SJFCC 131 for 5 off 20 overs.
Verulam Dads 117 for 8 pff 20 overs (scorecard here)
Away – Verulanium Park, Tues May 10th 2011
Match report: Robin Smith
Man of the match : Chris Ramsey
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot: Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge Cry ‘God for Bungle! England and Saint John Fisher!’
This was not the rousing pre-match speech given by Bungle before the match against Verulam dads at Verulanium Park on a glorious Tuesday evening. The speech was more of “We are batting first and I have managed to find two people in the car park who have agreed to play for us.” I suspect that Bungle did not mind whether we won or lost this game as he is not normally the midweek captain; if he lost the stats would count against Anil and if he won he would maintain his 100% record. From what I can gather Anil was busy washing his hair that evening so he couldn’t play. Is he scared of playing against Verulam Dads? I will attempt to interview him before Thursday evening’s game so that he can give his side of the story.
It turns out that the two people were actually Dave “Kanu” Summers father-in-law – Trevor – and his wife’s best mate husband – Nigel. Nigel is a Kiwi and it transpires that he had been taught to play cricket from an early age by the great Sir Richard Hadlee so things were definitely looking up as we now had 11 players instead of the expected 9 and some of them were actually talented. By talented I mean they knew which end of the cricket bat to hold and they did not obviously drool in public – in this level of cricket that is classed as talent. The question that was left unanswered was “Why were they hanging around the Museum car park with their cricket whites waiting to be asked to play cricket?”. I suspect we shall never know.
Picture the scene in Verulanium park on a beautiful warm spring evening. The trees were in full leaf and the sun shone magnificently, illuminating the Cathedral as it appears to float high in the trees. The scene was so perfect that several families of rabbits have decided to set up home on the lower slopes of the outfield just so they could enjoy this idyllic view. This makes fielding on the lower slopes just a bit more interesting, not only do you have contend with the low sun shining directly into your eyes but also you have to avoid tripping over the dozing bunnies. Fishers opened the batting with an experimental pairing of Chris ‘The Hat’ Ramsey and Dave ‘Kanu’ Summers. It didn’t go to plan. They were quickly replaced by the flat track bullies of Andy ‘Mr Muscle’ Watson and Tom ‘No Relation to Owen’ Hargreaves. Even though this was not a flat track but had variable bounce and two holes at one end ( Dave ‘Kanu’ Summers denies making these holes ) they set about the bowling as if they had attended every net session during the winter. They both retired after passing 25 runs in double quick time. The highlight of Mr Muscle’s innings was a powerfully hit pull to deep backwards square leg that fizzed along the ground down the bumpy rabbit slope straight to a deep fielder, just before it reached him it hit a ski jump and narrowly missed taking the fielders head off on its way to the boundary.
Next in were Bungle and Bob ‘Welcome Back’ Little, Bungle kept the scoreboard ticking over – or at least it would have ticked over if the people in the scorers box had kept it updated – and he impressed with his placement of high top edge that landed between three fielders. This sort of placement just cannot be taught and shows that class is permanent. Bob sacrificed himself in the pursuit of runs going for a big heave from a spinner where he was stumped by a keeper with cat like reflexes ( It is nice to know that at least one keeper turned up on the night ). Next in was Dave Boxer and Nigel ‘Taught by Sir Richard Hadlee’ Smart, Nigel was unlucky to receive a ball that kept so low that even Trevor Chappel would have been ashamed of it. Dave used his long arm leavers to score 37 including five fours and at the end accompanied by Robin ‘I know the scorebook is wrong’ Smith who hit 4 runs off three balls despite the scorebook showing 2 off 5. There was suspicion of off field fixing by Dave ‘Kanu’ Summers who was on the phone to his bookie with a bet that Robin would not score faster than a run a ball – usually a safe bet. Fishers either ended up with 133 or 129 depending on who you ask.
There were three fielding highlights the first was Chris ‘The Hat’ Ramsey who held a beauty of a catch in front of his face that was smacked out of the middle directly out of the setting sun. The next highlight was a catch by Bungle who having just had a discussion with the umpire who said that you can give a wide even if the batsman had hit it. Bungle’s catch was running back to a skied delivery, it looked like the ball was going to land behind him but at the last minute he stuck out a hand and made it look simple. The last highlight was Dave ‘Kanu’ Summers who when fielding at deep mid-wicket kicked the ball for a four to long on – this showed incredible ball control. At the end of the last over in the dark Fishers won by around 14 runs.
please note for some reason the penultimate para of this report was deleted for many reasons but mostly because it wasn’t allowing me to post the report due to some obscure coding/permissions issue…
