Village Fail to Get the Joke as the Two Ronnies Strike

The Two Ronnies.... bastards

Billy Shite reporting from Oglands Park where the Mighty Village have defied the weather and are actually playing a game of cricket whilst all over the rest of Southampton, the games are cancelled.  At first glance this looks like an easy fixture for the Village as they are undefeated and their opponents Ordnance Survey have lost every game.  However, armed with the news that their Saturday side has folded, we at the Southern Daily Arse are on the look out for Ronnie Ringer and he’s here in big fashion.  Not such an easy game after all.

The Skip waded out into the middle to look at the pitch, flipped the coin and won and inserted OS into bat, both because the Village bowled a load of shit when defending a target last week and because he himself would have a better chance of not keeping wicket like a twat if he could see the ball as the darkness of last week definitely didn’t help.

The Village were shorn of two of their talents with Spaul having his nose siphoned and Geoff given a one match suspension after his furious reaction of not going to the pub following his spell last week.  Matt Young and Barry Shipman were the talented youngsters called up from the Youth team to replace them.

The Jeweller started in parsimonious fashion, restricting the OS openers to a couple of runs before Sarge Saunders steamed in and clattered the openers stumps.  A good start but it was obvious straight away that the pitch was as wet as Katie Price when she sees a photo opportunity.  The wet pitch was in direct contrast with Sarge who was on fire and new man and one time Village Indoor player Wallis falling lbw for a quacker.  Meanwhile, Barry was a fucking legend as he chased a ball which splashed into an outfield puddle as he was about to swoop down on it like Jonty Rhodes (grandfather).

With five overs gone it was time for the first change and usually it would have been Spaul or Geoff to come on but the Skip took the decision to throw the ball to Tommy 49 after Shagger Blackwell declined citing a bad back and the lack of his lucky pants.  If Tommy has lucky pants then he wasn’t wearing them as OS spanked his arse all over Oglands, exclusively on the leg side as he failed to pitch the ball on the wet green lifeless thing.  It’s a dangerous statement to say that Jonjo couldn’t be worse and in fact he wasn’t but he served up enough big dirty ginger 4-balls in his two over spell to get the score fairly rattling compared with what had gone before.

The Skip took a decision that wasn’t natural to him and painful though it was, he threw the ball to the Big Dog who used guile and cunning to slow things down and a subtle change in pace brought another wicket as he bowled the remaining opener.  The Big Dog had two overs to get through and was as economical as you like until one ball got despatched nearly onto the roof of Debenhams.  Having witness the carnage of the other bowlers, Shagger Blackwell volunteered to put his bad back and his pants on the line and wing down a couple at reduced pace and his two overs proved that this is the pace he should bowl at instead of trying to knock batsmen’s heads off.

Sarge and the Jeweller finished off with one more wicket falling as a push into the covers was seized upon by the Lightning Guru who proved that 1000-1 shots sometimes do come in when his throw hit the top of the stumps to run out the No 4 who had managed to batter his way to 50.  Two Ronnies finished the innings and added a few bonus runs and OS ended up on 107-4 which is not a bad score on this pitch and about 20 more than they should have got.  To describe it as a ‘shithouse’ pitch wouldn’t do it justice as it was like one of those shithouses which has two inches of piss all over the floor.  Would the Village be able to knock off the runs or would they live to regret the overs in the middle when it ran away from them a bit.

With the Mighty Village, it is generally the case that if the Big Dog is grazing for a while then the game would be won.  Ronnie fired in the first over and the Big Dog was watchful but the 6^th ball pitched and shot along the ground to give him no fucking chance and he was bowled.  To be fair to Ronnie, he did apologise – the bastard.  In his next over, Ronnie was no balled by the Skip who was umpiring.  A front foot no ball really leaves no room for complaint as you can’t see when you’re bowling.  It didn’t stop Ronnie chuntering “was that alright?” after his next ball.  “Yes, that one was fine sonny” but the stump mic clearly picked up a muffled “I’d have given a fucking no ball if it wasn’t you twat”.

Matt Young and Tommy 49 were charged with building the innings and this they did but didn’t get full value for their shots by not running hard enough and consistently picking out OS fielders who their Skipper had not only put in the right places (the bastard) but also they were fielding the ball cleanly and putting the pressure on.  11 overs of very good bowling had now passed and the Village were 52-1 so 6 overs remained to get 56 runs… that’s 9.33 an over folks and it’s unlikely.

They were both time the ball well and the Village had a slim chance as long as they stayed together but the alternative approach of both getting out was going to make it nearly impossible as Tommy went caught for 25 and Matt was bowled for 35.  With the Skip deciding not to bat as his ankle had given up supporting his weight and Shagger Blackwell again pulling his lucky pants excuse, in came The Guru and The Jewelller and then out went the Jeweller first ball as he aimed an ungainly heave at a ball that was a bit straight and quick which brought in Jonjo who had scandalously promoted himself up the order from just below Barry Shipman whilst the Skip was out umpiring.  The Guru had a bit of a blaze with a couple of edges through where first slip would have been and a couple of boundaries but trying to belt every ball was only going to end one way and he was…….. to bring in Sarge who in his left handed cacky style, outscored Jonjo by 1-0 who has now batted twice for the Mighty Village this season without using his bat.

The Village limped to a total of 82-5 and finished vanquished by 25 runs and it was a deserved defeat.  OS were better at batting, bowling and fielding and that doesn’t leave a lot else.  In the past couple of matches, the Mighty Village have just about scraped over the line despite being shite for large portions of the game but today they came unstuck and today saw some Indian Justice being dispensed as Kerala moved clear at the top of the league as the Village slipped below Hedge End Jams and down to third.

Next week the Village return to the Centro Dello Sport to play NATS and failing that, it will fuck it down with rain and we can all go to the pub.

Billy Shite, Oglands for the Daily Sporting Arse.

Luke's missing lucky pants - another reason that we lost