HWRCC 2xi vs Wandgas 2xi (h) - Scorecard
Lofting, Tideswell, Fudge*, High, Clark +, Soppitt, Donnelly, Taylorson, Noor, Lown, Goodwin
Wandgas 92 all out Soppitt 5-0-5-11, Goodwin 13-6-1-13
HWRCC 93-4 Clark 29*, Lofting 25
HWRCC grind out excellent victory
Those of you with young children will be used to Scooby Doo. For the purists, only the older episodes will do. The original theme tune, no Scrappy Doo and a Daphne that stirred strange longings in even pre-pubescent young men (despite ginger hair) are a potent recipe even now.
In Scooby Doo, you will remember, 4 youths (the aforementioned Daphne, Fred – a strange cravat wearing graduate, a loser stoner called Shaggy and an ugly bowl headed “intelligent” one called Velma) and the eponymous dog Scooby who, unusually for a canine, can talk in short sentences, are driving around in a van. No one knows why. No one knows why anyone entertains them. What do they do in real life? How do they earn an income? What relationship do they have with each other? If they aren’t related, who is chaperoning Fred and Daphne?
Anyway. Threre’s a mystery each week that Fred and the team have to solve. Usually Shaggy and Scooby, both of whom must be constantly wrecked, have to eat halfway through the story. So it’s much like a game of Wick cricket. The mystery yesterday was what Wandgas had done with their 2s.
An obviously understrength Wandgas were inserted and soon found themselves approximately 6-2. Tommy D ripped out one of their openers who played no stroke to one that cut back and hit his off stump via his pad. Skipper Fudgey swooped on a quick single and threw down the stumps at the bowler’s end with a direct hit from an acute angle to dismiss the other. They were soon in even more trouble as Billy swung one back to remove Number 4 LBW. They had mustered 11-3.
A decent partnership for the fourth wicket made a game of it as the Number 3, Bash (no kidding) assembled 34 runs mostly through point and between the posted slips and the gully. Their No 5, Winslade, had an early altercation with Clarky – who employed a limited vocabulary in the exchange – and displayed the only really obvious batting technique on the day. However he came up against Ted Goodwin in majestic form. Ted bowled wicket to wicket stuff, occasionally beating both bats off the pitch, and conceding only 13 runs from 11 overs. That Ted only took one wicket – digging one in against the number three who tamely patted it back – was because he was simply too good and all the bats could do was pat him back up the pitch despite Fudgey setting them a field which encouraged them to pay through the V.
The Wick’s quick over rate and rapid changes of ends meant that 20 overs were bowled in the first hour and the game got away from Wandgas. When Delboy was introduced to the attack, as is usual the opposition’s eyes lit up like the quiz machine in the bar. A couple of muscular slogs resulted while Delboy found his line and then, in four overs of mayhem he took a five-for to destroy the Wandgas lower order.
His first removed the barnacle-like Winslade who had laboured for three quarters of an hour for 8. Attractive flight confused him and he yorked himself, the ball knocking back the middle stump. No 7 was not a batsman. He poked around for a couple of balls before edging behind to a grateful Clarky to give Del two wickets in his second over. No 6 perished bowled round his legs a la Shane Warne. No 8 was caught by the same fielder, Clarky’s arm telescoping out to snare a good catch like Inspector Gadget. No 9 also found a way to get bowled. Absolute carnage. Lownsy, last week’s man of the match and opening bowler, was tossed the cherry as fourth change and bowled their No 10 who was making no bones about the fact that he couldn’t bat. No 11 didn’t trouble the scorers, facing, as he did, no balls.
An absolutely ruthless performance in the field served up Wandgas on a plate. The only catches offered were accepted with glee. Fudgey’s run-out was phenomenal and killed their innings before it got going. All the bowlers put the ball on the spot, Ian Taylorson getting some encouraging movement through the air, with Ted and Delboy taking the lion’s share of the plaudits.
So back to the Scooby Doo metaphor. With half the episode in the bag, we were beginning to see a pattern emerging. This Wandgas team was an imposter! This correspondent believed that the No 11, of West Indian descent, must be a pacy fast bowler. Indeed not. He donned the leg-guards and some frankly brutally red keeper’s gloves and took up station behind the stumps. He was definitely in disguise, and very scary. Anything down the leg-side became byes – 1,2 or 4 – and throughout our innings extras kept the scoreboard ticking over nicely. Clarky began to suspect that it was the wicket-keeper who had done it…
MS and Nevil Tideswell (having a pleasant weekend down South) opened our account. The two openers were decentish, one bowling big induckers the other bowling wicket to wicket. Nev’s rustiness was exposed early and he was bowled by one of the aforementioned induckers. Fudgey replaced him and was undone by a good slip catch against the same bowler. Charlie was bowled by one from the other end which cut back off the pitch. So far not so good. The Wick subsided to 28-3.
However Clarky joined MS and together they set about the flagging openers both particularly brutal on anything short. The change bowlers were not of the class of the opening pair (again they were dressed up as cricketers but were probably in disguise) and MS began to enjoy himself against them one or two lofted shots into the leg side for four recalling his salad days. There were to be no further real alarms as both proceeded comfortably to twenty-something. MS did perish when one stopped on him and he lobbed it to cover, but that only brought a beaming Del to the wicket who assembled a rapid 8 runs to win the game and with it the coveted MOM.
The opposition packed their bags and left as soon as they possibly could. They had descended into bickering in the field and using choice language to refer to each other. This continued as they left the ground. The mystery of the missing cricket team was resolved later. Apparently many of their players are Chelsea supporters so they had gone to the FA Cup final. There were 8 changes from the previous week. Good. Thanks for the points. They will, at full strength, probably do us a favour by beating other teams in the league. Thanks for that too. Frankly boys, the disguises as cricketers didn’t quite work. With two players batting in white T-shirts, one donning a hooded top to field, you weren’t convincing…
DBW provided the Scooby snacks (7/10 – addition of pate sandwiches – unusual but much admired).
MOM Delboy pictured here with jug. TFC Tidy… pictured here with some new duck friends.
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