Exiles skipper Andrew Wingfield reached a landmark for the club on 29th June when he took his 100th wicket in the win over Giltec. The Exiles website thought it appropriate to ask him about his achievement…and naturally the skip obliged with a deluge of stats.

Andy, congratulations, 100 wickets in your 100th appearance for the team, must be glad to have finally reached the landmark?

Yep – after a slowish start to my exiles career, the wickets have come pretty steadily in the last couple of seasons. It is also a great honour to be following in the footsteps of the likes of Naren Patel and Jeff Hilson in taking 100 wickets for the club.

Any particular bowling spell stand out?

The ones in my first full season stand out most: my first spell for the club – against Clapham Nomads in June 2003, which although wicket-less, showed me that I could be a capable bowler at this level, my spell against the Whalers the following week – when I took my first 3 wickets for the club, including 2 in the first over of the match, and my 5 for 44 against WICC in the last game of that season – my first, and so far only 5 wicket haul in adult cricket – made all the more satisfying that all 5 wickets were my own work – 2 bowled, 2 caught & bowled and even one lbw.

How has captaincy affected your bowling, if at all?

I hope it has affected my bowling positively – certainly my average as a bowler is lower as captain (59 wickets @ 22.93) than not (41 wickets at 27.51) – but I feel this is just as likely due to increased bowling experience as much as captaincy responsibility

What is your next target? Jeff Hilson’s haul should be in your reach in a couple of seasons for example.

I think Jeff’s 157 tally is a bit distant at the moment! And I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to somehow convince him into playing regularly in the not too distant future – so that it’ll take me a little longer to catch him. I’m the 7th bowler to reach 100 for the Exiles and I think it’s possible to catch Matt Cook (114) and Sam Scott (120) this season to get me up to 5th. It could take some time to match Naren’s 254 though!!

Any wicket taking ball you fondly remember….and any you prefer to forget?

Without doubt the ‘Thanks Andy’ wicket is a fond memory – though more for the comedy value that the brilliance of the bowling. I usually get most satisfaction from getting a batsman out bowled or caught behind and if it’s a key player as well then that’s a bonus – getting Steve Thody of Agricola caught behind a couple of years ago springs to mind. I enjoyed number 99, which came on Sunday, as the guy looked a decent batter and it was pleasing to see a yorker get through and hit off, whilst I guess I’ll always remember number 100 – an important wicket in the context of the game, caught in the deep by Jasper.

Any bowler, Exiles or otherwise, who you have tried to learn from?

Of course Jeff, on the style front, is certainly poet-in-motion, ahem, but Naren has continued to demonstrate that you don’t need to necessarily bowl as fast as you can to take wickets. If I’m half the bowler he is at his age, I’ll be delighted.

With most Exiles games being 40 overs, which is more important to you – taking wickets or keeping the runs down?

Bit of both – depending on circumstances – obviously wicket taking is satisfying – but sometimes just feeling you’ve done a good shift in a close win is as satisfying as taking 3 wickets on an easier day.

That said, this Sunday just gone is a good example of the benefits of wicket taking – after we had batted our way to a record score, Giltec were obviously going to come out all guns blazing – so to get 2 early wickets on a flat track was important to stop them building a platform – even if I did give away a few runs in that opening 5 over spell.

Only conceding 27 runs in my full 8 overs against Agricola when they scored 262-2 against us recently was also quite satisfying on a personal note (though on a tough day for the club) – especially managing to avoid conceding a boundary in my final 3 over spell that day – when the likes of Almond, Thody and Yates were throwing the bat.

Is there any opponents or grounds that you have enjoyed, or not enjoyed, bowling against over the years?

WICC stand out a mile in my personal bowling stats – I’ve taken 17 wickets against them – which is totally bizarre, considering they’re normally a pretty good side (coincidentally – or perhaps not – I’ve also scored more runs against WICC than anyone else as well!) and my second most is the Strollers, who I have 9 wickets against. The teams I’ve found hardest to take wickets against are North Croydon/Merton (2) and British Library (5 – but I’ve bowled more overs against them than anyone).

I’ve got most wickets on Chiswick B (22) – but I’ve bowled far more overs there than anywhere else; Chiswick is, I think, a very fair cricket ground – there’s some help for the bowlers at the start and ends of the season, but its hard going in July!

Pitches that offer a lot of help to the bowlers are fun – Barnes Elms for example – but strangely enough, I think I enjoy bowling at the John Innes Rec – the home of North Croydon/Merton – as much as anywhere – despite the fact that its normally very tough to get wickets there – I enjoy the challenge as well as the ground itself

Interview by Jasper Searle, 30 June 2008

On the 11th May 2008 long serving Mark Bradshaw became the first Energy Exile to break the momentous figure of 5000 career runs since he joined the club more than 10 years ago in 1996. Another result of John Priestland’s recruitment campaign, I think I first met Mark at an away game against Harrowdene, though this is difficult to verify as Mark for many years has been my cricketing memory bank.

He joined a rather disorganised group of cricketers with a shared love of the greatest game in the world. Captained by a man who frequently decided whether to bat or field without looking at the pitch, a wicket keeper who didn’t believe in stopping balls down the leg-side unless edged and a fast bowler who was more concerned with his piles than mastering the arts of fast bowling. Add to that a Cumbrian with dreadlocks to the small of his back who never seemed to bowl a ball not on the stumps, a founder member who was then and still is a severe judge of batting and a miserly bowler whose son, initially our scorer, is now a mainstay of the batting line-up. And they were the sane ones. What he thought when he first played for us is difficult to know, but whatever he thought he seemed to slip seamlessly into the ethos of Exiles cricket. His first few games were a steep learning curve. Having been brought up on pitches in Lincolnshire where the ball often didn’t get above shin height, he initially struggled to deal with the bouncier wickets of the South. Quickly he got the hang of it, eradicating his propensity to cut the ball in the air and he rapidly moved up the order establishing himself as the Exiles top batsman.

Over the next ten years Mark became one of our most consistent performers with the bat only being challenged when Keith Roberts and Jon Taylor joined the club. Not only was he our premier batsman but he also became one of the Exiles most strident cricket evangelists. He has given everything to this club without ever seeking any reward. An enthusiastic tourist, he organised and kept everyone amused on our yearly excursions to Grantham. He introduced many a bemused Southerner to the local nightlife personally demonstrating how and how not to behave. His various drunken speeches on the importance of ‘cricket fitness’ were common, my particular favourite was his tirade directed at Jeff who was in the process of eating a kebab in Leicester, ‘Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh don’t eat kebabs’ he forcefully maintained between sips of his favourite brand of vodka, Morrinov. Without his input the yearly tour would have ended years ago.

Mark’s contribution to the club is immeasurable. From his successful captaincy, his tireless encouragement of lesser batsman, his role as team jester, club historian and general good egg were all backed up by his wholehearted dedication to the cause of the Energy Exiles. Playing for the Exiles for me would have been a lot less enjoyable over the years if Mark had decided to play for a proper club rather than doss with a bunch of cricket misfits.

Well done Mark, here’s to another 5000 runs.

Author Wil Scott

Many congratulations to Mark on reaching such an impressive landmark!

The stats don’t lie – he has been our most valuable, most consistent batsman. Not only is he nearly 1,000 runs ahead of his nearest rival (and unlikely ever to be caught), but he has 6 of the top 10 highest season aggregates, and 2 of the 3 highest partnerships, not to mention being one of only four centurions in the club’s history. But the stats barely tell half the story. It has been a privilege to have been at the other end of the pitch while he’s scored quite a few of those runs – here are a few random reflections on what I’ve learned in that time:

Mark has phenomenal powers of concentration – a “proper” batsman prepared to work for his runs, but one who’s also always looking to move the score along, and rarely lets a bad ball go unpunished;

An amazing cricket memory – my first thought, on hearing that he scored his 5000th run, was that I wouldn’t mind betting he’d be able to give a pretty good account of the other 4999, but that’s not fair, because he’d probably be able to give a decent account of most of my runs, not to mention those of most of the rest of the club (and in particular those of such batting stalwarts as Chris Bunton and James Airey). More importantly, it wouldn’t be unusual for him to be able to tell me what to expect from some 3rd change opposition bowler who played against us once 5 years previously;

what an all-rounder – batsman, wicket-keeper, captain, safe pair of hands in the field, not to mention amateur commentator, often while participating in the game (usually he gets away with this, but no-one who saw it will forget the “Thanks Andy” with which he greeted a shortish delivery from our current skipper, while moonlighting for Newage a few years ago, before slapping it straight into cover’s hands!). There is of course an exception that proves the rule, and there remains an unclaimed (and unwanted?) place in Exiles history for the skipper who brings Mark on to bowl;

As Wil comments in his piece, Mark has always shown unfailing support for other players in the side, provided that is, of course, they are committed and trying their best. Woe betide, however, anyone who fails this reasonable test (I daresay Mark would be able to guess who of Exiles past I have in mind); and finally and most importantly

a good friend without whom my time playing for the Exiles would not have been half as much fun as it has been.

Well done, mate!

Author Keith Roberts