SPORT - CRICKET 127
2nd X1 Cricket
It is a concern in the cricketing community that the talented young players of today often play far too much of the sport in their youth, thus placing excessive stress on their bodies and prematurely cutting short their careers.
It should be with this in mind that one reads the fixtures schedule of the QEH 2nd XI for 2011, which consisted of a mammoth three games. It was clear to the whole team from the very start of the season that QEH was, in this respect, certainly living up to its duty of care to its students and ensuring that every one of the talented players in this team would be physically able to play as long an international career as possible.
The lack of games did not, however, reduce the quantity of impressive personal feats achieved in the season by a number of members of the squad. A special tribute must, at this point, be paid to the incandescent fielding prodigy that is David Beardon. Despite the baby face, here lies an athlete so masterful at the art of fielding that, from the halfway point in the season, he was employed as the goalkeeping coach to Bristol City FC in order to teach David James a lesson or two about how to execute the perfect diving stop.
Jack Louden also succeeded in being issued with an official ECB (The Education Cricket Board) warning after his dual offences in the penultimate (second) game of the season against Dean Close School: the stalwart of the 2nd XI’s batting unit coming to the crease at number 10, the team was badly in need of a Bothamesque performance from this fine individual at 26-8. Orthodoxy would never be a word appearing in the same phrase as Loudon, however, and instead of walking out to the crease confidently and in conventional fashion, the 2nd XI’s self-professed psychologist attempted some reverse psychology and strapped a piece of sticky tape to the front of his helmet, the word ‘fragile’ emblazoned in bold black font. Remarkably, such a tactic did not pay the expected dividends and only four balls later Jack was to be seen walking back to the pavilion - yes, his innings was one ball longer than the QEH average in this particular match. However, Mr. Louden, the perfectionist that he is, was not content with the solitary run, not content at all. For the ensuing damage to the opponent’s pitches at the hands of his bat I can only apologise.
Both of these offences would have been brushed aside in typical 2nd team fashion if they had occurred in isolation or if any member of staff other than the Headmaster happened to be umpiring the game. I had once thought of Jack as a firm bet for making the Prefect team in 2012/13 but unfortunately now his prospects do look decidedly bleak.
Individual greatness is all good and well, but who would a Starsky be without a Hutch? Who would a Holliday be without a Ryan and Bateson? I could go on. But essentially, this mighty bunch of men, which has scaled the lofty heights of Independent School 2nd Team Cricket in the South West district with a win rate of 33.3%, would have been nothing without a host of selfless athletes who performed week after week with the solitary goal of contributing to the team effort.
In this, the team were aided immeasurably in their collective mastery of the ancient art of sledging which was used to full potential over the course of the season. For example, the opening batsman for Queen’s Taunton suffered considerable mental damage at the hands of the six QEH slip fielders as he was subject to a fine verbal barricade after proudly displaying the ‘Monster Energy Drinks’ badge on the rear of his bat; it was at times like this that I became immeasurably proud to captain the side.
Conversely, the shouts of ‘Oh good idea, let’s do some foreign languages banter this game’ from the mouths of the Queen’s Taunton fielders aptly demonstrates the quality of the sledging we were faced with. In the Headmaster’s very own words; “Boys, we just got absolutely annihilated out there, but good gosh you won hands down on sledging”.
As far as I’m concerned that’s a successful season.
George Bamber
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