Village in Cup Rampage as Big Dog and Tommy tame Basra Minefield

Geoff, complete with holiday suntan, celebrates pitching one up.

Billy Shite of the Southern Daily Arse reporting from Basra, Lordshill where the Mighty Village take on Friends CC in the Cup.  The sun is shining and it’s testament to the power of cricket that out of respect for the game, there are no bombing raids due and the opposing factions are giving it a rest for the afternoon.  Defending a 100% record of defeats, The Village will be looking to use this Cup game as a way to kick start their season but the very excitable and very keen looking Friends CC will provide stiff opposition.  The Village selection committee again had issues and many changes were made as the blood letting following The Shire defeat saw MacDonald, Ball, Jewell, Big Feest, Jewell and Delmege all savagely dropped and replaced with Geoff and his Baselayer Skin, Big Lukey Blackwell, Little Tommy 49, Steve Weall – a bloke no one had ever heard of and the Ginger Magician himself, Jonjo Stovell.  So, 6 out and 5 in and a recall for TIM, the invisible man.

This game was of course, supposed to be played a week ago when The Village only had 7 men but a double booked pitch and a hasty retreat to the pub meant that here we were again a week later.  At the toss, The Village only had 8 men present and so Friends CC took great pleasure in putting themselves into bat.

It became apparent during The Sheikh’s first over that The Village were bowling at Gordon Greenidge as he smashed everything wide to the boundary.  There was some serious hitting going on at  the other end too but debutant Steve Weall  got the first wicket by knocking back his off stump.  All this achieved was to bring in Ranatunga who obviously had a packet of biscuits in his bag that he wanted to finish as he tried to smash everything including one which he smashed at Seasick Steve in the field who looked like he tried to head it as his cap flew off.

With the opposition rattling along at 11 an over, Skip needed an element of control and he needed a "Go to" bowler, so he threw the ball to Geoff in the same way that Ricky Ponting used to throw it to Shane Warne.  It is doubtful though that Warnie would have bowled 4 half track pies which got the full Ranatunga treatment but it did at least give us the opportunity to marvel at Jonjo’s running style as he chased the ball in a race to the boundary that he was always going to lose.  Big Lukey B is on at the other end and the man with the stuttering run up which occasionally stutters so much that he has to apologise and start again, bowled some pies but he did the business as Ranatunga got an edge which flew straight into the right glove of a very surprised looking Skip who didn’t actually move aside from throwing an arm up.

The Friends skipper now came in and he was annoying because he was left handed but a massive score was still on the cards but Gordon was gone, pinned in front by the surprise of seeing Geoff pitch one in his half.  In came a new batsman and edged to the standing up Skip first ball and he really didn’t want to walk but the whole of West Southampton knew that he’d hit it so he had to go.

With Geoff now putting it in the right areas and it being apparent that less pace was more successful, a normal captain would have brought Tommy Drop on.  The Mighty Village Skip did bring on Tommy Drop for some tweak but his criteria was ‘because he’s not ginger’.  Tommy was generating some serious sideways movement on his leg breaks and though he occasionally dropped too short and got mullered, there were a lot of dot balls in there as the right-handers fished and missed and eventually one overbalanced and got stumped.

The fact that less pace meant more success was lost on The Sheikh as he bowled his last over at a serious lick causing one batsman to top edge into orbit to be pouched by the Skip who had enough time to think about how everyone would take the piss if he dropped it.

There was a distinct air of smugness at the total of 144-6 which Friends clearly thought was going to be more than enough.  The Skip sent in the Big Dog and Jonjo Foxpiss as the openers with Spaul wishing to hide in the middle order like he’d hidden at fine leg during the fielding effort.   The target looked very far away when Foxpiss scored 6 off two balls before dollying up a simple catch to the bowler which brought in Tommy 49 to partner the Big Dog.  Before the next ball was bowled to Tommy, some chirp from the field with a “come on boys, run through them”.  Tommy was then dropped at square leg before he had scored – would that be costly?

Ranatunga is steaming in to bowl and he looks fired up as the Big Dog smote him for 4.  He gets progressively more angry and bowls progressively shorter for the next 3 balls as each one disappears for 4.  The Big Dog loves a diet of long hop shite.  The chirping from the field was now getting amusing with each 4 being followed with a “let’s have a response boys”, long hop, bang, 4 ,  “let’s have a response boys”, long hop, bang, 4.  Like Friends CC did, The Mighty Village are going at 10 ish an over and then it happened, The Big Dog ran a 2.  In order to prevent another Muamba incident, the defibrillator was on the pitch in an instant which is the one advantage of playing in a warzone.

10 overs gone and 100 for 1 and the main threat to the Village winning would be losing a wicket and new men having to bat in the gathering darkness, not being helped by a new bowler who was running in from the boundary before bowling medium pace.  Key moment alert as the Big Dog lobbed one straight to the skipper at mid wicket who shelled it.  The chirp of “a dot ball is a good ball lads” was amusing.  Of course, I’d rather have a dot ball than catch a batsman who is smashing it everywhere.  The progress was unrelenting but Friends did get another of those valuable dot balls as Tommy was shelled in the deep after he clearly said “oh shit” as his attempted straight drive skewed straight to a fielder.

Both batsmen passed 50 and so we arrived at 2 overs left and 6 runs required.  A run off a wide and a four later and it was all over and a glorious cup victory and there was no longer an air of smugness around and there was no chirping.

So, a massive first victory of the season for the Mighty Village who will be hoping to take that form into the next league game and haul themselves off of the bottom of the league.  The Cup run is now in progress but what awaits is a horrible draw against the current SECL Champions Hedge End Hawks.  The Mighty Village, all 10 of them looked like a decent side tonight so you never know.

Billy Shite of the Southern Daily Arse, reporting from Basra, Lordshill.