Profile: RHB, SLA

 

Tweet dis: Opera-loving Tyke, foodie blogger and intercontinental ski-bum.

Leaves the slopes to spin it more than Clayders (which isn’t saying much).

 

Pen portrait: With the retirement of Hugh, and Clayders intent on becoming a medium-weak Darren Lehmann, Tom is the leading spinner in the club. Confirmation of that was his 22 wickets in 2013; the highlight being a sixfer against Highgate, the low point (also under his own aegis) being the shellacking administered by Billy Wood of Palm Tree. (You can’t say that Tom led from behind.) Possibly the poshest man to set foot in Talgarth, he endeared himself to tourists with a repertory theatre of nicknames: in descending order of comprehensibility – Cumberbatch, Nova and Frank. He bats unflappably from 1 to 11 like a fellow Yorkshire slow-left-armer, Wilfred Rhodes, and his opening partnership with Pokerface at Ewyas Harold equalled the club record for any wicket. Tom marks himself out as captaincy material by sharing Mike’s penchant for flip-flops in almost all conditions. RC

Profile: RHB, left-arm tasty

 

Tweet dis: Jazz-trumpeting, bass-rocking Cape Town seamer: everything about Cunners is swing, dude. Laid-back, he dodges pressure with a talented grin.

 

Pen portrait: So relaxed he somehow glide-levitates to the crease, then follows a whirligig of arms about a bobbing bowl of flaxen hair, that’s Cunners. Exit stage left from this maelstrom the cherry; scything through the air with all the swing of a Densmore drum line, it hits the seam – not with the malice of intent but the insouciant tyranny of beauty – and rears up from a length to thrill everybody but he who took his guard with justifiable trepidation (witness Warne of Kings, Kempton in 2011). If only Nick would get angry, we would have our own awesome Akram, vicious Voce, surly Schultz. But that’s not the style of a Renaissance Man for whom cricket, like his bass guitar, his ancient history, his thigh support and his karaoke, is just one of many pursuits that blend languidly into an easygoing life. OC