A car park cricket league in Alvaston has entered the third day of a disciplinary hearing over whether a wheelie bin counts as a fielder. Officials have chartered drones and reviewed footage shot largely of the sky. The ECB's investigation into England bowler Brydon Carse was dismissed by the panel as paperwork.
The stump behind the Hollow Bush is a length of drainpipe, taped to a fence post at knee height. On Tuesday evening, in the last over of a light that was already gone, it was hit. Cricket has not been the same since.
The Alvaston & District Car Park Cricket Confederation is now in the third day of a full disciplinary hearing into the delivery. Three drones have been chartered. A folding table has been carried into a function room above the pub and does not come out.
At issue is whether the batter was leg before wicket, or whether the ball struck a wheelie bin first. The bin was in position. Nobody disputes that. What the Confederation must decide is whether the bin was fielding.
"This is the biggest call in the history of tarmac cricket," said Vernon Slack, the Confederation's disciplinary commissioner, speaking from behind a stack of phone footage. "Men have gone to sea for less."
Three angles, no answers
The Confederation has reviewed footage from three sources. One phone was held sideways. One was recording the sky. The third belongs to a spectator who was, by his own admission, buying chips at the moment of impact.
Slack described the evidence as thin but heroic.
"You are looking at grainy, hand-held, unlit footage of a drainpipe," he said. "And out of that murk, we must find truth. That is what this competition asks of a man."
The batter has not spoken publicly. The bowler has requested that his surname be withheld from proceedings, which the Confederation has granted on the grounds that it does not know it.
The groundsman holds the line
Dez Farrow keeps the car park. He paints the boundary in chalk every fortnight and has done since the surface was resurfaced.
He arrived at the hearing carrying the drainpipe in a bin bag, which he set on the folding table without a word.
"That is the wicket," Farrow said. "I taped that pipe to that post in the rain, on my own, before anyone else turned up. You cannot teach that kind of grit."
Farrow believes the bin was a fielder. He also believes the bin has been a fielder for three seasons and that everyone knew it.
"A bin does not need to want to field. A bin fields by standing there. That is the whole beauty of the bin."
That position is contested by Trisha Longbottom, the Confederation's head of match integrity, who has been on site since Wednesday morning with a clipboard and a folding chair.
"If a bin is a fielder, then the fence is a fielder, and then the pub is a fielder," Longbottom said. "At that point we are not playing cricket. We are playing furniture."
Rolling coverage, cold chips
Three supporters have kept vigil in the car park since the hearing opened. They have brought a camping stove. They are not leaving until the ruling comes down.
Longbottom said the Confederation understands the weight of the moment.
"People have taken time off for this," she said. "One lad swapped a shift. That is what the sport does to a person."
The Confederation has warned that a ruling may not arrive before the weekend. Slack said the panel would sit as long as it takes, and that sandwiches had been ordered.
Elsewhere in cricket
In other news, the England and Wales Cricket Board says it is looking into an incident involving the England fast bowler Brydon Carse, who was filmed in police handcuffs outside a bar in Derby after Durham beat Derbyshire inside three days. He was released without charge. Matthew Potts and Ben Stokes appear briefly in the footage.
The Confederation was asked whether that matter had reached its attention.
"We are aware of it," Slack said. "Administrative. Paperwork. The professionals have people for that."1
He then returned to the drainpipe.
"There is no committee coming to save us," Slack said. "There is a bin, a pipe and a chalk line, and three of us in a room above a pub deciding what cricket is."
Farrow has already repainted the boundary for the next fixture. He works alone, on his knees, in the dark, with a supermarket bag over the chalk to keep the damp off.2
Footnotes.
The Confederation has no paperwork. It has a notebook, and the notebook is Farrow's. ↩
The next fixture is Tuesday. The bin will be there. Its status remains unresolved. ↩
