Report: Hillyard hundred at HAC
HAC 192 all out (Short 3-34)
Jesters 194-2 (Hillyard 101*)
Noah Hillyard continued where he left off at Streatham & Marlborough by scoring his maiden Jesters hundred in a comfortable 8 wicket victory in the Artillery Garden. Andrew Short took 3-34 to help dismiss HAC for 192.
Match manager Robbie Hudson tells his version of the story...
Into the valley of the shadow of all those tall buildings surrounding the HAC's central London fortress-cum-wedding-venue marched however many Jesters I could find on a bank-holiday weekend when a few unreliable Jesters had pulled out late to get jobs or have their eighth knee fitted, which was ten Jesters.
Due to Defence Department cutbacks, they faced nine Honourable Artillerymen. After last year’s slugfest (something like a combined 600-8, never any danger of a result), it was no surprise that Sky’s new Jazz Channel chose to cover the heavyweight clash between the Hoxton Pennyfarthings and the Mad Geese (if these are indeed cricket teams and not citrussy American style pale ales) and, all in all, I can’t blame them as the Jesters coasted to an easier than expected victory.
It was not entirely without incident. Jonny Bridcut, looking daily more like Murdoc out of Gorillaz, bowled a sprightly opening spell and was convinced he had the Gunners’ second best opener caught behind early on. The umpire’s finger did not go up. A useful lesson, perhaps, for Bridcut, that you can only give what you’re certain of. In the first of two angry wickets, he uprooted his enemy’s middle-stump next ball. A useful lesson, perhaps, for the Gunner, that The Guilty Heart Can’t Play No Defence.
Some hours and fifty overs later, another Brave Little Soldier learned the same lesson after dropping his bat over the line and, who knows, by some optical illusion not shared by Bridcut, maybe getting home. Middle stump next over.
Otherwise, Jesters spinners, slow bowlers and slow-medium darter-cutters picked their way methodically through the batting, and Jesters were set 193 in 44 overs on a slow, true wicket.
Santosh Verma and baby-faced Noah Hillyard made short work of the opening bowlers. Bridcut tried to send off a beard-ridden grenadier for lobbing high grenades but common sense prevailed, and, with short interruptions for Harris to jiggle about in such a way as to york himself, Alex Smith to refrain from scoring at his usual feverish pace and Hillyard to collect the joyous applause of the serried ranks for an excellent century of pulls, sweeps and such twos and threes as his slow, slower and slowest partners could manage to run, the Jesters trundled home.
