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Firstly I must say that I am privileged to have been asked to write the match report for Saturdays game against South Park, I feel capable to do this as I think I am now in tune with North Holmwoods humour considering the amount of “humour” that I had directed at me on Saturday after the game. I am now fully aware that I can consider myself vertically challenged, the message was received loud and clear and I am now actively trying to recruit new playing members under 5ft in height so that I can join in taking the pi** out of short people.
Anyway, to the game, The weather was fair with a few clouds, South Park Turned up looking confident (4th position in the league) and having won their last two games, How wrong can you be! We were missing three of our regulars, Nobby, Adam and of course the Chairman who had decided that singing hymns at a wedding service was more important than playing cricket? But we had more than adequate replacements for the missing three, in Dave Welton, Des and a new Portuguese lad named Darryl Cristiano Goff who is currently visiting Surrey on a student exchange program from Lagos (I thought Lagos was in Nigeria!).
The Skipper won the toss and had no doubts about putting South Park into bat even though it was a beautiful track, knowing that that whatever South Park set as a target we would have the firepower to chase it down. (he had no idea how right he was!). Cheesy opened the bowling down the hill with his usual pace and accuracy, and Morgs started up the hill with his usual some varied line and length and was clattered for 13 off his first two overs, it was immediately apparent that one of the openers not only looked like some rather hairy caveman, but also had the batting skill of our prehistoric cousins, for future reference we will call him Ug. Ug had some strange habits, one of which was charging Cheesy on every 5th ball of the over and the other more amazing habit was that more than once he was somehow able to top edge Cheesy with a grunt, with his eyes closed from outside of offstump down to fine leg for four. 7 Overs passed and then finally Morgs bowled a straight one and the opener (who scored 90 last week, no not Ug!) lofted one up to Petrol waiting very nervously at Mid On (considering his slightly buttery fingers last Tuesday) and the main threat was gone. Cheesy soon after took the wicket of their number three batsmen with one that cut back slightly and we were off and running. The third wicket fell due to a completely suicidal run, had the opposition never heard of Robin “The best fielder in the league” Lines, obvioulsy not, the batsmen pushed one straight to Rob 10 yards away just in front of square and decided to run, Rob took aim and fired in a missle at one stump and the batsmen was run out by a mile. Cheesy then decided to introduce some pace into the attack and with Rob running in from one end like the Tasmanian Devil and with the 'new lad' Christiano firing down jaffas at the other end the scoring rate almost stopped. Robin pushed Ug back with his pace and bounce and then drew him into an uncommited shot on the front foot and Des cleaned up with a impressive catch behind. Des took another excellent reaction catch off the bowling of Christiano, with what obviously seemed like his first wicket for the club. Hope the Chairman gets some runs with the bat otherwise he may get disappointed waiting for Jonesy to go on his holidays before he can get a game.
The end was nigh for the Southpark Innings and Rob and Darryl cleaned up taking 4 and 3 wickets respectively. Southparks innings closed on 76 AO in 33 overs. Best bowling figures was Taz with 10 Overs 3 Mds 12 Runs and 4 Wickets.
This meant that we had a testing 30 minutes batting before tea, sorry correction this meant we should have had a testing 30 minutes before tea, but unbeknown to us the oppostion captain decided to double bluff us into thinking that we could knock off the total of 76 before tea (and we nearly did), by opening with one “bowler” who has not bowled all year and the other normally the 2nd or 3rd change bowler who had just returned that day from his holidays in the well known cricketing hot bed of Mexico.
Rob and Rob opened the batting with consummate ease and we were on 39 runs after 6 overs when Rob decided to change his bat (Schoolboy error), for one of the Chairmans. So the very next ball on 24 with the new bat, the skilled opening bowler decided to bowl a full bunger at Rob who happily smashed it straight up in the air and he was gone. Dave Welton joined Wet Weather at the crease and confidently despatched any bad balls to the boundary, in fact it was mostly all the balls he faced. Finally tea came and went with only a approx 25 runs to win, the oppos skipper then had a brain wave and decided to start after tea with his proper opening bowlers, cunning plan or what! This unfortunately for him had no affect on the run rate and Rob Tyers and Dave quickly got us to within one run from victory and then Rob somehow edged one to slip on 26. This left A Guest once more to finish the innings and complete the win, coping with considerable pressure with heckling from his old and new team mates alike. (Dave finished not out on 24).
Although this turned out to be a very disappointing game in terms of the opposition, the 26 points we picked up for the win were gratefully received. The highlight of the day was certainly the evening entertainment where everyone enjoyed the new game of lets pick on the Short bloke. Fortunately I am off on holiday now for two weeks so when I get back (if picked I hope) we will have returned back to the more traditional game of lets pick on the Dirty Stop Out Morgs.