Tues 27 Nov v Totternhoe: Match report

It was a slightly new look side against Totternhoe on Tuesday. It looked a decent side on paper but what would it be like on threadbare carpet the punters wondered ? With regular skipper Simon W. released to parenting duties and Tim Spencer at a mysterious meeting with a man about a dog, a crash on the M1 meant that virtually everyone was late and we wondered if this was to be an omen for the night ahead. Fortunately none of the opposition was named Damien. For the Colts there was no usual captain to toss up, no Timmy Squared plus traffic backed up like a storm drain at a Burger Bar in Billericay. Things didn't improve for one shy, retiring opener who shall remain nameless to protect his identity. Having scored 6 off a first ball long hop, he blocked the second, guided the third past point (if there'd been a point and what was the point anyway ?) before he was cruelly run out off the side wall, backing up and after the ball had flicked off the distal phalanx of the left hand little finger of the bowler on the way through. The empty hall went silent (well, it had been pretty silent from the start) as our man trooped off. It was fair to say that the bat reached the door yards before he did. Name that player........

Anyway, from a poor beginning things looked up faster than a dwarf with a stiff neck doing a reverse-bungee. Dave. W, Neil B. and Andy all notched 25's and only Mike Howard of the Glen will know how he failed to notch his first retired 25 also. By only just over halfway we had 100 on the board with considerable help from the opposition. One doesn't wish to be unkind but there were enough wides to fill the next 3 series of "Celebrity Fat Camp". There were off-side wides, leg-side wides, wide trousers, wide angle lenses and probably several wide receivers if we'd looked hard enough. In fact, we only ended up on 175-2 on the basis that so many deliveries were restricted to wides that nobody could do anything with. Some of them made Harmison's first ball of the 2006 Ashes Down Under look like an unplayable Jaffa (which in a way it was as Justin Langer got nowhere near it). If the Dambusters' radar had functioned in WWII the same way as that of the Tott's bowlers then it might be fair to say that there would be a few more original dams left intact on German rivers these days and the "Tirpitz" would still be upright in a Norwegian fjord.
Confidence was high as we ran back on after the break and Mike of the Glen and Dave from the Dales soon set the standard. With a new-ish ball that felt less like a 6 week old apple left in the bottom of an Ocado delivery bin than usual, it was possible to make the ball kick up off the deck and there was plenty of playing and missing as Totternhoe started nervously. Dave got a wicket courtesy of a good grab by Neil as the ball was whacked straight at him and Dave then bowled the Tott's best player as he cunningly held one back a bit prompting a bottom edge on to the stumps. By this time the score was almost going backwards and there were even calls for Andy to be given a bowl. Murph resisted all this, shrewd captain that he is and the main threat then came from Neil's tweakers. Neil took 2 catches off his own bowling (shame Simon wasn't there to see how it's done) and with 2 simple run outs the job was done with the Tott's all out for 36 and well beaten.

Man of the Match is tricky. Murph shunned the award as unworthy of him or his captaincy. Dave, Mike, Neil and Andy all had good evenings but the MoM goes to the scorer on the balcony for keeping track of the extras in our innings. He may not be Bill Frindall but his counting was solid enough on the day to suggest that he would be a good appointment as Harry Redknapp's tax man (allegedly).