A Foreword from the Club

Owing to a most unfortunate back injury sustained by our beloved captain Tam (of which, more later) — leaving him quite unable to recall the finer details of the day, let alone bend to a keyboard — the committee has, at no small expense, secured the services of a one-off celebrity scribe to chronicle this week’s encounter. We are honoured to welcome the legendary JK Bowling, doyenne of racy period literature and Times bestselling author of such breathless classics as “Gripping the Willow,” “Maiden Over, Matron Under,” and the unforgettable “Brooker: A Gentleman of Uncommon Length.” A four-time darling of the Richard & Judy Book Club, Ms Bowling needs no further introduction. We thank her for gracing our humble scorebook. Over to her.

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The sun hung low and lascivious over Lavant, and eleven men — handsome, heaving, ranging from spring lamb to well-hung game — strode out smouldering from a weekend’s wounding. The toss came hard and fierce, but fate is a cruel mistress: the coin betrayed them, and so they girded their loins to field beneath a merciless, glistening heat. The Taverners, it must be said, arrived brimming with talent — a very strong line-up indeed, and no evening’s idle dalliance for our village heroes. Atop the stumps the zingers nestled, glowing and quivering with anticipation, primed to light up at the first tender touch.

Willy Mac took the new ball as only Willy Mac can — relentless, dependable, and possessed of a run-up so slow that spectators checked their watches, then the calendar. Plodding, laborious, magnificently boring: the superlatives never end. He heaved himself to the crease panting like a Sunday roast left too long in the Aga, perspiration beading on his determined brow. At the other end, Dave “the Salmon” Burford pirouetted in, tossing it teasingly aloft, leaving batsmen bewildered and breathless. The field was tighter than a maiden’s first over. The dangerous opener — a veritable man-mountain, broad of beam and built like a man who had never once declined a second helping at Lord Fauntleroy-Throbbington’s harvest luncheon — first launched Willy Mac for one monstrous straight six that left strong men quivering. But pride, dear reader, comes before a fall: a few balls later the same giant swung mightily, miscued, and the Salmon leapt, twisting in the air, plucking the ball to his bosom. Even the biggest beasts can be brought low by the right delivery. 37 for 1, and oh, how the strapping young Lavant pretenders licked their lips at what was still to come.

Enter Max P — once Little Piggy, now indisputably Big Piggy — bowling with such craft and guile, spinning it square, far too much for his trembling prey. He struck twice in his opening over, again in his third, finishing with a magnificent 3 for 14. As Max doffed his cap, two ladies passing through the village fluttered, swooned, and clutched at the nearest fence. Not, one suspects, from the heat.

The stage was set for the skipper himself: Tam Tran, the club’s own Kiwi hero, battling a weariness we shall not interrogate further. A masterclass — changes of pace, strong wrist, the middle overs throttled into submission. So fierce was the heat of battle that, at ten overs and the halfway mark, refreshment was taken — the game poised tantalisingly at 52 for 3; jockstraps wrung out and laid steaming in the sun, brows mopped, jokes shared, hearts merry. Then, suitably revived, the Lavant men returned to their labours.

But then, the unthinkable. A back spasm. Our leader, felled in his prime, pulled off prematurely and left to ache upon the boundary. Ten men remained, yet his 3.3 overs glowed: 2 for 19.

Up stepped Chris “John” Maclean — all chest hair, raw masculinity and slick, glistening muscle; the very embodiment of a brooding Brontë hero come striding in off the wuthering moors, dark-eyed and dangerous, the sort of man who smoulders at a rain-streaked window and makes maidens forget their needlework. To finish his fallen captain’s over, he prowled to the crease, and — ball one — a wicket. Heathcliff himself could not have made a more devastating entrance. Emily Brontë would have torn up a chapter and started again. Hero made.

Then Steve Brooker, every mature lady’s secret reverie, cast aside his wide brim, removed his sunglasses, and tossed off his single glove to the swooning delight of the crowd. A superb bowling spell, alas cut short — for, chasing around half the boundary, glancing over his shoulder, he took a steepling catch of rare poise, that earned him a tender ouchy upon the thumb, that ended his labours with the ball. And amongst the frivolity and froth of the next few overs, the Salmon popped up once more, shaggy and balletic, hinting at gifts that extend, perhaps, beyond the field, to take yet another remarkable catch — one that even Lloydy, a sprightly specimen some fifty years the Salmon’s junior, would be proud of. Bravo.

With the Taverners wilting, the stand-in skipper — the reins having fallen to him the moment our leader was felled — summoned the unassuming assassin, Robbo, whose two overs of bamboozling barrage left the batters dazed and confused, finally rewarded with a well-earned wicket. Huzzah!

Nor should the gallant fielders go unsung. Lloydy patrolled the rope, beard full and magnificent, virile and lithe — one of the youngest and most fancied of the side — a true specimen tearing about the boundary, sliding, leaping, a wonder beneath the female gaze. Will T prowled his patch like an apex lover, ever watchful and ever ready, murmuring sweet devotions to his beloved crow holes. And Chris P — no Little Piggy he — looked on with a father’s swelling pride as his boy, now Big Piggy, drank in the adoration of the crowd: a heartbreaker in the making, if ever there was one.

And a special mention — for what is a team without his keeper? — to Iain behind the stumps: dripping, devoted, sticking to his task without a single grumble, never once failing to come up trumps when the moment demanded a firm pair of hands.

A magnificent, sweat-drenched effort from this gallant brotherhood of sweat and sinew.

When at last the Taverners’ innings drew to its close, they had mustered a valiant 109 for 9 from their twenty overs — a spirited effort in the cruel heat. and a target that promised the Lavant men no idle stroll in the meadow.

And so, dear reader, the stage was set, the tension wound tight as a tourniquet, the afternoon swelling inexorably toward its most rapturous and long-awaited climax.

Like all the great stories — and all the greatest seductions — it now came down to the chase.

Chris Mac and Big Piggy — both tall, handsome, bristling with intent — strode to the middle as one, two broad-shouldered heroes eyeing up the Taverners’ bowling like wolves regarding a flock of plump and unsuspecting lambs. Chris was straight into his work, all rippling forearms and unhurried menace, muscling the ball to the boundary with insolent ease; the bowling, poor trembling things, no match whatever for such raw and unapologetic power. Big Piggy, alas, could not quite match his partner’s prowess this day, perishing for a hard-fought 3 — yet even in departure he cut a magnificent figure, striding off to rapturous applause, the ladies of the parish quite unable to look away.

Steve Brooker came next, rushing straight onto the field directly from the changing room — and one does so wonder why?! Ever the village gent, his helmet shining in the late evening sun, glistening and quite wonderful, he set about his work with the touch of a true artist: dabbing, probing, stroking the ball to all parts with an elegance that left the boundary fielders weak at the knees. It did not take long for our gentleman to find his rhythm and his pace. At the other end, Chris Mac continued to bludgeon, growing only more magnificent with every hard-earned bead of glistening sweat, until — rightly, reluctantly — he was retired for a swashbuckling 32, whereupon he strode directly to the pub to ensure the sausages were well done, plump, and ready for the conquering heroes.

In at number four, after Chris Mac’s swashbuckling retirement, strode Lloydy — all vigour and intent, the youthful blood of the side surging. He announced himself with a cover drive of such beauty that the boundary fell briefly silent in reverence, the ball stroked away like a lover’s whispered promise. Alas, it was not to last: looking to glide one ever so delicately to third man, he was undone when the Taverners’ fielder did a Burford — a veritable Salmon, leaping low and full-stretch to pluck a one-handed worldie from the hallowed Lavant turf. A sad and unfortunate end; Lloydy deserved a great deal more, and rest assured, dear reader, there shall be more from this legend as the season unfurls. A true gent, a fabulous specimen of a man, with a beard that would make Zeus himself weep with envy.

Willy Mac was next to the crease — and if his run-up was slow, his running between the wickets was a thing of even greater leisure, ambling each single like a man who has spied the carvery trolley and intends to savour every step. Yet alongside the elegant Steve B he ran the Taverners ragged all the same: singles nudged and nurdled, boundaries caressed, the scoreboard ticking ever upward. And all the while Willy Mac gazed down the wicket at the legend that is Steve Brooker — still in his pomp, still glistening — with the misty-eyed devotion of a man admiring a master at his craft. Willy Mac retired not out for a breezy 26, before tottering off to collapse in a crumpled heap — albeit slowly, as ever. Soon after, Steve played one big shot too many — for even the finest gentlemen are undone by their own ardour — and was snaffled by a smart, high catch for a dizzyingly wonderful 22.

And so, with the end now tantalisingly in sight and the crowd breathless with expectation, the wounded skipper called upon his finishers — the playboys of the batting order, the smouldering closers, those silken-shouldered rogues kept back for precisely such a moment, sauntering to the middle with the unhurried swagger of men who know exactly how this story ends.

And so, at last, the stage was theirs: Will T and Iain. Will smoked his very first delivery for a towering straight six — last seen sailing over the river and on toward its final resting place in West Dean, a blow of such majesty that grown men wept. Iain, too, had plainly received the memo, flaying the weary Taverners to all parts with gleeful abandon. It was the coup de grâce, the final flourish, the velvet dagger between the ribs — short, brutal, and conclusive. Will and Iain finished gloriously unbeaten on 10 and 5 respectively, the killer blow delivered with a rake’s smile. The end. The finishers- hoorah! A win by 7 wickets in just 15.3 overs.

Yet let this final flourish in no way diminish the grit, determination and the sheer skill shown with both ball, bat and in the field. The mercury soared, but so too did Lavant’s standards. A commanding, swashbuckling, sweat-glazed triumph from first ball to last.

The Champagne Moment — well, dear reader, there can be no dispute. It belongs to Steve Brooker and that running, steepling catch upon the boundary: a thing of such breathless poise and balletic grace that this humble author has half a mind to abandon her next manuscript and pen a sequel in his honour. “Brooker: A Gentleman of Uncommon Length” was, after all, only the beginning — and on this evidence, “Brooker Rises Again” rather writes itself. A catch to make a lady drop her gin.

The Man of the Match is a far thornier affair, for every single man toiled, sweated and strained for the cause until there was little left to the imagination and rather too much to the laundry. To choose on mere numbers would be a crime against passion. And so, this week the honour goes not for stats, but for grit, for sweat, and for sheer unflagging devotion behind the timbers — it goes to Iain Blow. Unsung for much of the season, rarely lauded, yet ever faithful in his aching crouch, he stuck manfully to his task in pads, tape, hat and glasses, glistening from first ball to last. Quite frankly, dear reader, he was hotter than a vicar’s collar in a heatwave — and he kept it tight, dear reader, in every sense.

And so, we leave them — heroes one and all, spent and glistening, retiring to the Earl of March for those well-earned sausages. Until next time, dear readers: keep your bats straight, your boxes snug, and remember that it is never the size of the willow that wins the day, but the unhurried grace with which a gentleman times his stroke. Goodnight.