Jonjo in Heroic Non-Striker Marathon Innings as Village Win in League at Last!

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 5^th 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.