Match Report: Stung by The Stingers

by Ed (Watto) Watson

(Before I even start the angriest and venomous player of the Dogs is writing this report so feel free to remove the spite and malice from the following words)

On a searingly hot day at the renowned HQ of the “Dogs” the team was assembled on paper it was looking pretty solid with depth in bowling and some good sluggers throughout the line up. It did however not present itself as the backbone free invertebrate that is proved to be as the day wore on.

Cutler appeared late with daughter in one hand and quarter pounder in other. Consistency is an important part of his pre-match routine so we were all really glad that he had a fag in hand before the ¼ pounder was finished. Stunning preparation.

Anyway, Sean Garvey, our resolute skipper, tossed the first coin and called heads…Upon further inspection the coin did not actually have a head on it and was found to herald from some far flung planet in a galaxy far away and so we had to tell Luke his money was worthless here and got a valid 20 cent piece from someone else. We won the toss and decided to bat….ERROR…ERROR….ERROR

The pitch has suffered from dew in the morning and heat later on. It was like batting on “Glue track”. Luckily Chris Tavere and Geoff Boycott had bee re-incarnated in the form of Anthony Cheshire and he opened the batting like it might have been a timeless test…. (More of a timeless test of his own teams patience) but anyway he maidened his way to 8 off 28 balls...nice) Luke nibbled around for a few until wickets tumbled. TC slugged his way with some finesse to 19. Jez, Ed and Garvs failed.

Redeeming feature of the early afternoon was Mark Harvey appearing with his bird who didn’t mind any chat about “playing the back 9”. We all warmed to her immediately and asked if she may play instead of Harvs next time. Motion passed unanimously. Cutler came in and slapped a few full bungers onto the hill and then started claiming he actually is a “real” cricketer. Hmmm…even the lovely Estelle rolled her eyes as he whistled down another couple of tabs and pure blondes…(one of which he showed us on his I-Phone – amazing what Photoshop ca do these days!) We stifled our way to 103 and then set about bowling to defend it…….

A few early breakthroughs and some decent bowling from Luke and Nick’s well played offies restricted them to 130. They had some resident of “The Shire” that bilbo’ed his way to 20 and was to prove a real hand brake for us throughout the day. They didn’t find the pitch as hard as us. We blamed the gay pink ball, the arrangement of the planets, age, beers and nostra Damas. And yet these ac-TORS raced past us. They South African blaster hit a few and we were sent back in to over turn the lead and set a target. ….

This time the openers realized the format and both retired on 20 after about 6/7 overs. Well batted JP and “old school” Dave from Shore. TC again whacked more valuable runs, Jez retired and we looked set to get stuck in. Cutler ran himself out, Marcus looked a little out of place so was give out off the 7th ball in the over so as to limit the damage. Our own umpires even struggled to count to 6 so reparations needed to be made by sympathetic minds at the other end….Spirit of the game is alive and well. We got some useful runs at the end with Chesh and Luke going at a run a ball..(Rather than a run a day!)

So we were left to defend a lead of 102 after finishing our second dig at 135. Everyone thought it was 20 short and everyone was right.

We just weren’t able to squeeze them when we needed to and every over contained a boundary or a no-ball that got thumped for 4. “Old School” Dave was on song, Garvey tried to restrict it and Ed Watson just got more pissed off. We had some useful stumpings from TC’s off-dollies and the catch at deep cow by me wasn’t too bad. The second one I dropped would have been better but I dropped it. TWAT. The result was always going away from us even though they didn’t know the no-ball rule on double bouncers we can safely say we didn’t justify our existence out there and were beaten by a team that simply made the game we were trying to play a lot easier by doing the simple things well. (Staying on the fence, not bowling no-balls and scoring quickly). However the day was thoroughly enjoyable and the weather held. Why we rolled out the covers and then had to out it back afterwards will remain a mystery. We weren’t to know the pitch would be as tricky as it was but we certainly could have done better than we did and it will be a real pleasure having another pop at these guys and getting the result we all felt we had in us.

The next game is on Jan 13th against the Northern force where a few players will change allegiance. The team remains strong and the banter and character continues to flourish. Cricket is still the winner.