Church o/t Assumption 6/5/07
Posted Wednesday, May 9, 2007
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Match tied - Sunseekers 222-2 (Ashton 133, Wenn 55), Church of the Assumption - 222 ao (Ashford 1-20, Bennett 3-23)
On a cool and windy day at Hemington the skipper lost the toss and we were put in to bat in this 10-a-side match. He claimed that if he had won the toss, that is what he would have chosen to do! Mick - to give that any credibility whatsoever, it needed to have been said BEFORE the toss was made. Anyway, given the small size of the ground and that each team was one player down, it was clear that the game would be fairly high scoring. Pity it doesn't count for the averages Mick.
Short and boring - that was just the skipper's ...
One end of the wicket came with an in-situ umpire so Fred took the first stint at the other as Mick and Howard got off to a good start - Mick in particular was short, fat but not too boring for the first few overs, it was only in the 8th over, when Mick decided to go into his Ninja Turtle shell and play for his average, that Howard managed to catch and overtake him. After that - no contest. Anyway, back to Fred. The wind was troubling him as his bails kept dropping off so he called for a heavy pair, which, following a bit of faffing, finally emerged after tea. Unfortunately, this request set Brian the Technician off with a 35 minute discourse on the materials (Lignum Vitae, Mahogany) and engineering of a pair of heavy bales.
Early in the innings, The Skipper was rapped on the pads by a ball that stayed low, so after having survived the inevitable appeal, he went forward and patted the artificial wicket - probably the champagne moment of the game. A couple of other contenders were Howard's body language when Mick turned another 2 into a single, Howard shouting 2,2,2 loudly later on in the innings to meet with a reply of 1,1,1 from Mick. Afterwards, The Skipper claimed to "have been running singles instead of twos to farm the strike to Howard". The final champagne moment during our innings came with someone saying something like "I can't recall us ever having batted through without losing a wicket before" to which Paul Downes replied "Anston, 2 years ago". We were well impressed by this incredible knowledge of Sunseekers history until someone twigged it was the day that Paul was at No.3 and did not get a bat.
There were not too many bizarre incidents as we fielded, although there were a couple more champagne moments. The first coming when the skipper made his first catch of the season, turning a looping dolly into something more spectacular. There were rumours that he was in flight as he caught it but from where I stood it looked more like the LEDs in the soles of his weird trainers were alight, giving the impression of daylight beneath his feet. It was quite actually heartwarming to see the boyish smile of pleasure on his face as he finally managed not to spill a catch - or maybe it was just wind. The second? Steve cruelly accepting a catch off their final batsman, a young lad, who just needed to stay there for a couple of balls to give their in-form batsman the chance to dab the last single to give them the win. The poor lad was in tears.
