Ian Botham, Headingley 1981

Monty and Jimmy, Cardiff 2009

Ben Stokes, Everywhere 2019

Bathampton Sloths Indoor Cricket Team, Ralph Allen School 2024

The Racing Snake, Bathampton 2026.

Another epic chapter has been added to the decorated annals of cricket, as Bathampton Sloths hold their nerve to majestically win by one run against The Royal Oak in a thrilling Tuesday night encounter. The stage for this ultimate showdown was set with The Oak requiring 35 runs to win off the final five overs, batters settled nicely at the crease with some heavyweight Sloth bowlers to come. It had been a tight tussle throughout but many observers at the evening’s proceedings may never have dreamed of how it ended.

4 Sloths arrived at 5.45pm and were so incredibly proud of themselves that they all chatted away happily for 10 minutes. It only then occurred to them that The Royal Oak had been warming up in full kit for the last half an hour and were asking who our captain was because they actually wanted to play the match. In true Spiderman-meme style, we all pointed to each other.

Then all pointed to the man setting up a blanket and a cushion under the nearest tree as he settled down to continue watching Ben Stokes bat in the One Day Cup on his phone. The Colonel duly took up the mantle with Porridge declaring that he would love nothing more than to be captained by him and would run into machine gun fire for him, as long as The Colonel went first. Planning to bat first, Colonel’s Kernels then lost the toss and somehow they put us in anyway. During this, Ish and George went to flag out the boundary, only took enough for half and gave up. The Royal Oak continued to be unimpressed by the ramshackle Sloths sauntering in, most with big grins on their faces as they were only 10 minutes late, and so a triumphant start.

Ish and Nick set the tone of the match- being successful about 40% of the time. Some outrageously good looking swings and misses, dances down the pitch to miss the ball completely were juxtaposed against some beautiful clean hits over the boundary by Ish and some caressed runs by Nick which were almost as smooth as his hair. The Oak’s early determination paid off with a few quick wickets of unfortunate Rick and George (who were saving themselves for the winning moments later in the game) and finally giving Ish enough runs to retire, never has the phrase ‘end of the over’ been so expensive as Ish blasted 3 4s in a row to finish on 35.

Nick and the Colonel then brought back the momentum, with Nick continuing in the anchor role as Colonel took on his usual role of heaving everything leg side without being able to hit one proper cricket shot. A retirement’s a retirement however and once him and Nick had sauntered off for around 20 each, Oak’s acorns seemed to sprout and the bowling suddenly had much more grit to it, with Harry, Monty and Brent falling in quick succession. The run rate slowed to a near grinding halt, and then Luke came out and decided to see what he could do to make it even slower. The tail wagged very gently, with Joel hitting a 1 more than Monty, then paying the match report writer a fiver to add that to the report, and Ish coming back in to top his final run score up to 37 with a quick 2.

The target was 124, there were nervous sloths a plenty, other than Luke who was still just excited to be following the colonel into machine gun fire, albeit as a human shield. It turns out the one man we all should have stood behind was Ish, who (after being put in at a close extra cover in an inspired move by the captain) took 2 very quick catches to start the felling of the Oak in fine fashion. Tom opened up from the bottom end superbly, delivering one fine catch up Ish. When facing a mighty Oak there is only one mammal we turn to, luckily we had a beaver sub specially for the job, Harry Gunning came in and rattled the stumps with a beautiful yorker, gnawing away at the wickets early.

Wickets started to come thick and fast, with some truly un-slothlike fielding, clinging onto our catches, with Joel bowling a legendary spell down the hill, Monty coming up the hill with his dad crying ‘no honestly, Monty really did want to bowl up the hill’. Ish sped in and kept things tight with Brent holding up the canal end in fine fashion. Balls were going directly to the superb fielding positions the colonel was setting, with every wicket, the skipper smugly walked into the huddle chanting ‘fielding positions guys… it’s all about the fielding positions…’

Things were going well for the sloths, so there was only one thing for it. After last week’s direct assault on his unmentionables, ‘porridge’ referred to the state of a certain body part of Luke’s this week, and so he came in to ensure things didn’t go smoothly for the sloths, serving up beautiful short dibbly dobblers which the batters gobbled up happily and deposited over the short boundary, which Luke wasn’t watching as he was busy making sure everything was entact.

25 was needed off the last 4 overs, George and Rick were asked to finish off the job. Things weren’t helped by the Colonel letting through a 4 having been flirting with his beautiful girlfriend on the boundary, who he wants to thank personally for putting up with cricket for the evening and then cooking him dinner. And for not following Gorgeous George on Instagram.

Things were tight, it looked like Oak would be getting across the line, some outstanding fielding from Tom and Monty kept us in the game till the last few balls, a new batter at the crease and 2 runs to win off 3 balls. A near run out- claims of it hitting the stumps while not in Rick’s hand led to a near world cup final-esk fight with tempers reaching the levels of ‘Oh I’m not quite sure about that, but okay!’. Things were getting heated. Penultimate ball was a beautiful legside delivery straight into the gloves of Nick who had been a legend behind the stumps all day. 2 off the last to win, Rick streaks in and delivers a ball which will go down into the annals of history, pushing 80mph, inswinging a mile, bounding outside off and pitching it to rattle the stumps.

Pandemonium ensued- the sloths walking in slowly to give Rick a gentle high five with sloths losing their mind with excitement, the phrase ‘that was pretty good, wasn’t it’ was heard, along side Luke grinning in the middle of the huddle asking everyone ‘How did we do that, are we sure that’s right?’. Somewhere a New Zealand commentator yelled ‘By the barest of margins!’ and the sloths returned victorious over the mighty oak.

Questions remain, will Monty ever be allowed to bowl down the hill, Is Rick the tall goate’d Ben Stokes the world has been waiting for, can Colonel save his relationship with Natalie despite letting a 4 through his legs right in front of her, will Porridge ever be whole again, will Ish ever drop a catch, but the question of whether sloths and a beaver can fell an Oak certainly got answered.