THE COLTS V. CRAB DADS : LEAGUE : 1/11/11

From Capt. Hedge:-

And so it came to pass, late one Tuesday in November, the Vets, fresh from the previous nights trick or treat avoidance, did once again roll up to the Crabtree Indoor Cricket Centre – aka the Theatre of Delusion – to once more exorcise the demons of past glories. They say that the older one gets the better one was, and never was that more appropriate for some on this eve.

Captain Hedge (Ed: do what ?) won the toss, opted to bat and discharged himself to the cage to watch his band of merry men plunder the (weak) oppo’s bowling to all parts/walls. Except, er, it didn’t quite work out like that. We raced to 27 off the first 3 overs, 17 of which were extras. Dave was smashing it to all manner of fielders, plundering his 13 runs off merely 11 balls whilst Willo was even more extreme, smashing his 7 runs off a paltry 11. Both got out in vaguely comical circumstances to be followed by Pete - run out first ball without facing - and Hedge, caught for 6 off 3 playing another lazy symptomatic-of-his-season shot.

The Colts were 40-4 off 4 overs. Capt Hedge was puzzled. Captain Hedge was worried. Capt Hedge - had he had any hair - would have been pulling it out at some rate of knots by now. Still, all was not lost. Tim had dropped anchor, keeping the ball on the deck and playing quite beautifully. Then along popped The Messiah: aka Rupes. After an early scare, where he could quite easily have been run out by approx 129 yards, he then cranked the tempo up and showed us all (frankly) how to do it. A mixture of brute force, belligerence and deft touches (yes, you read that right) earned him 49 glorious undefeated runs. Tim and him put on 112 runs to leave the Colts with a bonus point dans le poche and a 152 total. Rupes even gloriously turned up a chance to receive a standing ovation for his 50 by completely missing the last ball of the game. What a Gent, 50’s are so vulgar and all a bit 1980’s (darling). Tim also remained undefeated with an utterly classy knock of 46.

So an eminently defendable target against oppo that we presumed would bat far better than they bowled. Which, er, they didn’t. Pistol Pete opened up and was his usual unplayable self. Suffice to say Crabtree Dads were 10-3 after 3 overs and 17-3 after 5: game over. The remainder of the game was somewhat turgid, not least because the oppo adopted a long term strategy of overhauling the target; such a strategy clearly involved batting through to the following Tuesday to get there. Despite a myriad of bowling changes/ styles we couldn’t get the last bonus point (6 wickets) – not even Our Lord Rupes could prise them out, despite some heroic charging in and accompanied puffing. A few chances went begging but the game petered out in a somewhat soporific manner, the mood only occasionally lightened by Bally’s never-heard-of-before calls of “right hand” from the Scorers hut above. Fair play to the bloke that he was still awake to be fair.

And so the Dads ended up on 73-3 and we retired to the bar to digest. In effect the 3 of us – Rupes, Tim and Pete – were enough to beat their 6. Si, Dave and Hedge – after amassing a dizzying 23 runs off 21 balls – were left to ruminate on past glories, furiously trying to remember when they had all collectively batted so dismally. A further 2, maybe 3 minutes later and we were all on our way home.

MOM: Has to be Rupes or Tim. On balance, because the former’s knock made us all chuckle just a little bit more (sorry, Tim) I've handed it to Rupes (even though he dropped a sitter). Mucho thanks to these two for digging us (me) out of a v. big hole.