3's Lose... Well it had to happen some time I guess

3rdXI Vs Old Tiffininans. Risman, Doddy, Lloyd, High, Cameron, Maloj, Caldwell +, Nicholls, Taylorson, Noor, Laight

Coming off the back of 3 straight (and some may say comfortable) wins, one would be forgiven for looking at this score card and saying “complacent”. But you would be wrong. My first mistake was telling people that Duncan had played a blinder with 77 runs and 4 wickets which prompted Fudgey to pipe up and say “ Perfect I need a number 7 next week Ithangyew!”.The next mistake was attempting to slide the highly rated colt Chris Madoc-Jones into my side which prompted Matty D so say ! “Are you sure!!” and my scribbling his name out.
The next heinous crime was that the IRB had rudely decided to play the Guinness premiership final on the same day as our game which instantly prompted Cranesy to go on a ticket hunt and join Dom on his birthday Leo Sayer. Couple this with opening bat Shyam Pushpanath coming down with measles and you have 120 runs missing from the previous week via Duncan and Crane and are an opener short. Following the steep learning curve that I cannot play cricket after an all night bender I took the opportunity to have a quiet one in front of Mario and Sonic Olympics and a Ruby. Perfect!

(Pop) Message from Charlie Fox
“Lloydy, lash tonight, exams finished getting on it”
“cricket match orrr”
“Don’t Worry I’ll get ruuuunnnsss”
Whatever

Toss won I decided to bat as the track was moist and were were fielding more of a bolwing side plus Charlie was looking like he had a night on the tramp juice (white lightening for those un accustomed to the nuances of stoodent beverages) and I thought sending him in early may have been the end of him.
Jimmy and Ian opened the bowling and tied up both ends for the first 3 overs before Ian managed to get their opener to sky one to mid wicket and into the buckets of Lloyd who waited an age for the thing to come down with snow on before catching it and putting it in his pocket. 4 for 1 off 4.
Good start.
Next over and still no more runs. In fact they got to 8 for 1 off 8 before Ian bowled the other opener. On came Muzzy and Maloj and snaffled for their first league overs of the season. Muzzy’s extra bounce accounting for the number 3 who was caught at gully by jimmy and then identical ball and catcher the next over to account for the dangerous number 5 and thennext over, Maloj took a fantastic C&B which he plucked from 2 strips across (god knows!). It was their number 5 that did the damage though, smashing first Kirk and then Keith for too many runs and accelerated their score to 130 odd before he fell and brought the innings to a close.

Teas were a reasonable 6 as a result of the cold sausages but only let down by the overly milky tea…. It’s a precise science don’t you know!
Doddy and Riso opened our innings and the former added to the clubs duck tax flashing at an out swinger (with the old ball?) in the 3rd over and sent the opposition into the kind of raptures usually reserved for service men returning from the battlefield. Lloyd joined Risman at the crease and seemed to be picking the ball well despite the short left armers both coming out of the trees, but fell for 6 playing across he line. The pain was increase when High who had picked his first few balls well had his middle stump uprooted as he did the same as the skipper. The wick were in trouble!

Cameron came to the crease and played selectively but well and he and Riso looked to be bringing the score along nicely before the latter holed out to mid off and brought new Wick keeper and debutant Alex Caldwell to the crease. Alex batted and kept with composure and experience which was in excess of his 15 years and it’s a shame he isn’t about much due to school.

The pressure was put on in a big way not least by Tiffs deciding to appeal for everything that either missed the edge or struck the pad, and by the constant chattering of the slip corden when we had been very quiet during their innings, which isn’t really in the spirit of the modern game. As time ticked on Cameron and Caldwell both fell caught and bowled respectively as did the chairman who spooned one to mid wicket. Frantic conversations were had between incoming batsmen and Lloydy and the draw was decided on as there was only 40 minutes left in the game.

Muzzy and Ian played with composure to see us to the last 10 minutes before Ian was cruely bowled by a grub hunter having seen the previous 2 whistle past his ears.

Last 7 minutes and Kirk and Muzzy were holding firm.
With 5 minutes on the clock, yet another appeal for caught behind was turned down by umpire Lloyd… funnily enough because there was no edge and that they appealed before the ball get near the bat, followed by an LBW shout, again turned down because Kirk was batting with a leg guard and the ball pitched outside off but boy were they grumpy!. Following this entertainment, I guess it should have been no surprise that the first ball of the next over struck the pad (again batting off leg stump) up they went. Their umpire used his good eye, moved the fastest he had all day and triggered Muzzy and bring about more over exuberant celebrations and hand slapping. A draw would have been a fair result we felt and to lose in such a manner left a bad taste with all the wick boys.
next week away to Merstham and hopefully better availability through the club should see a return to winning ways cos my corona just didn’t taste right!
Evenings festivities, Tun= lively Barcadia= even more lively
Duncan= vomming and the passing out on Cranesy’s sofa= Most lively!