The Club Cricket Conference Yearbook 2020

- 48 - Second Test Before the second test the Captain was beset with problems. His best friend was in disgrace for breaking the team rules. Many of his best players came from former colonial origins who opted to participate in illegal mass net sessions all over the country and insisted on batting outside the crease. The miscreants were also all waving banners that proclaimed, “All Wickets Count”. He was also being hampered by the Ladies captain who had issued a proclamation that all overseas players would not be able play for fourteen days thus rendering them ineligible for selection. His best friend told him not to worry too much about these difficulties as they could be used as distractions from their problems and could be blamed for the ensuing chaos. The Captain thrived on being popular and he usually overcame such problems by stating that they did not apply to him and that it was time to move forward but he feared that it might be going a little too far on this occasion. However, he did act decisively by announcing that he was going to take charge of matters from now on, but this only begged the question “Well who has been in charge up to now?” The Captain said that he wanted to make it very clear that he and his team had been working round the clock to get match fit. Meanwhile, the team Joker, Mat Hancock, was keeping everyone amused with his claims of how many runs he had scored during his career. The biggest laugh came when he claimed that the total was now over 200,000. It transpired that for every single he scored he was now adding another because the batsman at the other end had run as well. The first test had proved a total humiliation for the captain as the opposition had run up a world record score, didn’t bother to declare and were still batting at the end of the match. He remembered someone saying in similar circumstances that they had lost the match but won the argument but couldn’t recall who it was or work out whether it was applicable here. During the first test the Captain discouraged the use of protective helmets for outfielders but for the second he insisted that all of his team wear them when fielding. He had also decreed that senior players had to bat without boxes and many of them were run out without facing a ball. The Captain and his best friend then came up with a new wheeze for the Second Test to contain the run flow, which they maintained was a world- class high-tech capability which they called Track and Trace. Every time a batsman scored a boundary a group of specially trained recruits would establish exactly where fielders were needed to be placed to stop it being repeated. Fielders were equipped with earpieces so that the specialists could contact them during play and guide them to precision positions. If the fielder then failed to stop the next boundary, he was asked to retire from the continued...