One Year On: History Repeats Itself

One year on: same ground, same fixture, same weekend - history repeated itself. More surprisingly, while doing it with the ball rather than the bat this time, it was the same player that stepped up and made the critical difference. More of that later.

The season had not got off to a good start for the Mad Dogs: this was the first game! The first two fixtures had been cancelled and this was our first outing since the legendary Cairns tour back in August. It was a great to see veterans of that tour proudly sporting their tour shirts from that adventure, bringing back fond, yet cloudy, memories.

But what a way to start the season. Our favorite ground is now the Jubilee oval in Glebe - good enough for the Commonwealth Bank to shoot their multi-million dollar Cricket Club campaign there. As well as that, the long running Ashes rivalry against Seamus Collins' Australians is every Dog's favourite fixture. So we were all set for an enjoyable and banter-fuelled day.

The conditions varied throughout the day. A little rain had fallen before the match began, sprinkling the ground with some light dew to slow the outfield, and filling the air with some moisture to bring a little unpredictability to the ball. The stage was set for an interesting encounter.

With such a long off-season, it was clear the Mad Dogs machine took a while to splutter into action. In fact the delay to the start of the season dragged out even longer because "Dancing" Brendan Parry was late with the stumps. Very hard to play cricket without those crucial pieces of wood.

When the Dogs finally did take the field we got off to a cracking start. Setting an aggressive run rate from the first over, the Australian bowling failed to make any in-roads. In fact three out of four opening batsmen retired on 25, with young Eddie "Mad Pup" Timpson thumping an almost unprecedented 28 - aged only 11. By the end of the first innings the match seemed almost a slam-dunk. With the loss of only 4 wickets (one of them being mine, run out for only 1 - so it doesn't really count) the Mad Dogs scored an excellent 148 at a run rate of 7.4. The Dogs already looked unassailable.

But as in every other sporting endeavour, the caveat "never underestimate an Aussie" rang true once more. They came out with the bit between their teeth. Setting a run rate even more aggressive than our own, one after the other swung the bat with wild abandon. But for some good chess work from Marcus Timpson, the Dogs' bowling failed to stem the tide. In fact the highlight of our attack was when Mr Timpson took a pair of wickets with some clever field placement - tempting two batsmen to drop long boundary shots into the hands of Tim Lestor .

But while he tempted a third Aussie - Captain Seamus Collins - to do the same thing, it was on his free hit. Then the damage was really done. Along with Toby, the two Collins brothers put on 50 between them and the half time point was reached with the Aussies leading by 14.

After the sausage-sizzle and beer-fuelled break the match swung even further in favour of the Aussies. The Mad Dogs dropped 3 wickets just getting to parity with the deficit! Suddenly a quintessentially English collapse looked like bringing a quick end to the fixture. Only Captain Giles Bourne stood firm, scoring an impressive 25. But then two crucial partnerships steadied the ship. Ant Pritchard, sadly playing in his last down under fixture (although we hope to see him take the field again one day in Blighty) partnered with Sean Garvey to make the score more respectable again - adding a half century partnership. Then the two Eds - our oldest player, Treasurer Ed Suttle - teamed up with our youngest, the already distinguished Eddie Timpson, to add another 30-odd. We were all out with a competitive 164.

For my part I was repaid for my two dropped catches by being dropped twice myself. However, in a kharma reverse, my ribbing of wicket-keeper Hugh Richards for a fumbled catch was in turn repaid when he caught me off an edge on only 7. That is how it can go - be careful what you say!

As an aside, all day we were captivated by the plight of a small parakeet who seem to have brained himself and was struggled to cling on to life in the pavilion. As he drifted in and out of consciousness,

as well as sparking no end of Monty Python gags, he provided a fitting analogy for the fluctuating fortunes of both sides. Up, then down, then up again.

At about 2pm at the end of the third innings, the clouds cleared and the sun suddenly began to shine through brightly. Conditions started to change quite radically, at once stunningly warm and muggily humid. Those veterans of the #MadDogsdotheTopEnd tour were reminded of those steamy tropical conditions of only a few months ago. Would a dryer surface change the tide of the game once more?

So as the Aussies once again took to the crease, the match was evenly balanced. With a required run rate of 7.5 the pressure was on them if the Dogs' bowling remained tight; but a scruffy attack would gift the match to them. As it was, their reversed batting order wasn't able to do the same damage as the other end; although Rod Pearce was as destructive in the second innings as he had been in the first, scoring 20 to add to his first innings' 15. But the rare treat of having both Bowler-Keepers Billy Cutler and Keith Saunders helped the dogs keep it tight. As we reached the 10 over mark the Australians were a little behind, but still very much in touch.

Then in the fourteenth over, as the saying goes, the hour came and so did the man. In one over, the player that won last year's match with a middle-of-the-bat pull shot towards the pavillion, took the ball for what became a truly memorable over. First ball: wicket. Second ball: appeal for LBW the umpire almost gave. Then Sean Garvey's third ball swung through the humid air to remove the bails of the one player that could have chased down the target: Tim Helyar.

By the end of that double-wicket-maiden over, in retrospect, the match was put beyond the Aussies. One last threatening innings was brought to an end by a brilliant - and surprising - catch from Mark Harvey, finally killing off Australian chances. Needing more than 30 off the last two overs, the Dogs could taste the triumph. There's no victory sweeter than against Seamus' Australian XI! - bring on the second leg in February!

More images of the day can be found here: Maddogs Ashes November 2015 (Dropbox Folder)

P.S: We don't know the fate of the parrot, does anyone know? Is he dead, or just pining for the fjords?