Adam and Cat's Blog: Cricket at Wandsworth Common

Saturday, 12 May 2007

On a cold, showery and blustery Saturday morning, I headed south towards Wandsworth Common with my old friend, Edward Fall. Ed and I went to school together in South Africa in the early 1980s and have caught up with eachother on a number of occasions in the intervening years.The reason for our journey was to play in the annual Lewis XI vs Bucke XI cricket match. From what I can understand, Jon Lewis and Adam Bucke are old friends and every year for the past 5 years they have each assembled a team to contest the much coveted Lewis-Bucke shield. Ed and I were playing in the Lewis XI, Ed having gone to uni with Jon.Despite a few breaks in play courtesy of some passing showers, it proved to be a really great day of cricket. The Bucke XI batted first and made a very respectable 176 off their 30 overs. The Lewis XI then chased down that total, with 2 overs to spare. For me, it was a quintessential day of English cricket, with the game played in very gentlemanly spirits, and complete with cucumber sandwiches and an assortment of cakes for lunch. For the record, I bowled 5 overs and took 0-15 (although I would like to point out that 8 of those 15 runs were scored from snicks through the slips cordon) and managed to hold onto a catch down on the boundary at fine leg. I then batted at no 3, and put on a 50 run partnership with Ed, which really was a lot of fun. I retired on 30, having heaved a couple over the quare leg boundary. Ed was caught on 29 (trying to emulate my efforts over square leg). A few photos from the day follow...

Wandsworth Common...