Beamers in Sinister Return to Form

A chaotic week of “selection” leading up to August 30th’s hastily arranged game away to Wadhurst Sunday 2nds, with withdrawals on the Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, was not enough to put the 10 Man Beamers off their considerable stride.

After finally finding the ground, winning the toss and electing to bat, a new opening partnership of Maf and Sanjay was going along steadily enough until disaster struck in the form of two “interesting” decisions from Hangman John leaving both openers shaking their heads ruefully and, in Maf’s case, muttering about revenge.


There then followed a period in which The Beamers’ innings entered The Doldrums and became becalmed. Some of this was due to Mr Brett playing himself in typically studiously and some because every time Nick played an attacking shot, it went straight to a fielder. Unfortunately, a period of troubling the scorer by repeatedly asking him merely to place another dot in the scorebook was ended when Nick was about as lbw as it’s possible to be.

Fortunately for the skipper’s blood pressure (always a worry, frankly) Marlon strode to the crease looking as though he meant business and eager to justify his elevation in the order. A combination of elegant shot making, meaty drives and hilarious running between the wickets from Simon, Marlon and Ben saw the Beamers to approximately 170 for 6 – the highlight being Marlon’s 50 which featured a six that cleared two hedges, a road and a grassy knoll before nestling robustly in some nettles, there to be left undisturbed for some later civilisation’s archaeologists to discover.


With 30 minutes or so to go, Albert Pierrepoint joined Rob Nic at the crease with the exhortation from his skipper to express himself (and the exhortation from Maf to go **** himself) ringing in his ears. Luckily, John was listening to me, so he and Rob swung the bat mightily, taking the score rapidly up to 230 before they were called in 5 minutes early.

After a very tasty tea, the Beamers took to the field with some concerns about the very short boundary at one end – a tricky field to defend with one man down? Still, 230 would be enough wouldn’t it? With Rob Nic bowling well down the hill without much luck (apart from dismissing their skipper caught by Maf in the covers off a wide long hop, which qualifies as lucky for any number of reasons I guess) and with John struggling with his radar coming up the hill, the score was mounting steadily and questions were being asked about the lack of bowling support and the early declaration.

As any fool knows, what a team really needs in such circumstances are some left-armers to come on and bowl; luckily we had a couple. Firstly, Gordy replaced John coming up the hill and after a few sighters troubled everyone who faced him and soon dismissed numbers 1 & 3, one to an outstanding catch by Nick at square leg. With three wickets down and things looking a bit more under control, it seemed like a good time for me to say, “Thanks Rob – nice spell” and bring myself on to Dob some down the hill.

Modesty naturally forbids me from reporting how many victims resulted, but with one bowled and one beautifully caught by Mr Brett followed by three stumpings by Ben you can probably work out that it was a reasonable number... With another victim for the on-fire Gordy and Kneeless Nick’s seeing off of their 11 year old and despite some comedy fielding (we didn’t drop a single catch but the ground fielding was terrible at times), The Beamers wrapped up the game in fine style with 15 overs to go and with Wadhurst still nearly 100 runs behind.

Beers, boasts and banter in the bar followed as naturally as John, Marlon and Maf leaving without paying their match fees. Seaford Seagulls? Who are they?

A&E