Fishers and the Wash

During Watson’s pre match inspection he chased a dog over the wicket. Dog’s still convinced he was going to be eaten. Andy swears blind that the BBQ sauce in his hand was purely there to compliment his outfit.

Both Captains inspected the pitch and agreed that whoever won the toss would bowl first. Fortunately Bungle prevailed and won the toss.

Boxer opened the bowling from the “Special needs Detention Centre” end. 4 Tight and tidy overs brought a normal Boxer haul of Null Point.

Bungle Opened from the Lake end and bowled 4 overs of balls that swung wider than Summers swerving to run over an illegal immigrant. Fortunately losing his run up due to running through a puddle, he landed a foot behind the crease making the ball release in the correct position to carve their opening bat in half and rip out the stumps.

Booth took over from a frustrated Dave, unfortunately he was the wrong sort of swinger to release Dave’s frustrations…. 4 Good overs of regularly beating the bat later he finished with figures of 4-0-17-0.

Animated Afnan took over from immobile Bungle from the bog end. Bowling with arms akin to a Wakey, Waving, inflatable arm flailing tube man (do a google search if you don’t watch Family guy). You could call Afnan the Anti-Nurse (No not one of those characters from Andy Harris’ Porn collection), bowling with pace variations, spin and appealing like a madman he amazingly ended up wicketless. The Washington would like to extend their thanks to Tom. Tom dropped possibly the easiest catch of the season. It looked like he had caught hoof rot from Bambi (Don’t know what happened on the stag night…..) From 7 overs of toying with their Batsman Afnan ended up with figures of 7-0-27-0.

Hazon came on after Booth. It must’ve been him in the bushes that night when Kingy got 5 wickets from 5 flans in the park, he’d studied Kingy well and picked up 2 wickets in an almost identical way. His figures of 7-1-31-2 don’t do him the justice deserves. 5 of the runs came from Wides and No-Balls. Remove those and he would have ended up bowling 7.5 overs straight and looking almost as tired as Bayly against the RoadRunners. N.I.C.E have just decided to use Baylys photo from that game as a way to gauge premature dementure in the elderly.

Ramsey followed Afnan, although this may have been a poor decision by the captain. Until spikes are available for hooves, he will always struggle in slippery conditions. As a child I remember a scene in an old cartoon, for the life of me I can’t remember the name…., but it involved a hooved animal slipping all over the place. Ramsey picked up the wicket of Ahmed with help from a Booth catch and finished with figures of 4-0-25-1

Boxer, after a frustrating first spell and seeing Hazon get 2 wickets came back looking like Brett Lee with deep heat on his nuts. Standing at the crease was a novelty undersized chap almost as tall as the stumps. Dave sensed blood and bowled a ball so fast that I doubt the batsman has seen it yet. Finally getting what he has deserved all season he clean bowled Malcolm for 3, finishing with impressive figures of 7-1-29-1. Walking off the pitch you could see numerous pitch marks from Dave’s balls. Maybe the club needs to invest in a pitch mark repair tool.

Bungle took over from Ramsey and quickly picked up a second wicket. Unfortunately this wicket was classed as a result from the surviving oppo batsman who knew what was coming in next. Things could have been so different if the stumps were an inch taller. Mariner slogged at his first ball which swung in and bounced over middle stump. Bungles final figures were 6-0-29-2.

The Washington finished on 159-6 from 35 overs. A very impressive 4.54 runs per over considering the wet outfield (mainly attributed to Watson drooling over his Dog breakfast) and the minefield of a wicket.

The new opening pair of Dr Dawkins PHD Bsc physEd G.I.T and Booth started off as expected. Booth scoring 90% of the runs, 4% in extras and Dawko contributing 1%. They did a cracking job of seeing off the accurate and aggressive opening bowlers. Unfortunately Booth lost his wicket shortly after the change after being set and looking confident in his score of 23.

Tom “Hoof Rot” Hargreaves came in at 3 to join the official club limpet. After hitting a decent boundary Tom spooned up a catch and was out for 5.

Watson confidently strode to the crease. Like Samson losing his hair, Watson losing his bingo wings has drastically reduced his power. The lack of red meat made him swing through the line too fast and top edge one for a simple catch. His mammoth strike rate was only comparable to legends like Boycott, Dawkins, Dravid or Ramsey. Watson was out for 4 from 6 balls with 5 dots. He didn’t even need Ramsey to help him this week.

Bayly followed, I can’t say too much about his innings as I was unfortunately using the facilities. Needless to say he was out before my package was delivered. After scoring 2 runs from 14 balls he trode slowly back to the pavilion (Or so I’ve been told).

Ryan ‘Bon Jovi’ Macdonald went in, full of confidence after hitting his first ever boundary in the last match. Unfortunately Macdonald peaked too early and prematurely ejected himself from the crease for 1.

Dawko was also out whilst I was indisposed. After making a very slow and solid start he accelerated hitting 3 4s on his way to 22 from 48 balls. Although we’d normally give him hell for scoring so slow, based on the pitch conditions it was ideal and a very important innings.

Ramsey went in with strict instructions from the captain to stay there until the end. Unbelievably he did exactly as he was told and didn’t come back until he was the last wicket to fall in the final over.

Bungle joined Ramsey at the crease. Faced with the task of batting through to the end 2 games in the row he almost got out on his 1^st, 3^rd, 5^th and 6^th balls. Ramsey and Bungle slowly began to build a partnership. Live action updates from Chairman Watson on his new App letting us know that we didn’t need to panic and that we were ticking along nicely only needing 5 runs an over to win. Unfortunately we looked up to see the scoreboard saying otherwise. We needed 59 from 6 overs, it was at this point we were told “sorry chaps I had it set to 50 overs not 35 overs” Quick acceleration was needed. Bungle made an attempt to abuse their slow left arm spinner but kept hitting the fielders on the boundary. He was finally out for 28 from 39 balls.

Out came Boxer, a guy who has hit a lot of quick runs, in the past so all was not lost. Boxer made a Solid 7 ball Duck…… For personal safety, the least said about this the better. For anyone wanting a glimpse of the master blaster in his hat, check out the gallery.

Afnan came in with the daunting task of needing 25 from 14 balls with Ramsey at the other end and only 1 other wicket left. He was caught for 2 from 3 balls.

Hazon came in to support Ramsey, who by this time had played the best innings any of us had ever seen him play. Without facing a ball he saw Ramsey finally succumb to one of their opening bowlers. 3 runs a ball had become too big a task. Ramsey finally finished on Fishers’ top score of the day, 29 from 45 balls which included 3 fours.

Watsons APP states that Captain Fantastic is the MOM due to some highly complex calculations. Junior trainee actuary Ramsey refuted this and put in a formal grievance against Mr Watson and his Technology. Maybe it was his amazing bowling figures of 4 0 25 1 that gave him the confidence to question the almighty Watson.

Overall we bowled well in tough conditions. Without the middle order collapse we would have won.

4 Players scoring in the 20s and no other double figures summed up how hard it was to bat.

Champagne moment: Watsons APP confusing the run chase.

MOM: Bungle as decided by Watsons APP – I wonder if that APP can teach Bambi the LBW rules…