Easton & Martyr Worthy v Bramley, Round 1, Sunday 19 April 2009

Easton (165) beat Bramley (83) by 82 runs

Only six of the 300-odd clubs making up the 2009 npower Village Cup were obliged to take part in round one last month. Two such clubs were Easton & Martyr Worthy and Bramley, both of Hampshire. The two might have thought themselves unlucky given that the vast majority of sides had received a bye to round two. But on a warm and sunny spring Sunday, it was those still stuck in the nets who must have felt cheated of an opportunity.

Easton is a village of thatched roofs just north of Winchester with a beautiful cricket ground shaped like a bowl. Shots square of the wicket rarely make it up the slope and over the rope. Better to play straight or nudge down towards the tree that stands inside the fine leg boundary. Two sleepy sheep and a chorus of birds twittering in the trees made up the spectators. “What more could you ask for?” wondered Andy Stead, Bramley’s captain.

His side, undeniably, were the underdogs. Bramley is just 16 years old and has never passed round two of the cup. “Just to get an eleven together is a good thing,” says Nigel Alderman, who has been at the club since it came into being. “Last year we only played four games because of the weather. That makes it hard to recruit the players. This year we’ve cut the hedge at Bramley just so people realise there is a cricket pitch there.”

Alderman is one of the older members of a Bramley side with an age-range of 15 to 55. Among their number is Martin Turner, who answered an ad in the local paper to play for the team. This is his first match in 23 years. Easton are a different sort of club. They have a sponsor, a youth system and unlike Bramley, they play regular league cricket on Saturdays. What’s more, they came within a whisker of Lord’s in a semi-final on this ground three years ago, a day when so many came to watch that the boundary rope had to be pulled in to fit them all.

Bramley did well to bowl their opponents out for 165 after Easton had won the toss. David Birch, the opening batsmen, scored a skillful fifty but Bramley were able to contain the run-rate, largely thanks to the loopy offspin of Stead, who took 4 for 21 bowling off a Chris Gayle-style shuffle.

“Getable” was the word as cakes and sandwiches appeared in the hutch but sadly for Bramley, it was not to be and they were blown away by the pace of the Easton attack. Turner, enjoying his first cricket in over two decades, prodded away in his own particular manner before he was last out with Bramley over 80 runs short of victory.

Easton’s Steve Green, who grew up watching his father play in the Village Cup, was beaming. “You can’t beat the spirit of this competition. It’s the best cricket I’ve played. Especially the latter stages, with the travelling and mini-bus, the excitement and the tension of the games. We’re thinking ‘wow, it’s only so and so games until we play at Lord’s!’”

That dream is still eight games and four months away from being realised. The smiles on the Bramley faces showed, however, that it’s not always the winning that counts.

Benj Moorehead is editorial assistant of The Wisden Cricketer