Some people walk at a different pace than others. Take JC, although he of course also used a different surface than others. We have our own JC, for one tour many tours ago Dickie Broggel was thus nicknamed in a premonition of the events late in the game ACC4-VOC4 last monday.

Let me give you the situation. We are chasing 221. We have one wicket in hand and need a run a ball in the last over. Thats after needing almost 10 an over for quite some time so the mood is good. But only one wicket and that's Paddy who is injured. In fact three players came out of the first innings injured, including Dickie JC Broggel, who hurt his side bowling curveballs. So there was unusual animo for the spots down the order, Dickie got the penultimate slot but was called on late in the game. After a few balls he winces and calls for a runner. Richard Wolfe who had just come off the field as a runner for his brother (the third injury) could pad up again making it his third time in the innings.

 

What happened next led to the call for the book.

Now the other JC managed to get written about in the ultimate bestseller of all time. But it wasn't that book that was called for. It wasn't a thesaurus either although the author is now tempted to look up words to describe Dicks ambling to the other side, did he saunter, glide, perambulate or locomote from one crease to the other? No, once Dick traversed the 22yards the book that was called for was the book of laws. That was the kind of game we were in, ladies and gentlemen. The laws needed to be called on. For what we had just witnessed was a transcendent bit of evidence that different trajectories exist that can be on different planes at the same time and are travelled at different speeds but are yet all susceptible to the same laws. Our two PhD professors (yes, ACC4 needs two as I am sure you can grasp from this story alone) both shook there heads at what they had witnessed and grappled with a theorem or two to explain it. But as the Romans said in the other JC's days: Give me the facts, and I'll give you the law. So that is what I shall try to do. What actually happened?

The facts:
Our JC, Dick, hit the ball to what can safely be described as the long-on region. Bodies started moving. Haans at the nonstrikers end towards the strikerscrease and back again. Substitute runner Richard from the grass near the strikerscrease towards the bowlerscrease and back again. Any impartial observer would be forgiven at this point to think that ACC had just added two vital runs and had reached 119 intheir quest for 122. However in the time it took those two ratracelovers to sojourn from one end to another and back again, JC had madea journey of his own... without seemingly touching the ground JC himself floated from one crease to another and took up his place on the other side. Had it been Ascension day rather than Pinksteren one might have seen deeper meaning in it all and stood in appropriate awe. As it was, people started shouting, Dick seemed mildly amused that he was now on the same side as Haans and that only the substitute runner was back where the wicketkeeper was clamoring for the ball which he indeed did receive and bails were removed.

Oh dear.

But he was inside his crease. The wrong crease. He was out. He should have ran back as well. Or not at all. But at least they did make the one run then... so the score goes back to 118? This is where the book was called on. Their Keeper with uncanny insight, given what he had been up to all night, claimed that perhaps this was a stumping rather than a runout and there was no run at all. The score should go back to 117. He claimed that it was a 22 yard stumping, as Sir Donald Bradman says, if you are going to go down the pitch you might as well go a long way. But I doubt even the Don ever saw anyone stumped by 22 yards and thus deprived of the crucial runs in the dying over of a match filled with dying men. Amazingly, after much ado, we agreed to finish the four remaining balls, see what would happen and discuss what the book said afterwards. So when we reached 122 with two balls left we played on, considering we may be tied rather than ahead. It was a shame a wide decided everything, but the best part was perhaps yet to come, as the third innings contained speeches, book readings and incredulous acheing and happy moaning. The third innings was won cleanly by VOC and lets be fair, thats whats it all about. Here are the batting scores:

Bert Haartskeerl 18
Mike Walsh 0
Richard Matchett 28
Usman Hadi 14
Nagesh Danturti 16
Robert Wolfe 53
Richard Wolfe 16
Haans Smout 41 n.o.
Dick Broggel 6
Patrick Phillips 1 n.o.
Phil Spierings had to leave early

and the law:
if he is out of his ground when the wicket is put down at thewicket-keeper's end, he will be out in the circumstances of Law 38 (Run out) or Law 39 (Stumped) irrespective of the position of the non-striker or of the runner. If he is thus dismissed, runs completed by the runner and the other batsman before the dismissal shall not be scored.