Man inadvertently influences Buckinghamshire under 13's cricket league. Or does he?
I received a text message a few weeks ago from a number I didn't recognise. It read: "Unfortunately tomorrows u13 cricket has been cancelled as they are unable to raise a team. Cheers charlie". Naturally my first reaction was dismay at Charlie's sloppy grasp of punctuation and laziness in failing to capitalise proper nouns. We Wards are perfectionists, as you know, and I insist on always using the correct spelling and punctuation in my text messages. Oh I know what you're thinking - you're thinking, "But wardytron, I've received text messages from you before, and I know for a fact that you don't use a double space after a full stop". Well that's perfectly true, however in my defence I'd point out that the convention of double-spacing following a full stop developed as an aid to readability in the early 20th Century for documents produced on typewriters. Now that we have modern sans-serif fonts this is no longer necessary, and a single space is considered acceptable. On hearing this I imagine you'd say something like "oh". Well anyway, the natural reaction of any decent, public-spirited individual who received a text message like this would be to reply to Charlie, telling him he'd got the wrong number. So of course I did nothing, with the probable result that some poor kid or other ended up going to the under 13's cricket only to find no-one else there.
Well after that I forgot all about Charlie and the under 13's cricket, until the Monday before last when I received another text from him. This one read "Sorrybout the late notice but the under 13's have got cricket match tomorrow against dinton at old barkley in marsh at 6.Is jack available?Charlie". Again I was dismayed at Charlie's shoddy English. Again I failed to respond to his message, but this time I was intrigued. I wanted to know who Charlie was and what team he represented. I googled "Dinton cricket club" and found the under 13's fixtures. On Monday 1st June they'd played a match against High Wycombe. This was the match that Jack was to have played in, but didn't, through my frankly shocking negligence and thoughtlessness. Well by this stage I was worried - still not worried enough to bother telling Charlie he'd got the wrong number, but worried enough to want to make sure High Wycombe hadn't lost because of me. On the Dinton cricket club's website I found the match reports for the under 13's. Someone called "andyjwill" had written a report of the match against High Wycombe. It began:
Another glorious Monday night saw us take on Wycombe, which, on paper appeared to be the toughest game we will face in the league. Both teams were unbeaten going into the game so this would prove to be an important game in deciding who takes league honours.
"andyjwill" didn't use double-spacing after a full stop either, I noticed, but that wasn't important now, and besides, the convention of double-spacing following a full stop developed as an aid to readability in the early 20th Century for documents produced on typewriters, and now that we have modern sans-serif fonts this is no longer necessary, and a single space is considered acceptable, as we've already established.
Well Dinton batted first, according to andyjwill, and lost a couple of early wickets and were in some trouble, however Humza stroked the ball around beautifully before retiring on 31. He was ably assisted through the order by Dom (17 not out) and Callum (9 not out). In the end they posted 132-6 off of 20 overs which was very respectable. But how would High Wycombe respond, depleted by the absence of Jack, because I couldn't be bothered to tell Charlie he'd got the wrong number? As andyjwill pointed out, defending Dinton's total was going to be difficult on a lightningly fast outfield and superb batting track. Surely High Wycombe could overcome the disadvantage I'd inadvertently created for them. But no! They only managed a total of 118-5. Dinton won by 14 runs, and it was all my fault! Or was it? I had to put my mind at ease and ascertain whether High Wycombe would have won if Jack had played. I found a page showing High Wycombe's under 13 squad. Jack's full name was Jack Maciver. There was another page showing his statistics. Since 2007 he's played in 8 league games for High Wycombe, scoring a total of 26 runs at an average of 5.2. Phew, he's shite.
Well after that I forgot all about Charlie and the under 13's cricket, until the Monday before last when I received another text from him. This one read "Sorrybout the late notice but the under 13's have got cricket match tomorrow against dinton at old barkley in marsh at 6.Is jack available?Charlie". Again I was dismayed at Charlie's shoddy English. Again I failed to respond to his message, but this time I was intrigued. I wanted to know who Charlie was and what team he represented. I googled "Dinton cricket club" and found the under 13's fixtures. On Monday 1st June they'd played a match against High Wycombe. This was the match that Jack was to have played in, but didn't, through my frankly shocking negligence and thoughtlessness. Well by this stage I was worried - still not worried enough to bother telling Charlie he'd got the wrong number, but worried enough to want to make sure High Wycombe hadn't lost because of me. On the Dinton cricket club's website I found the match reports for the under 13's. Someone called "andyjwill" had written a report of the match against High Wycombe. It began:
Another glorious Monday night saw us take on Wycombe, which, on paper appeared to be the toughest game we will face in the league. Both teams were unbeaten going into the game so this would prove to be an important game in deciding who takes league honours.
"andyjwill" didn't use double-spacing after a full stop either, I noticed, but that wasn't important now, and besides, the convention of double-spacing following a full stop developed as an aid to readability in the early 20th Century for documents produced on typewriters, and now that we have modern sans-serif fonts this is no longer necessary, and a single space is considered acceptable, as we've already established.
Well Dinton batted first, according to andyjwill, and lost a couple of early wickets and were in some trouble, however Humza stroked the ball around beautifully before retiring on 31. He was ably assisted through the order by Dom (17 not out) and Callum (9 not out). In the end they posted 132-6 off of 20 overs which was very respectable. But how would High Wycombe respond, depleted by the absence of Jack, because I couldn't be bothered to tell Charlie he'd got the wrong number? As andyjwill pointed out, defending Dinton's total was going to be difficult on a lightningly fast outfield and superb batting track. Surely High Wycombe could overcome the disadvantage I'd inadvertently created for them. But no! They only managed a total of 118-5. Dinton won by 14 runs, and it was all my fault! Or was it? I had to put my mind at ease and ascertain whether High Wycombe would have won if Jack had played. I found a page showing High Wycombe's under 13 squad. Jack's full name was Jack Maciver. There was another page showing his statistics. Since 2007 he's played in 8 league games for High Wycombe, scoring a total of 26 runs at an average of 5.2. Phew, he's shite.