The Sun Came Out And We Got Thumped

Cudham – Away – Lost

Thats no good, second game of the season and no skipper , was Rickiiiieeee resigning after 1 game and leaving with a one hundred percent record ? No ‘The Boy Rickiiie’ had double booked himself with a manicure, and wanting to keep himself in accordance with ” Captains Rules ” he had a sun spray and manicure instead of playing ! Anyway after a bit of persuassion Stacy agreed to step in as make shift commander .

Oh dear 1st mistake the sun came out and i mean came out ! 400 degrees and not a cloud in the sky ( you’d think this was’nt a mistake but wait ….)

2nd mistake Cudham did’nt have an umpire ! ( therefore we win the toss automatically )

3rd mistake Stupid Stace sticks Cudham into bat

4th mistake Stacy Captain der

Ok its 4 hundred degrees and out stroll 11 legionaires across the sands of the Sahara until they reach the 22 yards of destiny, by now Stacy feels as if a sniper has a crosshair firmly etched on his back, ” bowl first” is muttered from the back .

The games underway and Stewie Stu strikes early , its a great start but Cudham stood firm and rattled their way to 78 before New boy Lister comes up trumps with a perfect ball, trapping the batsmen LBW , the sun kept beating, ” bowl first! why would you do that cried Graham Kingpin “, the sun was relentless, 20 overs had arrived and out of the oasis came a belly dancer bearing jugs of juice, ok slight exaggeration it was one of the oppo with refreshments. Cudhams’ score kept climbing but wickets kept falling at regular intervals, by the end of 40 overs 217-9 had been posted, a daunting score to say the least. As the weary troops crawled back to the pavillion for much needed ’ jugs of juice ‘ Stacy relised a batting order was required and that his legion was in need of encouragement, not being the best at this he asked who would like to bat 

 

 

 

   a deadly silence fell as a tumble weed rolled by . Prompting Nasty Nick to join him at the top of the order they strode to the crease with intent of chasing down the score, Ward and Buss struggled with the pace of their enemies , Ward fell ’ shaking his head and muttering i did’nt see it ’ Wrotham were up against the wall already, being short in the batting department Buss wielded his bat like a light sabre and took the fight to the dark side, wickets kept tumbling but Buss stood strong, finally departing for 48, a brief glimmer of joy was given, Butler of the J kind played sensible for a while scoring 22 and Klondike scoring his first runs for the club … 2 . It was all over out for 117. 

Moment of the Match

Kingpins ” 2 catches … well he caught the second , the batsmen unleased a shot that sent the ball tracer like at Graham in which he could’nt get out of the way of, so instinctively he used his cat like agility to let the ball hit him in the ribs Ouch!!! About an hour later another batsmen did the same , but this time his cat like relexes aloud him to catch the ball between his arm and stomach after the ball struck him in exactly the same place double Ouch !!

Man of the Match

It has to be the team for not stringing Stacy up for bowling first

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

Old Elts Gramby – Home – Won

Given my racial makeup I have to profess to knowing a thing or two about rain. We have more names for it than the eskimos do for snow. There’s the “soft” rain from the Dingle Peninsula which is a fine mist that hangs in the air and makes the place look all forlorn and scenic. There’s the “hard” rain in The West that comes horizontally off the Atlantic and is so full of salt it can strip the flesh from your bones quicker than a school of pirana. There’s the “business like” rain from the lakes of Glendalough that  just gets on with the job of soaking you through with as little effort as possible. It’s hard to see where the lakes stop and the rain begins.

Anyway all of this cultural experience means I am well qualified to describe the week that lead up to our first game of the season – “It fecking rained all fecking week and I’m fecking tired of it”.

So a soggy pitch then.

As it turned out, Friday was warm and Saturday was positively hot which meant the pitch had a dry surface but was still soggy underneath. A batting nightmare.

On top of this we have a new captain this year, none other than the Boy Wonder Rickieeeee Bryce. He may be new to the role but he has grasped the core traits of a Wrotham captain, namely, the panicky phone call mid week. Yep, on Wednesday evening I got a call to say that we’d forgotten to ask Chuffer if he was available to umpire. He wasn’t. Neither was anyone else I could think of and that’s why on Saturday I donned the white coat and strode out to the crease with six coins in my hand and the power of cricketing life or death coursing through my veins. Cue manic laughter.

Granby are clearly in the same boat as us as they didn’t even have an umpire so an easy toss for us to win then. Rick who is wise beyond his years chose to bat; well, you really wouldn’t want to bat second wen the pitch was cut up.

Anyway, our first two took to the field and it soon became clear that the pre-season training was not what it ought to be. There was rust and aching limbs galore. Wickets tumbled at regular intervals mostly due to a combination of poor shot selection and harsh batting conditions. Still the boys stuck at it and the scoreboard was ticking over nicely as well. Even the run machine that is Bryce struggled to start off but after a couple of early scares he recovered to walk off the pitch undefeated with 82 runs to his credit.

We reckoned a score of 140 would be all we’d need so we were in buoyant mood when the scoreboard said we had 187 and had used up 39 or our alloted 40 overs.

It was then the turn of our bowlers. Stu Wells and Harvey the Elder really turned the pressure up right from the start and soon Granby were well behind the run rate and loosing wickets. The combination of a great fielding display, tight bowling and tough batting conditions meant the pressure was maintained on the opposition and they fell even further behind the run rate. Neil had been getting some turn out of the pitch right from the off but Stacy was making the ball leap at 90 degrees. So much so he was being called for leg side wides even though the ball was pitching outside off stump. Well, I wanted in on the action. Cue more manic laughter.

The killer blow came from a frankly unexpected quarter – Grahem “The Mouth” Kingsnorth. It’s not that he talks a good game, in fact, he can talk a good game to death and the legs of the donkey it rode in on. So when Rickieeee threw him the ball I have to confess to not knowing which way this was going to end. Ball one was a wide, there was much grumbling and self-coaching from The Mouth. Ball two was a wide down the other side, yet more grumbling and muttering ensued. Ball three pitched on middle stump and he was off and running. From then on he produced a fabulous spell of 3 for 34 off 7. 

Granby had nothing to offer in defense and were all out on the 33rd over for 120. So first game of the 2008 season won with maximum points. Not a bad effort. More encouragingly Wrotham won through maturity. Given a good start by Ricks innings they never panicked and simply applied pressure and never let Granby into the game.

 

Moment of the match:

Dear Kevin, a last minute call up, came in to bat when things were looking a little shaky. We had lost XX wickets but more importantly we were not using up the overs. Granby immediately encircled the batsman in an attempt to intimidate him into making a mistake. It was like a scene from the Alamo. Despite not having held a bat for several decades Dear Kevin held out and even managed to find gaps and picked off a couple of singles. John Wayne would have been proud.

 

Man of the match:

Two contenders here; Rickieeee and his captains innings was pretty great but I think The Mouth gets it for the sheer audacity of stopping half way through his spell to ask Stewie how to make the ball swing and then actually doing it.