Active Nation hard at work preparing the wicket
Billy Shite of the Southern Daily Arse reporting from Basra,
Lordshill on the third attempt by the Mighty Village to register a win in the
League this season. The selection
committee had thought long and hard and tinkered with the selection of men for
the task ahead. Out went Steve Weall to
be replaced by another bloke no one had heard of, Rhino Connor but the major
surprise, given the 100% record of the Mighty Village in the league, was that
TIM (The Invisible Man) kept his place as a last minute replacement for
Sergeant Sunderland who didn’t fancy Basra, the soft Northern bastard.
As the Skip was getting changed, Spaul was sent out for the
toss with clear instructions to win the toss and bat so he duly lost the toss
and didn’t bat. The Skip, in a well
planned out tactical move (and not because The Sheikh didn’t want to open the
bowling and Sunderland hadn’t turned up), threw the ball to Rhino for the first
over and he steamed in to Serious Opener who nudged him down to Seasick Steve
at fine leg and among Village shouts of ‘powerarm’ and ‘have him’ and ‘don’t
risk it mate’, turned down the second run and didn’t see the funny side as
Village fielders all pissed themselves laughing as the throw winged in on the 5th
bounce. The other opener didn’t last too long as he skewed a shot straight at
Spaul at mid wicket who couldn’t move out of the way quick enough and so he
caught it.
The reluctant Spaul was then on to bowl but not before we
had a delay for the Village fielders to attempt to move the slightscreen at the behest of Serious Opener. When the Village play them next,
I hope it’s at Millbrook so we can offer to move the screen which is just a
vandalized frame that you can drive a car through. With the new batsman shuffling across in
front of his stumps every ball, an lbw was on the cards and so it proved as he
shuffled across and got hit on the foot about six inches in front of middle
stump with the ball heading straight for the bottom of middle stump. I guess you could argue that the ball would
have hit the bottom of middle stump and therefore the bails may not have come
off so it was given not out in a wonderful display of cheating or
incompetence. No umpire intervention
was needed to save the batsman a few balls later as she drove one straight at
Spaul who instinctively got out of the way even though it was off his own
bowling. Yep, the only way he was going
to get out was bowled and the off stump shuffle exposed the leg stump which got
hit.
After two decent Rhino overs, Geoff was on and there was a short
delay whilst a few players moved their cars from the cow corner car park. Aside from Serious Opener, B&Q were
struggling to score too many though they could have sorted you out with some
Cillit Bang if you needed to know which aisle it was on. “Great shot” went the cry as the new batsman
connected and then they looked to see the ball sailing straight to Spaul and
his Bucket Hands on Long on boundary.
Again he couldn’t abdicate responsibility to someone else and again it
was bagged.
The Blackwell enigma came on to bowl to see if he could
improve on the platter of shite and onions he served up on Monday and after the
initial wide it was decent stuff from the big man even though Serious Opener
had been joined at the crease by a left handed slog merchant. Having warmed up for 8 overs, the Wizard of
Ozz was now ready to bowl and his first over saw the end of Serious Opener as
he played and missed and then bizarrely went for a little walk to see the
stumps thrown down by the Skip who in that instant, worryingly looked like a
proper keeper. Ozzy appealed for the
dismissal to be recording as a stumping and was politely laughed out of town by
the rest of the Mighty
Village
The Rhino was back for his last two overs and was impeded by
an umpire who obviously decided that B&Q hadn't scored enough and needed
help. As the batsman backed away, a ball
that was six inches outside off stump was called a wide. When Rhino followed the backing away batsman,
a ball that flicked off his backside was also given as a wide as the Skip
tumbled down the leg side to stop it.
The next one crashed into his pads and it was close but not ever worth
asking for to be honest. B&Q got
desperate at the end and tried to blindly smash every delivery from The Sheikh
to Romsey but if you do that with your eyes shut when the ball is spearing in at
the stumps, only one thing is going to happen and it did, 3 times as B&Q
finished on 93-7.
Anyone who was expecting a blistering run chase and a quick
finish was to be sadly mistaken as the Big Dog and Spaul set about building an
innings having been reinstated as the opening partnership after the brief
experiment of having a ginger opener. Tight
bowling played a part as aside from one out-of-character aggressive shot from
Spaul, the boundaries completely refused to flow. After 6 overs, the Mighty Village were
going along at 5 an over but the change bowlers brought a change in the run
rate as Ramamnotenoughroominthescorebookforhisnamekrishnan was despatched by the
Big Dog.
There is always a good chance that if bowlers 3 and 4 are
not great, that bowler 5 will be worse and so it proved as Reddy came on, or
Reddytogoandlookfortheballinthenextfield to give him his full name, with a
whack whack here and a whack whack there and the Big Dog feasted on the buffet
with a 4,4,6,4 and then a beautifully timed single to steal the strike.
Bowlers 6 and 7 disproved the earlier theory and they
should have been on much earlier but they were running out of runs to play with
by this time. The Big Dog moved to 50
before his junior partner tried to finish the game and drilled one straight to
the bowler who surprisingly hung onto it meaning Spaul had gone for a solid 34. In
came the demoted Foxpiss abut he could only watch on aghast as the Big Dog was
neutered by a kind of shit long hop which bowled him for 51.
With the score already on 91, it just took a 2 to bring the
scores level and a 4 to get us over the line and neither of these scoring shots
were executed in a Ginger fashion which meant that The Mighty Village had won
by 8 wickets but also that Jonjo had heroically carried his bat for an average preserving 0 not out.
So, The Mighty Village are up and running in the league and
the selectorial shambles of the season so far appears to have unearthed another
gem in Rhino. Expect to see The Mighty Village
cutting a swathe through the division as the season progresses as they take the
confidence of victory into their next matches.
Next up is Blake Lapthorne who last time had this very strange umpire who
gave a 4 against The Village when Seasick Steve had clearly saved it and told
the umpire that he’d saved it. Dodgy solicitor bastard.
This is Billy Shite, reporting from Basra ,
Lordshill Province
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