Village Triumph as Ginger Tosser Edges Winning 6

 

Jamie: Just Beautiful

 

Billy Shite of the Southern Daily Arse here at the Centro Dello Sport and every time I come here I marvel at the majestic beauty of the broken sightscreens and smile at the fact that the car park is three miles away from the changing room which is a further 3 miles from the pitch.

The Mighty Village selection committee had delved back into the past and come up with Tommy Tantrum, The Ginger Magician and International Film Star Phil de Vito – Legend.  Talking of Legends, Barry was in the house and 12^th man.  The rest of the team was made up out of the usual twats.  There were a couple of twats missing though as Geoff was resting himself before his transition openeration and Sarge Saunders was off on some top secret mission somewhere in the interests of National Security.

The Skip had one job which was to win the toss and not have to bat in the dark and he failed with The Village having to bowl first.  With the experienced opening partnership of de Vito and Spaul, the runs were kept down and all was looking good as Spaul pinned one opener lbw and then the other opener sliced a de Vito delivery straight to Brocky.  At the crease now was a South African and a bloke who was shit scared and backing away at every ball.  

 

There is always a chance in the first game that one or t’other of your bowlers is going to have a mare and sadly, Brocky and Rhino managed to send down 4 overs between them for 55 runs as the fielding effort went to shit and the Skip found it difficult to set a field for hip high full tosses on leg stump as you can’t put fielders in the trees.  Wardy would surely do better but 18 off his first over proved otherwise though he wasn’t helped by some horrific fielding with Jamie the Beautiful, beautifully pulling his hand out of the way of one chance which is worthy of ridicule, even though none of the rest of us would have got anywhere near it.  Brocky did eventually get things right and the Village tightened up a bit at the end with de Vito returning to claim the scalp of the guy who backed away every ball by bowling at the three, very visible stump to end with 4 overs for 6 runs and 2 wickets.  NATS ended on 128.

 

The Village needed a beautiful opening partnership so the Big Dog was put at No.3 and Tom and Jamie the Beautiful went in.  As boys and girls swooned in the crowd, the dashing pair started mowing the ball around and the score bounded on.  So moved by the spectacle unfolding in front of him, Phil de Vito committed to play the whole season on the spot whereas up to that point, he was only going to be available occasionally.  I think that Kevin Pietersen would sign for The Village if he could witness the Beautiful opening pair in full flow.

 

And then one of the beautiful bastards got out as Tom (27) picked out a fielder who juggled the ball but managed to hold on despite never actually looking like he knew what he was doing at any point.  Without his partner in Beautiful, Jamie struggled to maintain concentration with the Big Dog (who was beautiful back in the day I’m sure) and got bowled for 34 to bring in The Pake.

Pakey and the Big Dog carried on the good work that the Beautiful ones had started and despite many ‘one more and we’re through them’ shouts from the over optimistic NATS fielders, the Village marched on until Pakey was bowled for 22 to bring in Scholesy.  In an object lesson of counting to 5 and then nicking the strike, the Ginger Magician not only nudged The Village into a winning position but severely pissed off The Big Dog at the same time.  It came to pass that the Mighty VBillage needed 6 off the last over to win and the NATS skipper took responsibility and bowled the last over.  In he bounded and send down a rank long hop on leg stump which the Ginger Prince bottom edged for 6.  The bowler sank to his knees like Brett Lee in that iconic 2005 scene with Freddie Flintoff but instead of a consoling pat from the opposition, everyone ignored him expect for one of his own team who clearly said ‘cunt’ as he walked past.  The Big Dog finished unbeaten on 25. 

So, the Village odyssey starts off with a win in the first game of the season for the first time in about 3 years.  Can they make it 2 out of 2 in the next game against B&Q next week, a team with notoriously shite umpires and irritating players.  Tune in next week to find out. 

This is Billy Shite for the Southern Daily Arse at The Ageas Sports Centre.