Sunday 1s vs Hampton Woodlawn
Author: Hogarth
Match Report |
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THE IRON MAN SHOULDERS A BURDEN AND SMITH FINALLY FIRES ON A DAY OF HIGH DRAMA IN HAMPTON MPSGA 1s travelled to Hampton this week to take on Woodlawn CC. Our line up looked strong in all areas and the great leader was confident of an easy win, specially after some prevarication from the oppo as to whether they could field a team at all. ‘BAT’ was the call to the skipper as he went out to toss. We wanted to make a game of it after all. What we didn’t want was to bowl them out cheaply and not have a chance for our excellent batting line up to add to their personal stats. Brooks, as ever, disappointed and lost the toss. We took the field discussing what we would all do with the rest of the day after we had cleaned this lot up and knocked off their expected meagre total. Brook, in the interests of 'making a game of it', opened the bowling with Charlie ‘shite twin’ Rudd and (the rarely available) Leon ‘the assassin’ Orr. Both openers were immediately into their work. Charlie bowling quick, accurate deliveries that brought two wickets and Leon bowling slow inaccurate deliveries (off a 20 yard run up) that surprisingly also brought two wickets, the second of which produced a screamer of a diving caught and bowled. Orr leaped to his left, grabbed the ball in both hands and then hit the ground in a manor not entirely unlike a stricken airliner. The seismic wave measured several hundred on the richter scale but the boy held on to the ball. Some unkind wag whispered that they had only ever seen Orr field so enthusiastically off his own bowling and wouldn’t it be nice if, maybe he tried a bit harder when it was someone else's stats on the line. The skipper realised that with Woodlawn reeling at 14-3 he’d better change up the bowling so we could ‘make a game of it’. On trundled Smith and Hogarth. Immediately tragedy struck! Smith bowled wides and no balls a plenty but that was only half the story. Hogarth stuttered in to bowl his now customary ‘loosener’. Seeing this slow moving pie, the batsman's eyes lit up and he cracked a straight drive right out of the middle. The ball sailed towards Orr at mid off. He made a pathetic, half attempt to stop the ball, diving over and all round the thing as it made it way to the boundary. As I said a tragedy. It ruined Hogarth's figures and immediately put him under pressure. Everybody was muttering about how good Orr’s catch was off his own bowling but why does he not try when he is fielding for others. It really is just not good enough! Luckily Hogarth was able to continue bowling and picked up three wickets. Leon, in the meantime was moaning and whining about a slight shoulder injury. In the end we all got so fed up with his chuntering that we stopped the game and pretended to make a fuss of him. Hogarth even took his top off for a bit to see if that would stop Leon pathetic whinging. Nothing seemed to please him until the doctor at A&E gave him some morphine and put his dislocated shoulder back in place. Everyone thought Leon had been a bit selfish and self indulgent. After all the bloke is built like a brick shit house (and he was one of FHM’s top ten eligible bachelors 1978) and he was crying over a tiny little shoulder injury…F…ing man up? So now (with Leon relaxing, high on painkillers in a hospital bed dreaming about his catch) our ten man team continued to bowl Woodlawn out. Well, not Smith, he just continued to bowl….sort of. Brook had seen enough and took the wicketless Smith off as well as Hogarth and brought Tom “who” on to bowl. Also, seeing that the disabled and the pre pubescent were now batting he, somewhat predictably came on to bowl himself…suddenly not wanting to ‘make a game of it anymore’! Brook picked up three of the cheapest and luckiest wickets you will see all year to finish Woodlawn off…71 all out! We retired for a somewhat late tea (due to Leon’s selfish ‘injury’) of Domino Pizza…which was nice! We returned to the field expecting our openers to knock the runs off in 15 overs. In fact many players had changed into shorts and T-shirts and one had even gone to bed. And so the carnage began. They had two gun bowlers who were determined to not ‘make a game of it’ One bowled searing in-swingers and the other pacey out-swingers. Wibberly capitulated for a tame DUCK. Hanna was caught behind or LBW or something for 1. Charlie ‘shite’ Umpire wasn’t sure why Woodlawn were appealing so he thought it best just to give Hanna out so as not to upset anyone…except James of course! The rot continued as the opening bowlers ripped through Putney's finest. Racchit and JJ put on 15 between them. David Rudd joined the duck club (BTW he is now the ‘Shite Twin’ but that could changed) and we were the ones now reeling at 30-5. Cometh the hour cometh the man!! Who could our saviour be. We needed a man full of confidence and self belief. A swaggering KP'esque figure exuding bravado and arrogance. Unfortunately we didn’t have one so Mark ‘king of skulling’ Smith would have to do. Smith smote the unplayable bowlers to all parts. Most memorably from his first ball which he covered drived (drove?) for 4! Others came and went (Hogarth-3, Baker-1) but Smith held the innings together. Brook joined him at a point when the two openers were bowled out. The change bowlers were distinctly average. Now was our chance. Every other batsman had got out to quality fast bowling. These two new bowlers were never going to get anyone out. Except Brook that is, who once again let the team down and left us with just one wicket to spare and 20 precious runs still to get. (Leon had, of course left us with only ten players and was not even willing to drive back and bat if we needed him to help win the game. He made some excuse about only having one usable arm and tripping out on drugs…pathetic) In strolled Charlie (formerly) ‘the shite’ twin Rudd. If he could just stay with Smith we might have a chance and he might transfer his nickname to his duck scoring brother! The end came when Smith crashed another majestic boundary causing wild scenes of celebration. The oppo were not so happy. Brooks, flask of thunderbitch in hand made the announcements DDJ-Hogarth for swanning around topless and intimidating no one MPSGASTFKACMOTD-Smith for smashing the winning runs Thanks for coming-Wibberly and the ‘shite twin’ (yes..that’s you Daveyboy) for doing nothing MoM-Brooks……WAIT…WHAT?….ARE YOU F…ING SERIOUS? So Leon dislocates his bloody shoulder after taking two wickets and a blinder of a catch, and Smithy, against all the odds and with his confidence in the basement bats like a Trojan and Brooks gets MoM. He scored 12 runs FFS and was the only one who got out to the shit bowler and just when we needed a skippers innings..and his three wickets were numbers 9, 10, 11….This is BULLSHIT, who f..ing decides this stuff?…….Oh yeah…Brooksy… that explains it! As we finished early we made our way back to the club house, grabbed a beer and watched the 2’s beat the Bricklayers. Both teams retired to the clubhouse where we drank our fill and listened to streams of bullshit issuing alternately from Beedle and Sam. We relaxed in the beautiful place that exist somewhere between feeling merry and and being completely pissed. We played music, sung songs, bought jugs and basked in our victory and in that wonderful feeling of belonging to something greater than ourselves! Special GET WELL SOON message to Leon…we all hope to see you bowling your interminably slow, fast balls again soon!! |
Date | Time | Team | Opposition | Location | Putney | Opposition | Result | Scores | Points | Toss |
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21/07/2019 | 1.30pm | Sunday 1st | Hampton Woodlawn | A | 72/8 | 71/10 | W | 0 |