ANYONE FOR SCORING?

by our reporter who knows what a dead ball is, Denim Sue.

At this time of year local cricket teams are predatorily lurking in order to capture a 'volunteer' for the honorary situation of team scorer. This is an annual ritual as it would take an exceptionally odd person who would not resign at the earliest opportunity. In case there is anyone unwise enough to be considering volunteering for this highly esteemed position, I have made the following few notes which may be useful if you have not yet committed yourself or will let you know for what you have let yourself in if you have.

You will need the following equipment:
a) some pre-printed sheets on which to record the match
b) twelve fine point pens of differing colours, one of which should be black
c) scrap paper for notes (the backs of tax demands are a useful size, and it gives them a purpose in life)
d) something to lean on, at least a large (A2) board, but preferably a table, in which case you’ll also need a chair or something to relieve back strain
e) correction fluid, not to correct your errors because, as will be shown later, you won’t make any, but for when the umpires change their minds
f) a small calculator, the battery of which will fail after entering the first number
g) ear protectors for each time a recently dismissed batsman approaches you
h) a clearly marked beer glass (an added safeguard is to make yourself up with false cold sores and continually remind people about Herpes)
i) waterproof paper and underwater pens, a number of heavy weights (to stop papers flying around the pitch), a heavy and waterproof full length coat, a table umbrella, a windbreak and, just in case, a lifejacket
j) a tin hat for defence against malicious batsmen whose one object is to hit you (with straps)
k) a supply of Tequila in case the beer runs out (keep this well hidden)
1) a Portaloo from which you can still see the pitch
m) binoculars to keep track of short persons on the field and to monitor certain wildlife activity in adjacent shrubbery
n) a large multi-coloured flag to let the Umpires know where you are, and
o) a white flag for when you’ve had enough.

Arrive early at the ground. Providing the teams have found their way to the same one, you should initially establish a suitable position. This should be the best position for yourself, with good views of the surrounding countryside. If the Umpires don’t like it suggest they revolve the pitch. They’ll probably think it is revolving anyway, besides they’re an uncomplaining lot and in any case you’ll only normally see them in the distance until the food comes out between innings. Wherever you do site yourself one Umpire will always be obscured by a fielder while the other will have forgotten where you are and will be signalling to a stray dog at deep extra cover, that has your marker flag firmly locked in its jaws.

Supervise the setting up of the beer; ensure that it is within grasping distance. It is impossible to score without a continual supply of liquor to hand—after all you only volunteered to score in the first place because you were paralytic when you were asked.

You should then make yourself known to the other scorer. Unfortunately there won’t be one, so you will be unable to spend the remainder of the afternoon whining about your lot with someone who really understands. The best you can hope for is a varied selection of the opposing team’s players scoring during their batting innings. They will limit themselves to a few vague scribblings in a hard covered score book while looking down their nose at your pre-printed sheets flapping in the breeze, and (this is their main function) disagreeing about the score. Incidentally, each change of personel under this system apparently entitles them to an extra 10 runs.

Before the match starts, the Umpires are supposed to confer with you about certain matters. They won’t. How they get from a beer-drinking position off the field to the pitch in the blink of an eyelid is one of those mysteries that will probably never be explained. In the extremely unlikely event that one of them stumbles upon you by accident mumbling something and you feel some sort of reply is required, ‘Sorry, but I’m a stranger here myself’ usually seems to satisfy them.

Well, by now, you’re probably thinking that you’ve done enough for one day. However with your loins girded, your glass replenished, and the previously damp and overcast atmosphere now a determined drizzle, you know you are ready for the off: the Umpires in position; a batsman at each end; the opening bowler playing at windmills; the fielding Captain practising point duty and the fielders variously chasing dogs, picking mushrooms or merely wandering aimlessly about.

Let us suppose that the opposition are fielding first; your initial problems are that you haven’t a clue as to the identity of any of the fielding side. You have almost certainly forgotten even to ask the names of Captain and Wicket Keeper. Even in the extremely unlikely circumstance that you have been given a team list you still won’t be able to identify any particular player and the list will normally consist only of illegibly written forenames.

Shouting ‘Who caught that?’ to the nearest fielder (you have to do this three times) may produce anything from ‘Fred, I think’ to a vacant stare in response. This is when you have to resort to pencil notes on the score sheet such as ‘long blonde hair’, ‘tall and gangly’, ‘wooden leg’, etc. In the meantime you will have missed four deliveries, one of which was probably a no ball but may have been a wide.

There will be a crowd of around six people obscuring your view, at least one of which will be padding up with his back toward you giving you the vague impression that there has been a sudden heavy fall of snow, and another will be practising strokes with his bat and as likely as not will clip you around the ear as he demonstrates his pull shot. He has not, of course, ever successfully executed one of these in a match. [All this will only happen with members of your own team].

Continually moving position doesn’t help because you will miss half the game whilst in transit, the crowd will follow you and you will further confuse the umpires. (Remember? Your marker flag was untimely ripped from its post and is still being dragged around by the dog which is now lumbering across the ground and providing much merriment to the spectators.) As the match proceeds further dogs will join it. All have their specific tasks: stealing the ball; tripping the batsman; biting the Umpire’s leg; and relieving themselves against your table leg, or if you have no table, you.

Now, during the course of the whole match you should be fully prepared to concentrate on every delivery whilst answering a number of questions from various directions, at least one of which is shouted from afar.

For instance: suppose the non striker is run out attempting the third run from a no ball. A batsman out previously will choose this opportunity to ask how many runs he scored off how many deliveries and did he score three or four boundaries (he knows full well that he only made two). The ingoing batsmen will want to know how many balls are remaining in the over and another player will enquire as to what his averages for the season are. The run out batsman will make a bee-line for you to let you know by how much he was really within his ground at the same time telling you in no uncertain terms what he thinks of the other batsman. He will also want to know if there is any beer left and where his glass is. The scoreboard operator will now decide that it’s time to have an update. Although there may be a number of different people doing this job during the course of the match they are likely to have certain traits in common. They will probably be deaf, innumerate to the extent that they cannot add 1 to the number of overs bowled without checking with you, and, if at any time they can’t get it wrong and it is a chalk board, they will write in characters that cannot be read from more than five feet away.

And so it goes on, and with bad luck it will last for the full allotted Overs.

During the break, in between eating as much as possible, you must work out the averages for the first innings, and make slight adjustments to the score sheet. The batsmen that retired on fifty you now discover only had forty-eight, so you must find two runs somewhere to restore the half century. It is unlikely that you will be able to take these from any other batsman as minus quantities are not allowed. However there are usually enough extras to play around with and nobody else ever has a clue as to how many have been scored. Don’t forget to change the bowler’s analysis as well.

It is now advisable to seek out the Umpires regarding the time left to play for the remaining innings. It is vital that the match end in good time to reach the home hostelry for 7.OOpm, however, too early a finish can be even more disastrous for obvious reasons. It takes practise to get it right, but most Umpires are much experienced in this matter and as long as you give your full co-operation, there should be no problem. In fact the Umpires who have been standing up all day are probably even more anxious than you are to cross the threshold bang on seven and grab the bar stools. They also have the more versatile means of creatively engineering the length of the match. For instance they can run or crawl to their positions for each new over and use flexibility in calling, or not calling, wides and no balls. They have to take great care not to inadvertently produce an early result whilst trying to spin out the match with the additional deliveries necessary. They can also mentally alter the width of the pitch and wicket for LBW decisions or increase or decrease the number of balls per over - they tend to do this at random anyway.

As scorer you are somewhat more limited. The best you can do is either to lose a couple of overs if the match looks like finishing too early or manufacture a couple to help speed the game on its way. For the latter it is useful to have the overs ready made in advance. Make sure the score sheets show the batsmen at the correct end. Otherwise slipping in a few extra runs to produce a result is best done with twos. (Players tend to count their boundaries and odd runs need care in order to keep track of which batsmen is on strike).

The second innings is otherwise much as the first only more boring. True, you’ll now have a reasonable view of the pitch as the opposing team encamp themselves well out of earshot to avoid answering questions, but everything will now begin to pall as the late afternoon drags on. Even the dogs, after finishing off the food, will get bored with the game and instead begin to annoy the spectators, who will suddenly decide their behaviour is more irritating than amusing. Tempers on and off the field rise. The, now, steady rain is accompanied by an icy blast.

Eventually it is all over. Move fast. Grab your things before any player can reach you causing delay with silly questions and requests to look at the score sheets. It is not part of your job to pick up the pile of stones that have fallen through a hole in one of the Umpire’s pockets. Head for the bar and try to forget the whole thing; tomorrow you’ll have to go through the paperwork to make it look justifiable and work out more averages.

Just one last point to etch in memory. Providing you can, on your paper, trace through the match without the non-striker apparantly scoring a boundary or some such other anomaly, the score sheets are correct despite whatever anyone else says. In fact they are probably more correct than the match was itself.