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Denham Sunday XI v Farnham Common

July 19th 2009

Sir Stuart Payne's Finest Hour (or two)

Sunday’s game between Denham and Farnham Common was what cricketing dreams are made of. For one thing it was a scorching day, with temperatures in the high 30s, and hordes of beautiful bikini-clad women sunbathing on the outfield conveniently acted as a human boundary, giving the players relief from the tiresome task of putting out flags and ropes. For another, an ice-cream van parked itself next door to the clubhouse, providing special offers on Magnums, Twisters and Mini-milks. And as a final bonus Club Chairman Bill Nicholas, sans tank-top because of the weather, had arranged for the game to be officiated by special guest umpires Mr. Motivator, and his close-friend Scorpion from Mortal Kombat 2.

Unfortunately Nicholas had failed to ascertain whether in fact the pair had any specialist cricket knowledge, and as neither did, it was decided that no batsman could be given out leg-before-wicket as this rule was far too difficult to explain to novices. Now if this decision would benefit one player more than all others, it would surely be none other than Denham legend and left-handed opening batsman Sir Stuart Payne, who during his 567 innings long Denham career has been the victim of the LBW rule on no fewer than 567 occasions – all of which, according to Sir Stuart, were definitely not out. So when skipper Harish Bhatt won the toss and put the home side into bat, the Denham fans wondered if they would finally see an innings from the illustrious left-handed worthy of his knighthood.

Payne walked to the crease with James Nicholas and the atmosphere was heavy with anticipation. Sir Stuart elected to face the opening over from Farnham Common’s wily seamer Grant, and set up his crab-like stance at the crease. Each of the following 6 balls Grant bowled was full and gun-barrel straight and would surely have knocked middle-stump out of the ground, if it wasn’t for one thing – Sir Stuart Payne’s front pad. Payne planted the tattered thing that had been practically dyed red by years of use in between the line of the ball and his stumps and for once had no reason to make up a reason for why the ball would have missed them. Grant was massively frustrated and by habit kept appealing to Scorpion even though the LBW rule had been temporarily abolished. The ninja warrior said nothing, as he would do for the remainder of the game. Payne, similarly said nothing, just rehearsed his late-leg-glance and smiled back at the bowler.

Sir Stuart Payne walking out to bat

After 10 overs of this painstaking pad-play from Payne, with him yet to get off the mark, Denham had progressed to 40-0, with James Nicholas scabbing cheap runs at the other end. It would be fair to say that at this point most people were more interested in the special offers at the ice-cream van than watching the cricket. But with the change of bowling came a change of approach from Sir Stu, who now decided to play his whole repertoire of shots: the pat-back to the bowler - played to the full-toss; the hoick to cow corner - played to anything on a half-volley length; and of course the late-leg-glance - played to most balls, particularly those hitting middle-and-off. With these three shots, Payne started to find the middle of his bat and the sunbathing women forming the boundary started applauding him rather than Mr. Motivator’s obscene lycra-clad lunges at square-leg. After 20 overs, Denham had moved to 100-2 after justice had been done to both Nicholas, bowled for 49, and O’Hara, bowled for 0, who tried to cut one off middle-stump and missed.

The next 5 overs saw a huge acceleration from Payne, as Farnham bowlers Terry McFilth and Jonathan Dross came onto bowl. Their wayward bowling was glanced down to the fine-leg boundary and launched over midwicket’s head until finally the Farnham Captain Barnes decided to adopt a 9-0 leg side field - 5 deep midwickets, 2 square-legs and 2 fine legs - in an attempt to slow Payne’s scoring. But nothing could stop Payne, who brought up his fifty with a humongous hoik in the 25th over.

At this point, some of the women in the human boundary starting fearing that their young and nubile bodies might get bruised as the ball was flying past them at dangerous speeds. Mr. Motivator, sensing that the boundary might disband, lunged over to them to persuade them to stay. The sight of Motivator at such close range, with his huge muscles and other parts of his anatomy struggling to be contained by his colourful lycra leotard, terrified the sunbathers so much that they did not refuse his request, despite the dangers of Payne’s brutal batting.

Part of the human boundary

Fortunately, no harm was done to the sunbathers, as Payne suddenly made all fielding irrelevant, as he started to clear the boundary from nearly every ball he faced. The only point of the 9 Farnham fielders was to retrieve the ball after Sir Stu began to launch Way&Tillard maximum after Way&Tillard maximum. In fact Payne, whose normal call of “Come one” is mimicked mockingly by the other Denham players, started batting so confidently that he simply swung his bat, connected, and not even looking where the ball had gone cried “Come six!” to the non-strikers. He brought up a thrilling century in his fashion in just the 28th over and received a rapturous applause from the Denham fans and sunbathers forming the boundary.

Despite recording his first century in over 300 innings, Sir Stuart Payne was not content to stop, even though there was an unfortunate incident in the 30th over which could have distracted him. When Sir Stu faced a full-toss and just patted it back towards the bowler - knowing that to do otherwise would have been like confusing real gold for Iron Pyrites – the bowler misfielded and so he called Hemen Mehta, the non-striker, through for a single. “Come one,” said Sir Stu. But he then realised that it was just the first ball of the over, and that he should try to remain on strike, so he changed his mind. “Come none” he said. Unfortunately Mehta, who had begun the run, was completely confused by the contradictory calling and just stood aimlessly half way down the track and was run out. Hemen then swore awfully at Sir Stuart on his departure from the crease and this disappointed the Denham fans and on-field umpires, not-to-mention the beautiful bikini-clad sunbathers forming the human boundary.

Scorpion was particularly offended by the outburst - so he performed a fatality on Mehta, reducing him to cinders with fire blown from his mouth. Club Chairman Bill Nicholas quickly came onto the pitch, swept up the remains with a dust-pan and brush, told the Farnham captain that he would field instead of Mehta during the Farnham innings, and the game continued. Mehta was an interesting member of the Denham Sunday xi and might be missed – especially on occasions where there are only 10 players available – but the Denham faithful were glad that his premature yet fully-deserved loss-of-life did not distract Sir Stuart Payne from continuing his awesome display of batting.

This is what Scorpion did to Hemen

From overs 31 to the finish, Payne went into berserker mode and started playing massively audacious shots all around the wicket. He rewrote the textbook with one-handed super shots, and there were many ineffable blows that are too great to describe. He also played his first ever cover drive. The fans loved it and Mr. Motivator got incredible satisfaction from signalling the boundaries with his ludicrous lunges. By carefully hogging the strike and hitting a grand total of 52 Way&Tillard maximums, as well as 25 fours, Sir Stuart Payne finished on 435 not out, giving Denham an absolutely massive total of 523 for 5 off their 40 overs. All the other batsmen paled into comparison compared to Sir Stu, and even Bitchie Raithwaite had to accept that he was not for once going to be man-of-the-match.

Sir Stuart Payne in berserker mode – equally adept on both front and back foot

At the close of innings the human boundary finally disbanded as each and every sunbathing woman ran onto the pitch to touch Sir Stu. The Knight was then held aloft by the mob and carried triumphantly back to the pavilion, where a thunderous reception greeted him. The women then demanded more than just a smile from Sir Stuart but Payne was so satisfied that he just sat on a stool at the bar grinning to himself for the rest of the day. Fortunately for the other Denham players, the sunbathers had been so aroused by Payne’s innings that they were happy to be pleasured by anyone who was even on the same team as the great man, and many of the younger players enjoyed themselves very much during the tea-interval. Motivator felt particularly left out by this and decided to leave, dragging co-umpire Scorpion with him. And as they boarded the ice-cream van parked beside the clubhouse it turned out that it had been Motivator’s vehicle all along! As he drove off he shouted “the Mini-milks were out-of date” but nobody heard him and nobody cared.

After tasting the unforbidden pleasures of the sunbathers, and dispatching them with cruel and necessary indifference back to the boundary, the Denham players were really in no mood to field for 40 overs. And luckily neither were Farnham, who decided to concede the match knowing they could never chase down Denham’s Sir-Stuart-Payne-inspired total, so Denham won by a record 523 runs.

Of course none of the above really happened - the game was called off on Friday. But everything is possible and who knows what would have happened had Farnham Common bothered to raise a side?

Next week Woodley.

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