The Mariner batting, alas, has often been known to collapse.
One obvious example was against Dunsfold in 1962, when, facing the modest total of 101, the Mariners were dismissed for 17, our lowest recorded score. J. Booth was top scorer with 6, and the current President, M. Spratt, came next with 3 not out. The other nine Mariners managed eight runs between them, and there were no extras.
I am very glad to say that I did not take part in that debacle, but I know that for years it rankled with the Captain, J. Harvey. He had to wait a long time for his revenge, but eventually AMCC dismissed Dunsfold for the same score of 17 in 1973. It is true that Dunsfold only produced nine men on that occasion, but still it is in the book.
Yet I do have a vivid memory of what must be, in some respects, an even more dramatic Mariner collapse. It happened at Shere in July 1970.
In those days Shere was a very good side – in my opinion the strongest of the villages we played, a view which is perhaps substantiated by the fact that of our 27 engagements with Shere the Mariners won only three and lost 21. They had some very good players, but the nucleus of the side was the three Knapp brothers. They were all useful cricketers, and the best, I think, was the youngest, Peter Knapp. An aggressive right-handed batsman he regularly made over 1000 runs per season for Shere, and as a damned awkward fast-medium bowler he was accustomed to taking more than 100 wickets every year. He is also a very nice fellow.
The Mariners batted first. I opened the innings with M. Mitton, and for once things went reasonably well. We saw off the opening bowlers, one of whom was Arthur Knapp, the eldest of the three brothers playing that day; after eight overs there was a double change of bowling and the two younger Knapps came on, first Robert and then Peter. Still we carried on, and after 17 overs the score was 51 for no wicket. Three runs per over is not electrifying stuff in village cricket, yet it was a good solid start, and with plenty of batting to come the Mariners looked set for a comfortable total.
I faced Peter Knapp’s fifth over. The first ball was a dot; off the second I scored a single, bringing the total to 52. The third ball bowled M. Mitten. Our number three was P. Mitten snr., probably the best batsman in the side; he was clean bowled first ball.
J. Booth came in at number four, and he too was bowled first ball. Marooned at the bowler’s end I had watched the cream of the Mariner batting dismissed in three balls. With a somewhat rueful smile I turned to the bowler. “Well done, Peter,’ I said. “Congratulations.” He looked at me with an expression of total amazement on his face. “D’you know, Dick,” he replied, ”I’ve never done that before.” I found that hard to believe. ‘Oh, come on, Peter. You must have taken a hat trick before.” ”Oh yes,” was the reply. “I’ve taken hat tricks – several of them, but….NEVER all bowled!”
I still consider it a remarkable feat. Hat tricks usually occur in the lower order —— numbers 7, 9 and 10 perhaps. To
get numbers 2, 3 and 4 in successive balls, all good batsmen and all clean bowled, is something that any bowler might dream about.
I should like to be able to record that I went on to make a century and to pull the Mariners out of the mire. In fact I was bowled in the next over, not by Peter Knapp but by his brother, without addition to the score. That was a wicket maiden, and in Peter’s next over he took wickets with his first ball and his fourth, both bowled and again without any addition.
The Mariners had therefore collapsed, in the space of 14 balls, from 52 for no wicket to 52 for 6. It was only due to a providential ninth wicket stand of as between M. Hamber and the young R.G. Francis that we achieved the semi-respectable total of 127.
Nothing like enough against Shere, we felt. In point of fact we very nearly pulled it off. Despite a customary 51 by Peter Knapp (including four fours and three sixes — to add to his five wickets for 1?) we took seven Shere wickets for 9h before a stand of 17 virtually settled the issue. The eighth wicket fell at 125, but number l0 scored three runs off his second ball, and that was the end of it. Victory for Shere by two wickets – – if only the Mariner batting ….
I remember that hat trick and the subsequent conversation very well indeed, though of course the other details I have given above do not come from my memory. But happily the Mariner scorebooks at that period were neatly and accurately kept — often in the handwriting of my then 14 -year-old daughter.
H.T.H. November 1997