Arsey the last to hole out in his traditional fashion, only CK and Jonty again managing elements of hope in escaping out of their teens, a batting performance liable to be repeated many times in the future and for which therefore we shall await the poetic flow in the weeks and years to come at least until the inevitable lure of Hollywood rather than putting up with inadequate one-off replacements such as this, suffice to say that this was another good spirited game played against traditional opponents and onwards we go in the hope that even if we continue on the path of cricketing mediocrity we will earn literary immortality. Cheers Sai and hope the meal went well!