Fixtures: 24
Played: 17
Won: 3 (Jesus College Grads, Butterflies, Northchurch CC)
Drawn: 2 (MCC, Hampshire Hogs)
Lost: 9 (Wine Trade, Army, Hurlingham, Cryptics, BB, Royal Artillery, Flashmen, South Oxon
Amateurs, HAC)
Cancelled: 7 (Grannies, Pangbourne, Nomads, Eastbourne, IZ, Adastrians* Harrow Wanderers+)
Abandoned: 3 (Brigands, Bluemantles and Sunbury XI)
* Both clubs unable to raise a side – though match would probably have been rained off in any
event.
+ Harrow Wanderers unable to raise a side despite Stragglers getting volunteers to play for the
Wanderers.
Batting
50s: 10 (Conor Brown (3), C Rogers (c), M Hobley (g), A Russell (g), M James (g) M Shales, G Grace, S
Bowry)
100s: 1 (Matt Suckling 104 v Northchurch)
Leading run scorers:
1. C Brown 365 runs (15 innings at 30.42)
2. C Rogers (c) 166 runs (4 innings at 41.50)
3. M Suckling 121 runs (3 innings at 40.33)
4. Phil McDuell 119 runs (6 innings at 23.80)
Bowling
5 wickets: 2 (R Pollock-Hill)
4 wickets: 3 (D. Dasgupta, D Dawson and J Hodgson)
Leading wicket takers
1. Robert Pollock-Hill: 25 at 16.68
2. Tom Whyte: 12 at 31.83
3. Danny Dawson (g) 7 at 21.29
4. George Humphries: 7 at 22.86
Report
The season started on time, but it was under COVID restrictions, which kept pavilions shut and clubs
were largely unable to provide refreshments until June. This robbed the games of a lot of the social
interaction between teams that makes wandering cricket so special. The patchy weather led to more
than a third of the fixtures being either rained off completely or abandoned leaving some sizeable
gaps between fixtures.
On the field, the results for the club were undoubtedly disappointing with only 3 victories recorded
against 9 defeats. Kinder critics might point to the fact that the poor weather left large gaps between
games which meant that Stragglers sides were going into some games lacking match practice. That
may have had some part to play but the most evident reason was simply that in the vast majority of
matches, the opposing side was much younger and athletic than we were but each and every Straggler and guest who took the field for the club undoubtedly
gave of their very best.
At times, the fielding was nothing short of heroic. Tony Hooper and Sunny Bowry in particular pulling off some spectacular catches and Conor Brown’s boundary riding probably
saved as many runs as he scored with the bat. But outweighing those moments of brilliance was a heavy number of (relatively easy)
catches that were dropped and on more than one occasion it was the volume of missed chances that
turned a potential victory into defeat.
In his report to the Committee at the end of July, the Chairman remarked on the need to inject more
youth into the membership. This is urgently needed – especially with a major overseas tour being
planned to celebrate the Club’s centenary in 2025.
Despite the frustrations and disappointments there were a number of positives to take away from the
2021 season.
The first is that there was a 2021 cricket season at all and that during the course of the season, the
ECB restrictions gradually relaxed in line with the easing of the governmental restrictions. Pavilions
started to re-open in late June, lunches and teas replaced the hastily grabbed petrol station sandwich.
“Freedom Day” of 19 July saw the end of sanitising hands every six overs (to the relief of the bowlers)
and debates at whether players could touch the stumps or umpires the ball became redundant.
The second is that the club welcomed two new fixtures against the Wine Trade at Royal Hampton Wick
CC and the Flashmen at Cullen Court. While both games ended in narrow defeats for the Stragglers,
the feedback from the match manager and players on both sides for these games was overwhelmingly
positive and they look like becoming popular additions to the fixture card in future years.
Third, notwithstanding the impact of social distancing and the understandable unease many had at
the relaxation of the social distancing restrictions, uptake for games was pretty good. This was helped
by a core group of players who played for the club on a number of occasions with Conor Brown leading
the way (playing 15 of the 17 games played) supported by the likes of Phil McDuell, Tom Whyte, Ian Perry,
Sunny Bowry, Tony Hooper and of course the Chairman which gave sides a degree of continuity and
maintained a good club ethos on and off the field. On the recruitment side, the club was successful in
attracting some much needed new blood which we hope will translate into new members who will
play regularly for the club, notably Alastair Russell, whose batting against the Army XI was the sole
spark of light in one of the most traumatic matches the club has experienced, Chris Rogers, a fine
opening bat, and Matt Stanley a recent Pangbourne leaver and brisk left arm bowler who played
against the Bluemantles. The aim now is to convert these players into members and to ensure they
play more often for the club in future seasons – something, the club has not always been very good at
putting into practice.
Fourth, despite the tally of results, the games were (with the exception of the games against the two
military sides), competitive and in a number of cases, had we held our chances in the field, the results
could have been reversed. The MCC game was undoubtedly the closest for a number of years with all
four results possible until the final three balls of the match and the Wine Trade match went to the
penultimate ball.
On the individual achievements, Conor Brown’s consistency with the bat saw the highest individual
aggregate of runs in a season for the club for 5 years and took him past 1,500 runs for the Club. Matt
Shales despite recovering from a shoulder operation, managed to bash a 50 against Sunbury to pass
2,000 runs for the Club as did Phil McDuell. Matt Suckling left it until the last match of the season to
record the Stragglers only century with the bat. With the ball, in the opening match of the season,
guest James Hodgson returned impressive figures of 4 wickets for no runs against the Jesus College
Graduates. Tom Whyte put in several marathon spells (bowling more than 100 overs for the club
during the season) and keeping it tight even when he did not necessarily get the wickets he deserved –
notably against the Hurlingham and the MCC where in the latter game he, together with George
Humphries (7 wickets in the season) bowled magnificently to prevent the usual post lunch acceleration and give the
Stragglers a genuine shot at winning the match.
Finally, no report on the season would be complete without acknowledging the efforts of those key
personnel who made it what it was: From Ian Perry for beavering away in the depths of winter planning
fixtures that no one at the time had any idea might actually take place, the match managers who
almost all managed to field full sides, the umpires, scorers, groundsmen and caterers who enabled
the games go ahead and our opponents who (almost without exception) were a pleasure to meet and
share a day playing cricket.