By Rob Sawyers
If June was about celebrating 50 years of Dave Parsons and July was about Hannah Fosbrey’s century heroics, August was about the achievements of one young man - step forward Oscar Harman.
There is a whiff of the Phil Tuffnell’s about Oscar, his blonde hair is a bit too long, he is chirpy on the field, one hopes at his age he is not having a crafty fag behind the pavilion but you get the picture. Even so, when skipper Matt Parsons threw him the ball during a T20 match against Burgess Hill we were not prepared for the carnage to come.
Ball one: Straight bat, respectfully played. Ball two: Tossed up, possibly slower, the confident batter took a stride forward and attempted to put the ball into the next county and misread the pace, instead picking out Tony Andrews who took a good catch in the deep. Ball three: This gentleman had not being paying attention, a nicely flighted ball which dipped late, the batter possibly had his eyes closed since he tried the same tactic, tried to smash it, bowled! Ball four: Their batter did not exactly stride to the wicket, possibly detecting that he was on a hiding to nothing. We tried to calm down, to give Oscar the maximum chance to pull off the rarest of cricketing achievements. From my position close to the bat, I thought I saw Oscar’s eyes narrow slightly, in the manner of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. A few steps to the crease, a grunt as the ball was released (actually more of a squeak) it bounced and skidded on, keeping low, inexplicably the batsman played back, jumping slightly and waving his bat nowhere near the ball which struck him shin high. Plumb! Hat trick!
In village cricket, there is always a variable, the umpire is usually one of the batting sides players, but the fellow was a decent sort and up went the finger, sparking socially distanced pandemonium.
Ball five: A brief respite for the batting side. Ball six: This one had a bit more air, the batter totally misread it, clipping it to silly mid on where I was lurking, I say lurking, frankly I could have written my shopping list before taking the easiest of catches.
First over, four wickets, no runs. We hope that Oscar will play for many years at Hurst CC, if he bowls a better over than the one we were lucky enough to witness on a sunny August evening I would love to see it. Well done Oscar!