Ten men cannot just disappear. It just can’t happen.
THINK AGAIN.
Last Sunday in a 50-over game of cricket against Seaton Carew, Bartley Castle 2nd team disappeared from their dressing room. Just one man, wicketkeeper batsmen Derek Pyn, remained. He takes up the story:
We won the toss and chose to bowl first. I can’t say it went well. If anything, the opposite. It went badly. Their opening pair put on 236 in 30 overs before we got a wicket, and they finished on 403-1. Which might be a record for the one-day game. Could you check?
I did check. It wasn’t. Pyn continued:
So we were really up against it, and when I came in at number seven, we’d only added 43. It was a bit of a shambles, and Seaton finished third from bottom last year. Didn’t bode well for the season. There was real gloom in the dressing room and it didn’t help when Joe started playing practical jokes with a flower that squirts water. I lost a couple of partners in the middle and we were on 57-8 when Alec played a stupid premeditated sweep, mistimed it completely, and got caught at first slip. So he trudges off at 57-9 and we all wait for Terry, our last man, to come out.
Except Terry never did come out. After the appropriate juncture, the umpire gave him out: timed out and declared Seaton Carew the winners. And Derek Pyn returned to the Bartley Castle dressing room as his team’s high scorer on 11 not out, to find it deserted.
Their kit bags were still there, their bats were still there, even Jim’s spare pads, the ones he accidentally dyed pink in the wash, were still there. Their non-cricket clothes were all still folded up or on their pegs. They’d taken nothing.
EXCEPT THEMSELVES. With the exception of Derek Pyn, the entire team had disappeared – with only the clothes they stood up in.
Local, regional and national government have shown, as usual, a shameful lack of concern about the disappearance of AN (almost) ENTIRE CRICKET TEAM.
Bartley Castle’s next opponents, Marton, were declared winners by default. Do you have ANY INFORMATION that may lead to their discovery, and enable them to fulfil their forthcoming fixture against Bishop Auckland? If so, please contact this site. Poor Derek Pyn doesn’t even have anyone to net with, and he is quickly losing form.
