In one of the most lopsided scorecards in cricket history, a London club side lost a 45-over per side match by 424 runs after being bowled out for just two runs on Saturday.
Rubbing further salt into the wounds of the Richmond Cricket Club fourth XI is that they won the toss and chose to field first in their crushing defeat to North London Cricket Club’s third XI.
They chased leather for several hours as North London piled on 6-426 before being knocked over for just two runs in the space of 34 balls.
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Eight Richmond batters were dismissed for a duck, while only one player managed to get off the mark with the number nine left stranded on zero not out.
Only ten players batted as injuries mounted with one player breaking a finger, another doing their hamstring and another being hit in the head.
In an interview on British radio, North London’s captain Tom Spawton revealed his side could have been even more clinical in the field.
“One of the two runs was a wide, the other was a dropped catch at slip,” he told Talksport. “We came away from the game thinking that we could have realistically bowled them out for zero.”
The photo of the scorecard has understandably gone viral after BBC Sport shared it across their social media platforms.
Richmond is a proud club that has been fielding cricket teams in west London since 1862, and they once boasted a teenage Adam Gilchrist as an overseas player in the firsts before he scaled the heights of international cricket.
But deputy chairman and head of cricket Steve Deakin, told the Telegraph that a “perfect storm” took place in the lead-up to the Middlesex County Cricket League – 3rd Tier Division One encounter.
The match fell on a public holiday weekend in the United Kingdom, and mass unavailability lead to the club putting out side’s containing several players who had hardly ever played cricket before.
“Our availability this week was really bad,” Deakin said. “We had about 40 players unavailable across our five men’s teams. We were struggling already, then had seven dropouts over Thursday and Friday. That trickles down and affects the fourths. The captains were calling friends of friends of friends just to get our teams on the pitch.
“It was the perfect storm, with a few lads who don’t play much cricket playing for us, and at the other end, a perfect storm with North London, who were able to put out a very strong third XI.”
Spawton realised upon arrival at the ground that the opposition was weakened, while North London were boosted by neither their firsts or seconds having a game that day.
“They struggled to get a team together, what with it being a bank holiday,” he said.
“There were a few lads saying ‘nice to meet you’ [to each other] before the game. There were a couple of lads wearing black trainers, which is a good sign [that they do not play often].”
North London’s opening batter Dan Simmons belted 140 to top score, but extras was the next highest contributor with 92, including 63 wides.
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With the ball, Matt Rosson took a five-wicket haul without conceding a run as Spawton took three wickets and conceded the entire Richmond total off his bowling.
As is often the case in batting collapses, there was a comedic run out among the carnage.
“I felt for their lads after,” Spawton said. “It was a mixture of being embarrassed for them and also finding it quite funny.
“It’s not good for cricket. I did overhear a few of their lads saying: ‘Oh I’m not playing cricket again.’”
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Deakin said Richmond were looking forward to redeeming themselves with the two sides meet again later in the season.
“There’s no complaints from us. It’s a freakish thing. It was a perfect storm with a mismatch. We have all played mismatched games but they don’t often turn out like that,” he said.
“We are a strong club. We have five sides out on a Saturday and all five are in the top division we could possibly play in. We are the only club in the league that has that.
“We have a young side, with kids at school and uni and tend to get stronger in the latter half of the season. So we look forward to the return fixture!”