on the 17th June 2022, the Plough Islands Gazette wrote:REFLECTION TIME FOR WORLD TROPHY-BOUND FOXES
by Emily Piper, Additional Sporting Correspondent, in Sutton
Ahead of the Plough Islands team departing for Ko-oren to take part in the third World Trophy, the Gazette spoke to each of the sixteen players and asked them to recall their most memorable match for the Foxes, and try and articulate why that was so special to them.
Some recalled their greatest statistical milestones or achievements with the team, while others chose matches of greater significance to themselves than the record keepers. Some players used the prompt as the starting point for a narrative, while others kept their recollections short and to the point. A few players chose their first Test or One Day International; another picked, and insisted upon, a List B game. Regardless of what story they had to tell, though, all of these players had something to say about our small country, and what it meant to represent the Plough Islands on some of the most prominent stages of the multiverse.#1 Kevin Charles Trotsky LAING (captain)
Born 26 September 1986, Foxdale ☭ Right-hand bat, right-arm medium pace ☭ 33 ODIs; 1392 runs at 58.00, 4 wickets at 109.25 (also 36 Tests)
Laing has been there for almost all of the Plough Islands' highs and lows in multiversal cricket - despite his absence from the official squad, he was even at the Anaian regional championship final in Krytenia, as twelfth man, and while fielding in the gully took a difficult diving catch to dismiss Bradley Grafton - but his choice of match "is the obvious one, I am afraid - our first Test match, against Lisander at December Park. It was the culmination of the efforts of the Plough Islands Cricket Association to gain international recognition for the country, and the 17th of June, while not quite on the same level as the 2nd of December, is still fondly remembered in Plough Islander cricket circles.
That Test needed few other reasons to be memorable, but the parts that linger with the captain were the step up it represented from the slightly nomadic existence the Foxes had led previously. "It was tremendously validating, and heartening, to get the official recognition on the level of some of those names - Liventia, Ko-oren, Eura - but it was also a little scary", Laing admits. "I had been 'captain' for a couple of years, but it was a very nebulous position when I first started - the representative team only met a few times a year, and the biggest actual matches we had were against under-20s or a club team from somewhere that would tour us - our last game before the Lisander match was against Redcliff Cricket Club in Zimbabwe, who came for a tour solely because of the connection with Redcliff Island!" Laing recalls. "So to go from that, to suddenly playing at a much higher level and having to conduct ourselves properly, was a little bit of a shock for everyone. I had to try and manage it and reassure people while I was not necessarily sure what was happening myself" The buildup to the match saw the Association dramatically increase the time allotted for training, and Laing remembers a frantic time. "We actually lost a few players in the buildup and the first few months of Test status due to the workload involved - people could not get the time off work, and I know it took a lot of energy out of me that I then did not have for personal projects". Speaking to a few players from around that time, it would seem to largely have been thanks to their captain and his encouragement that the Plough Islands had eleven players ready to face Lisander at all.
When they did, there were more than a few players running on pure adrenaline, but they acquitted themselves very well indeed. With Laing having won the toss, Graeme Holt and Matthew Davy added 121 for the first wicket, but this was more reflective of good weather and a flat December Park track than any imbalance in the teams, and Lisander fought the Foxes hard through all five days, with Laing in the centre of it all. "There were so many moments and experiences that made my hair stand on end...the toss, with the Premier there and Plough Television cameras. Golden Age being sung with what seemed like a wall of people in unison at the Trotsky Avenue End. Taking that first catch in the slips off Andrew Baxter, and this vortex of sound coming from every direction all at once." The captain himself was caught lbw by Zoran Kendall without scoring, but it mattered little in the context of the day.
As the Plough Islands' first innings stretched on into the second day, despite Baxter making the most of the conditions to take 5-35 as the Lisander lower order folded in their reply, a result was already beginning to seem unlikely. "I think we thought we might have something on day three, when we established a fairly big lead, and I was fairly happy with how I managed in the second innings - it felt like I got into a good rhythm as the pitch was starting to break up a little. But Lisander dug in well on day four and that tempered our expectations a lot". A draw, despite the Foxes' strong start, was ultimately a fair result, and Laing's overriding memory of the end of the match was "disappointment! And surprise, really, that I was finding myself being disappointed. I had fully expected that we would go in with no real experience at that level, and no sleep, and get hammered, so it was very welcome to find that we were more competitive than I feared. And I genuinely still think a lot of that was how we pulled together, and became something far bigger than ourselves".#2 Dimitry Vladimirovich ANDREYEV
Born 14 July 2002, Redcliff ☭ Right-hand bat, right-arm medium-fast pace ☭ 6 ODIs; 36 runs at 18.00, 9 wickets at 36.44
"The Anaian one-day championship final, against Krytenia." Andreyev answers immediately. "Honestly, the final was the only game I have played in senior cricket that has felt real. Most of the others have felt like rehearsals - although not in a bad sense," the all-rounder is quick to clarify, "in that even though the players alongside me are some of the ones I recognise, the game itself was still very slow and deliberate. And everyone was coming and giving me advice whenever I was about to bat or had the ball. Absolutely everyone. It was not until the final that I was left to my own decision making, so it felt like a lot more was at stake!"
What must have felt like coddling becomes a little more understandable when you consider that Kevin Laing and Andrew Fairfield had both been named in Young Foxes teams by the time Andreyev, the youngest of the Foxes squad, was born in Redcliff. A third-generation Plough Islander whose grandparents migrated from Tomsk in the late 1970s, he was not the first in his family to take up the sport, but it was while batting alongside his elder sister Valentina at the Redcliff Industrial Welfare Association that his talent was uncovered, and as he moved through the youth teams, what had been a sideline in swing and pace bowling was promoted and worked on aggressively by his school coaches, with any fast bowlers being in high demand on Redcliff pitches.
It was his bowling that brought him to the attention of the Young Foxes selectors, and then to head coach Lourens Hendricks when selecting a team for the Anaian championships; having performed well at successive World 20-over Championships, Andreyev was brought along as an additional pace option to complement Andrew Baxter and Jennifer Hart in Grande Cucina. Making his debut against Kotzellach in the group stage - on "the most threadbare pitch I have ever seen" in San Giorgio, which saw his first full international delivery bounce well over Ludwig Hagemann's head for four wides - he was soon taking wickets, even if they were occasionally expensive. "I was still learning quite a lot, every single match, almost every single over even. Against Ko-oren I was having no luck, and I got far too frustrated and kept bowling too short or too full. I probably needed the advice then!"
He persevered, though, and a good performance in the semi-final against Avorago - where he took 3-60 on that same pitch in San Giorgio - saw him selected in the XI for the final. Lynton Saxon put the Foxes in to bat, and as is so often the case Shauna Weaver had anchored what looked set to be an imposing target; she was well past three figures, and the Foxes over 300, by the time Andreyev joined her with thirty-two deliveries left. "Shauna was great - she said she did not think she needed to tell me what to do, and just told me to see what was on offer..." Against the Krytenian quicks, Andreyev found "there was so much pace it was actually hard to block the ball, you almost had to hit it, and you either got out or you scored high", and scored high - eighteen off twelve balls set the stage for what would be an exciting chase.
And despite Andrew Baxter removing Howard Tatton first ball, Krytenia started very well indeed, with the rest of the Stars' top four combining for 223 runs as the shadows, and Plough Islander hopes, began to lengthen. Andreyev had toiled in the April sun, but just as Audrey Leggett was preparing to take him out of the attack, he got a thin edge from Andrew Taylor that carried to Leggett. "I was relieved, mainly - I did not want to have something like 0-80 against my name and be blamed for losing the final," he recalls, "but then what seemed to happen was that set the dominoes falling..." He watched most of what followed from out in the field, but the Krytenian middle order began to struggle and weaken under the pressure newly placed on them. Naomi Salisbury was the main benificiary, taking 4-54 including the captain, but the required run rate began to creep above what Krytenia were currently achieving, and when Andreyev was recalled into the attack with four overs to go, they were still on the wrong side of 300 and a sudden, quiet tension had fallen over those in both blue and purple.
"I figured that I would just try and bowl normally, keep a consistent length, and see what happened, and it seemed to work!" Wicketkeeper Bradley Grafton, the last recognised batsman, duly took the bait - regular Foxes captain Kevin Laing holding on to a difficult chance that fell in front of him - and though the Krytenian tail tried their hardest, Andreyev and Salisbury gave them too few chances to make up the deficit. "I was counting down Salisbury's last over, and I contrived to miss a ball at some point, because I got to 1 and this head-splitting noise came from all around, and Andrew Weaver was suddenly on top of me and lifting me up - it was brilliant! It has been a whirlwind ever since, but a really positive one to be part of. I am so grateful to everyone that I am still along for the ride!"#3 Sarah ASHE
Born 30 August 1994, Crabble ☭ Right-hand bat, right-arm off spin ☭ 39 ODIs; 231 runs at 23.10, 52 wickets at 28.33 (also 22 Tests)
Ashe has to think for a moment, tugging on her ponytail as she ponders her career so far. "I think, ultimately, it would be something from the Teusland series, if we are choosing our best memories and not our worst" she concludes after a pause. "And the first Test was important sentimentally, but the second Test at Highrock was undoubtedly the game where I had more of an impact..."
The New Hibernian had been a slightly surprising selection for the January Test series, but had put in a good performance in an otherwise doomed first Test in Sutton, being one of the only bowlers able to hold her head high as the visitors, in their debut Test, won by 139 runs. The second Test, though, was a very different proposition; not least because the midwinter twilight and rough weather at the Highrock Athletic Club prevented there being more than a few hours' play each day. Once the Foxes were finally ready to begin, though, a damp Highrock pitch and an Edelweiss side that, despite their win at December Park, were still very new to international cricket, combined to provide the perfect conditions for Ashe's offspin. "The conditions were changing very quickly...we had the floodlights on for some of the evening session, for example, because the fog was starting to creep in on the landward side. So the ball would move one way and then behave differently five minutes later, which was very exciting." Ashe pauses, and smiles broadly for the first time. "Understandably that made variations in flight or length have a huge impact..." Ashe had been swapped in for Andrew Baxter after just seven overs of the Teusland innings, and almost immediately had Kilian Wimmer out lbw, setting off what quickly became something of a rout as the pitch began to dry; Ashe and left-arm spinner Naomi Salisbury took three wickets each as Teusland were bundled out for 109.
The first innings, though, was just a foreshock of what was to come; with the slightly more experienced Foxes setting the visitors 225 to make the Plough Islands bat again, von Sauerland's team had started the fourth day in much better shape than they had the first, with Marc Breuer leading the way. Ashe had been asked to bowl by Kevin Laing just as she was leaving the pitch, so Shauna Weaver was thrown the ball instead as a one-over stopgap. "I was in the bathroom at Highrock when I heard cheering, and I realised when I got back on to the pitch that Shauna had managed to get Breuer out - she reminds me of that almost every time I see her!" Ashe says, incredulously. She had the ball two overs later, though, and as the skies darkened a little, carnage ensued. "It was not raining, but the humidity was all around us by that point and it was wreaking havoc with the ball. The Teuslanders were being caught out even by stock deliveries because the ball was staying low, very low, and at one point I had taken two wickets [Noel Koller and Martin Kaplan], and Kevin was firing me up for the hat trick ball - and it slipped out of my hand as I was coming in, and missed the wicket and Ilya [Lebed] entirely..." This was merely delaying the inevitable; Ashe had Elias Lehner stumped the very next ball, and the Plough Islands took two quick wickets after lunch to seal a remarkable reversal of fortune from the previous Test.
Ashe was at the centre of the celebrations that followed, an unusual situation for a quiet New Hibernian constable, but she had allowed herself to get fully caught up in the euphoria of her first Test series; "Everyone was so happy for me, which I had known intellectually would happen but was still a bit of a shock in reality. It was a good, innocent, fun time though, playing the sport I loved and not having to deal with the practicalities much - if only that had remained..." She exhales, and perhaps understandably, is reluctant to recall the events that followed that series - which saw her miss part of the 2019 season after Apoxian umpire Pippin Sandstrøm ruled her delivery technique illegal in the first Test against Elejamie. "I was very, very fortunate to have a lot of support,", she summarises, "and I was able to move past it." Today, though, she remains one of the Foxes' key frontline spinners in all formats, and it is hard to imagine a Plough Islands squad that does not include her in the lower order - a look back at the Teusland series is all the evidence needed for her ability to make sure of victory.#4 Andrew BAXTER
Born 9 January 1990, Sutton ☭ Right-hand bat, right-arm fast pace ☭ 36 ODIs; 80 runs at 10.00, 54 wickets at 39.35 (also 28 Tests)
"I wish there was just one memorable match!" Baxter laughs at the thought, his strawberry blonde hair bouncing in waves from the mirth. "Honestly, there are so many games I wish I could forget - I still feel like I struggle with consistency at times, and it can seem like whether a game is good or bad has no relation to how I'm bowling personally...". However, one match eventually begins to present itself to the tall Suttoner. "In all the context, I think it has to be the second Test against Sylestone last year. Not necessarily on raw numbers, although ten for 143 are not match figures I am too unhappy with, but because of everything that was going on around that time."
Baxter had been taking much of the weight of being the Plough Islander pace bowling attack on his sturdy shoulders following the effective retirement of Colin McCarthy and the poor form of Aubrey Wood, and was feeling the pain of the Plough Islands' inconsistent performances particularly hard. "We had just lost a quite depressing series in Krytenia, and we were touring a new country again right on the back of that, barely getting to unpack, which is never a fantastic situation in the first place. And we did not have Kevin Laing, so everyone was having to adjust to his presence not being there on the tour, which meant...nobody ever said there was pressure, but I think we all felt something, if that makes sense?" Baxter had not looked much like a man under pressure in the first Test, but his performance was a little blunted on Betham's rough pitches; spin was the order of the day, and particularly in the second innings he sent down far more wayward balls than he would have wanted.
That changed for the second Test; "The pitch at Avondale was perfect for what I wanted to do. You can play on some grounds and they are like concrete - too much bounce and energy going into the ball, so you just lose control. That pitch gave me just enough bounce to do what I needed to, and no more." What the Foxes needed him to do, in what were very batting-friendly conditions, was strike early and often, and in both innings he delivered; taking just eight deliveries to remove wicketkeeper-captain Luke Tiati on the first day, and finishing with five-wicket hauls in each innings. "I was not really doing anything special," he admits, "just keeping to line and length and trying to be consistent. And it seemed to work pretty well, especially as time went on and the pitch started to break up. From being fifteen runs behind, we were able to get into a fairly achievable target, which I was very happy with my part in..." Though Samuel Asaskia took three wickets to push the Foxes all the way, the Plough Islands held firm and chased down the victory with four wickets and an hour to spare.
"It is hard to explain sometimes to outsiders because the situation is basically reversed everywhere else, but you do feel a little bit as a pace bowler that you are practicing some kind of mystical, arcane art. I mean, what else would require everyone else around you to adjust where they stand and take three times as long as a normal delivery?", Baxter asks. "But when it comes through, you can build up so much momentum when you start picking up wickets. And the psychological effect is not to be sniffed at, either - in a difficult match situation, you want batters to come in being almost afraid of you. And when it works, like in Avondale, it really, really works".#5 Timothy Matthew BLEASDALE
Born 1 June 1989, Liverpool, Great Britain ☭ Right-hand bat, wicket-keeper ☭ 29 ODIs; 633 runs at 37.24 (also 2 Tests)
The intention of this piece was to hear the reflections of the Foxes team on important moments in their career while representing their country; implicit in that was that the matches had to be at senior level, but something inherent in Tim Bleasdale forces him to be contradictory, believing he has a good enough story to get away with it. "I know this was a Twenty20 match," begins the wicketkeeper, gesturing as if to conduct his own voice, "and I know it was a club side, but that game against Aubury was the first time I'd worn the green shirt and lined up against me new countrymen, you know what I mean? It did me the world of good to feel like I belonged..."
If anyone knows what playing for your adopted country means, it would have to be Bleasdale. Three of the current team were born outside the Plough Islands, but he was the only one to have been raised and learned his cricket outside them as well, playing for his local club in Formby before briefly leaving the game while studying for an English Literature degree at Edge Hill University. However, this coincided with a period of increasingly repressive, austere government in Britain, and Bleasdale - whose parents were involved in the socialist Militant movement in the 1980s - found himself increasingly alienated from his homeland. "The thing is, right, nobody was wanting to make things better, and we were just expected to suck it up! And I had just graduated, and progress felt further away than it had ever been before, and I just thought 'to hell with this, the country's showing me the door, I'll see meself out!'". He arrived on the Plough Islands in 2011, and settled in Lainemouth, teaching history, English, and various other subjects at the Troutbeck and Central Lainemouth higher schools.
Cricket was not initially on the agenda at all, but Tim began playing in the evenings at the Lainemouth Carnegie Cricket Club, and his aggressive style - honed on English pitches with lots of bounce - saw him playing in the first XI in short order, and then came the occasional appearance in the Swift Cricket Board sides - followed by regular ones. "I never really thought about it as something serious, like. I didn't have a lot to do when I first arrived, so going out and playing cricket was better than staying in and doing bugger all, you get me?" He was being noticed, though, and became aware in February of 2018 that there was potentially more on the horizon from the Plough Islands Cricket Association. Even so, things escalated quickly once he gained Plough Islander citizenship that August. "I'd only had me new passport for, what, two weeks? Three weeks? And then I was in the squad, and then, all of a sudden, there was meself, Tim from Formby, playing in an international cricket match and representing the Plough Islands." Bleasdale lays out his hands with a disbelieving flourish. "It felt mad, honestly".
There had been less than two weeks between him receiving his passport and embarking for Ko-oren, and the new Plough Islander had to be gently led towards the correct lanes at Echodale Interdimensional when travelling; "I was still so high on the concept of becoming a citizen, y'know, that I ended up in the foreigner lanes out of habit and having a bit of an existential crisis!" Having only arrived in the country forty hours previously, Bleasdale's memories of the match itself - a warm-up for what would be the senior team's first, and only, attempt at entering a World 20-over Championship - consist mostly of a tired fugue of exhaustion and disconnected experiences, and it is perhaps unsurprising that he lasted less than two overs in the List B game before being run out after setting off for a run that was never there. "It was a bit of an anticlimax, yeah", he admits, among other, less printable assessments of his performance. "But you've gotta start somewhere, la. You've got to build up from something, and I've gone from that, to winning regional tournaments, and finding out that I belonged somewhere and could do great things for a higher cause. And it's all been worth it, you get me? I wouldn't change one bit about anything that's happened".#6 Arthur Mikhail DONOVAN
Born 30 April 1989, Redcliff ☭ Right-hand bat, right-arm off spin ☭ 25 ODIs; 446 runs at 22.30 (also 4 Tests)
In many ways - "you are painting a picture I cannot exactly disagree with!" - Donovan perhaps represents an element of Plough Islander cricket far removed from the elite, percentage-seeking athletes fielded by other nations; a player-cum-coach-cum-administrator-cum-politician, Donovan has been a central figure in Redcliff cricket for some time, a virtual ever-present at the Ironworks Ground whose attacking, occasionally reckless batting tells of the inner resolve of the man under the helmet. "I can only think it must run in the family," he admits, recalling his father, a firebrand member of the People's Assembly who proclaimed, with grim accuracy, that the only way he would involuntarily leave the chamber was to the crematorium. "He taught me to be passionate about what I cared about, and that has been Plough Islands cricket, for better or for worse for everyone involved. And for whatever reason, until the game in Barilla, I would lie awake convinced that it was for worse".
Donovan had been a regular member of Plough Islands limited overs squads, but had generally followed a pattern of being selected as a specialist middle-order finisher only to lash out and depart early just as he was getting started; in twenty previous innings, he had passed fifty only once - in the final game of the Polaris Trophy against Ko-oren - and his presence in the squad increasingly seemed difficult to justify from a purely sporting perspective. By the time he travelled with the team to Grande Cucina, this was weighing on nobody more heavily than Donovan himself; "I was trying to repress it on some level, but I had a few conversations with Lourens Hendricks on our off days, normally after being undone by the first good ball I faced. I was seriously considering whether if I was not able to give as much as the team needed, whether there was any point to me being part of the plan any more" However, with the Foxes camp consumed by good feelings following three straight victories to start the tournament off, Donovan was named in the XI to face the hosts at Barilla. After very strong foundations had been laid by the Foxes' top order - with Brett Scarbeck scoring his second international century - the Redcliff right-hander came in against a Grande Cucina bowling attack playing only their fourth full international match. Donovan suddenly found he was fending off more bad balls than good, and he even found himself playing more aggressively as he approached and then passed his fifty. As he swiped at the ball and kept Davide Anellini's team firmly in the role of spectators, racing towards his first international century, he was driven not just by a competitor's instinct but by old doubts that needed to be addressed. "I hate to impugn your publication, but there was something in the Gazette before the tournament that made it seem like I had been picked as a mentor, rather than for my ability, which was...however truthful, it hurt a little to see it in black and white?". Donovan is quick to reassure though that all is forgiven. "I think I just needed an innings like that to drive the doubts away, and did it ever...it was so good to get over the line for three figures. I will be honest, there may have been a few tears afterwards about that. And I could have quite happily kept playing on that pitch in Barilla all day, everything just pitched up right on the middle of the bat"
The Foxes accumulated 411 for 5; Donovan finished unbeaten on 142 runs, by far his career best international score, and was fortunate to have a close up view of the action as Andrew Baxter and Terry Gibbs explored the bounce he had found for wickets, rather than runs. "I was in a really good mood after our innings, so I found fielding quite a bit more enjoyable than I usually do. I stayed out on the third man boundary most of the time and got sunburned on the back of my neck, but it was a small price to pay!" Grande Cucina were restricted to 276, despite Maurizio Treccioni's 111, and Donovan admits it felt "very, very good indeed" to be feted as the hero, with the win all but securing the Plough Islands' qualification to the semi finals. "I had been speaking with Andrew Kulayev before the match, actually, the Plough Radio summariser, and he actually pulled me aside as we came off the pitch and showed me my new career statistics...my average had gone up by eight or nine runs and it suddenly did not seem like such a meagre return from twenty-one matches. It was something I needed to put to rest, I think." And he had, in spectacular fashion; it would seem that there is still more yet for Arthur Donovan to give.#7 Andrew Gabriel FAIRFIELD
Born 7 April 1985, Sutton ☭ Left-hand bat, slow left-arm unorthodox spin ☭ 22 ODIs; 704 runs at 64.00, 20 wickets at 44.95 (also 2 Tests)
Fairfield recounts the details, as only a true statistics geek can, with a smile and a shake of the head. "17 May 2020, Folenisa Cricket Ground, Damukuni 250-5, Plough Islands 250-6, and win after two super overs". Despite his relaxed attitude about it now, at the time there were a lot of emotions centred around and in the New Dalmatian left-arm spinning all-rounder. In particular, there was a degree of incredulity that the Foxes had ended up in this situation at all, where an uncapped veteran - no matter his success at club and board level - had the fate of the Plough Islands' first Global Cricket Federation-sanctioned One Day International in his slim hands.
He had come fairly late to elite cricket; despite showing promise as a teenager in the New Dalmatia age group teams, the sport had always competed with aviation for Fairfield's attention, and he was ultimately drawn to the latter when he left higher school. "My parents were both in the Air Force, so I grew up surrounded by all these stories and memories of planes, and I learned to fly a plane before I could drive a car - it was kind of inevitable, really..." He continued to play cricket, though; turning out at an all-rounder for the Air Force in the Sutcliffe Shield and taking a hat-trick in 2008 against the Naval Force, and - after leaving the force and joining Plough Islands Interdimensional Airlines - becoming an intermittent but impactful presence in New Dalmatian limited-overs teams. The transition to civilian life after seven years of service also freed up time to play cricket, although not quite as much as Fairfield would have liked. "I still have to plan my club games around the route schedule, and that gets a lot harder in the summer when there are Sutcliffe Shield matches on. The Association had to put in a word for me when I got selected for the World Trophy, because that was an entire month..."
That selection, though, followed increasing admiration of his style with both bat and ball, even if Fairfield did not entirely believe it at first. "I had just turned 35, and I think that was the first thing I asked Lourens Hendricks when he made the call - 'you do know how old I am, right?'?" But they did, and not only did Fairfield join the squad in Liventia, he was selected ahead of Jannie Hendricks for the very first match against Damukuni. And chasing 231 on a dusty track in Folenisa, he found himself in the foreground almost immediately when the Plough Islands began to struggle. "I had honestly not expected to have to bat, and when Arthur Donovan fell I realised I had not planned at all - I had to get ready very quickly, and I realised when I got to the middle that the bat I had grabbed had yellow and black washers on the handle - and mine had green ones!" He laughs, his tall frame doubling over. "So I played the last five overs, and hit those sixes, with what turned out to be Colin McCarthy's bat! I think he forgave me though - we got so close to the total..." Close, but not quite close enough; one behind, with one ball left, Fairfield was only able to eke out a single, and the "Super Over" - both of them! - that ensued became infamous.
"I was not really involved in the first one, I just fielded backwards of square and the ball came near me once." The first such over, though, finished with the scores still level, and after a brief information vacuum - "possibly the least organised moment I have been involved in, still, in multiversal cricket..." - it became clear that a second one would need to be bowled. "Kevin [Laing] was scrambling for players, Naomi [Salisbury] had just bowled the last over and could not bowl both, and I put my hand up. Kevin kept a very close field and I tried to keep the ball low where I could. The pitch was awful by then, and it seemed to work - I had to dive down to my right once or twice to stop the ball, though, as the main gap was behind me..." He managed to restrict the Damukunians to just five, but there was one more twitch left in the tale, as Laing and Shauna Weaver struggled on the lifeless pitch, and were only able to get three runs by the time Shunsuke Konishi came in for the very last delivery. Did Fairfield look as the offspinner bowled to Weaver? "Something inside me compelled me to, but the entire time my heart was sinking horribly. It was like when something goes wrong in the cockpit and you're over water - just the worst feeling, you want to be anywhere else but you have to be there..." He sighs. "It all worked out, though!"
If history had permitted Fairfield just that one incident in his sporting career - as, with the New Dalmatian already a surprise selection for the first match, had seemed likely - he readily admits that "twenty years of on and off cricket would have been worth it for that alone", but far from a lighting up Liventia for just that brief moment, it was merely the spark that lit the flames of an unexpected international career. Since that day, with age apparently failing to dull his ability, Fairfield has enjoyed an extended run as part of the national setup, even making his Test debut against Ko-oren last year at the age of 36, and is beyond pleased at his belated recognition. "You never know when something will happen," he reasons, "and all this will come to an end. So I am going to enjoy myself and give as much as I can, while I can, while all this lasts".#8 Arnoldus Johannes HENDRICKS
Born 19 August 1999, Knysna, Republic of South Africa ☭ Right-hand bat, right-arm leg spin ☭ 14 ODIs; 368 runs at 33.45, 8 wickets at 76.25
"You know, I am going to have to present this in context, almost." Jannie - as Arnoldus Johannes Hendricks has been known since before he could walk - speaks deliberately, with the cadence of someone very aware that he has a story that needs to be presented. "The match itself - against Sajnur in Liventia during the World Trophy - was a fairly routine one, but everything that led up to it made it quite important..."
Metaphorically, he has not come a long way, but in another sense, he very much has. Jannie was born in a two-room house on the outskirts of Knysna, in South Africa, tens of thousands of kilometres away; his mother Hentie came to the Plough Islands as soon as her baby was old enough to travel, joining her husband Lourens, then a youth coach with the New Dalmatia Cricket Board. The family would stay permanently when Lourens was taken on by the Plough Islands Cricket Association in Sutton, and understandably the young Jannie "grew up obsessed with cricket, it was everywhere I looked and went", playing in a schools match at December Park aged eight. In his teens, he began to grow into a tenacious, gritty batter, making his way through the Sutton & Avalon and national youth setups and travelling to the World 20-over Championships in Liventia in 2019 with the Young Foxes. Notably, his rise was unaided by his father, who maintains a professional distance from his son's career and refers in interviews to "the boy" from within a cloud of flustered, disinterested affection, but an interview on the eve of the match revealed the pride his father had.
"Dad had Paul Donaghy [former Plough Islands wicketkeeper] present me with my cap - he told me he would just have been in tears throughout if he had done it. I did not realise until afterwards, you know? And then we actually started - Sajnur were batting, and it was a really hard pitch with a lot of bounce, so I had to bowl quite full to keep any control over the ball - and I hardly ever bowl more than a good length normally..." With the Sajnur opener Gabriela Fiume in particularly fine form, Hendricks admits his bowling was "fairly awful", getting hit for 54 from eight overs and his only real contribution coming from a fairly routine catch to dismiss Solomon Tawas at third slip. Despite Sajnur setting a daunting 338 to chase, though, the Plough Islands proved equal to the challenge, and when Hendricks came in at number seven the Foxes needed 35 from eleven overs. "Shauna [Weaver] was well set by that point, she had passed three figures and was just having fun, and she gave me a hug when I got to the middle and told me to just enjoy myself. And I think I did..."
Jannie blocked out his first ball, but then dove into the second one and drove it back down past Toljo Jorse for a boundary, and this rather set the tone for his innings; he weaved and shuffled around the crease, looking for and often finding the angles to get the ball through the gaps in the field. "I figured that, even if I was going to go out prematurely, I was at least going to go out playing the cricket I wanted to play. It was going to be a statement, one that I had to be proud of, one way or another!" The way it worked out could scarcely have been better, as with the Foxes just three runs behind, the right-hander struck Nikolas Burovin cleanly into the leg side, and the Sajnurans called off their chase as the ball bobbled towards and over the rope. "It was a fantastic feeling," remembers Hendricks, with some pride in his voice, "and it sounds cheesy, but you really felt the gratitude from every single player and Plough Islander that we had out there. I was used to people recognising me before but this felt on another level, it was almost enough to make you feel a bit like an impostor. But I was proud, very proud."
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