Village on March despite Penguin Sighting at Millbrook

Ever seen a Penguin Playing Cricket?

Billy Shite of the Southern Daily Arse, reporting from the Millbrook Sewage & Porn Arena where today, the first half of the league season will be completed with a match between The Mighty Village and Riverside.  Two days of rain have softened out the corrugated bits of the wicket and now that rain has given way to evening sunshine, the game goes ahead. 

The Village selection committee had finally reached that point that you get to when you sign on new players for every match due to last minute drop outs – 17 players wanting to play.  The Village settled on the following starting XI:

Big Dog, Jimmy Silverspoon, The Hick, Fox Piss, Tommy Drop, Spaul, Skip, Big Lukey B, de Vito, Admin Case Mackem, Geoffray Bentos.  12^th Man: Seasick Stovell

The scandalous omission of Seasick, saw placard waving demonstrators outside the MCC but they reckoned with Tommy Drop and his list of excuses and so the Seasick one was reprieved, courtesy of a sick dog.  No reprieve was forthcoming for the available Mick the Teeth who took to social media to voice his displeasure before declining a late olive branch offered by the Skip, in preference to finishing his bottle of meths under Cobden Bridge.

It’s good practice for cricket teams to have openers with different attributes – usually a right/left hand combination or an accumulator of runs partnering a basher.  Unable to do this, The Village have gone with a tall, thin, quick, young one and a short, fat, slow old one.  What they did have in common was that they both wore helmets, possibly due to the usual Millbrook minefield.

Both batsmen looked uneasy at the start of the innings as Riverside opened up with some right arm ginger from the Sewage End with the Big Dog still suffering with his broken toe and Silverspoon struggling with there being no grounds quite like this one anywhere in Surrey.   Four balls into the innings, the sightscreen was a moving steam train pulling some maroon carriages which made a nice backdrop to pick the ball out of.  The bowler from the Sex Shop End was also reasonably tight and The Village were moving along at 5 an over for the first 6 overs of the innings.

As the openers tried to increase the rate, The Big Dog managed to get dropped twice, first sending one into orbit which came down on top of a fielder who got a hand to it before it hit the deck and then driving on straight to mid on at head height which was juggled and dropped once more.  Once the opening bowlers had been seen off the rate did increase slightly until the Big Dog was bowled for 30 to bring in Captain Hick who in true army fashion tried to kill someone straight away by mullering one round the corner to the short fine leg fielder who didn’t really move until the ball crashed into his chest. Hands good, chest bad.

Riverside didn’t have any back up bowling of any note and so the Officers wreaked carnage with Silverspoon dispatching two enormous sixes into the wasteland beyond the boundary and Hick trying and mostly succeeding in smashing every ball.  It’s all going rather marvellously for The Village until Silverspoon played all round a Dobbler delivery and was bowled for 60, to bring in some competition for the Sewage Works smell as Fox Piss appeared at the crease.   There was more carnage from Hick before he smashed one up in the air and it came down on the Riverside 13 year old who must have wished he was anywhere else as it came to earth and he dropped it.  He did however pick it up and hurl it back to the bowler who ran out the ginger magician for 6, as he attempted to complete the second run whilst impersonating a penguin, a very slow penguin.  With just the three balls remaining it was safe to send the Skip out to bat and the Mighty Village ended on an impressive 143-3.

Having conceded about 40 more runs that you’d want to on this wicket, the Riverside batsmen needed to get on with it but you can’t get on with it when you are faced with the miserly de Vito bowling from the Sewage End.  Spaul was on from his favourite Sex Shop End and was not so miserly having injured himself making an effort in the field on Saturday which was was allegedly impeding his bowling.  Impeding his bowling figures were the Skip’s positioning of The Big Dog and Bentos as a leg side ‘ring of steel’.  A four which trickled through that area prompted Spaul to go into his usual ‘defence’ mode and post all his fielders on the boundary.

With de Vito saved til later, on came Luke Malinga and in came his stock first ball, the knee height full bunger wide down the leg side which the Skip took one handed before it bounced.  The rest of the over, when it eventually arrived was decent and aside from one mahoosive 6 being slogged off it, his second wasn’t bad either.  From the Sex Shop End and complaining that the wind was going to impede his inswing, came Geoffray Bentos and his leg stump attack was met with consistent leg stump smashed for four or six.  Sicknote Sunderland was on in place of Malinga and this brought the first wicket as the more aggressive of the two openers went airborne and he trudged off as soon as he saw the ball was going to Hick and not to one of the usual Village fielders.

The new batsman was a Saffer and he was always going to throw the bat and it was apparent pretty quickly that you didn’t want to bowl on the leg stump.  Apparent that is, unless you were Geoffray Bentos who was smashed to long on for 4 and after some meticulous field re-placement bowled a classic leg stump pie which disappeared over the trees.  It’s a sad thing that you can’t put fielders in the trees or in the clouds.  What you can do though it bowl outside off stump which was worked out by the wily Bentos after he’d been moosed for two more sixes in his next over.  Fresh from taking the piss, on came Sergeant Sunderland and did the same thing and got smashed all over the place.   He was not helped by some legendary boundary fielding from Jonjo who did his penguin run one way, before pointing at the ball as it went for four in more or less exactly the position that he started from.

There was still a chance with 3 overs to go that the Village could throw it away with the Saffer still at the crease and 42 needed but cometh the hour, cometh Danny de Vito who with his first ball back, clipped the top of the Saffers off stump as the ball seamed in slightly.  That one ball had won the match for the Mighty Village as the next batsman came in dressed as a rabbit.  Yes, the tail had started.  There was a chance for someone to make their figures look more presentable and the opportunity was afforded to Sunderland who got spanked for 4 before cleaning up the remaining opener and then bowling the guy in the rabbit suit.  There was one de Vito over to go which brought another  wicket off the first ball and an almost unpickable slower ball (horrible, slow, long hop) at the youngster who came in to bat and so the Riverside effort closed on 108 for 5.

So another win for the Mighty Village who have cruised into second place in the league with three wins in a row.  Next into the sights come the table topping Ordnance Survey who will hopefully have that git playing who gave it the large one last time.  The Village can surely give them a good game even though they will be without the absent Big Dog and Captain Hick.  Hopefully Tom’s dog will have recovered enough for him to play.

Until then, this is me, Billy Shite, signing off at the Millbrook Sewage & Porn Arena for the Southern Daily Arse.