Leisure vs. Dulwich, May 15 2011

It may have been the Lord’s day but the time and the place were ungodly: 7:15am on a Sunday, sniffing crusted-up spunk and stale vomit outside the Camel Bar. Those fine ladies that walk the night were still flitting about, greeting the forces of Leisure as we arrived. Their faces reminded us of dropped mince pies, sparking a hunger for the bus ride.

The troops assembled in a timely fashion, with the only question mark regarding attendance hanging over the horizontal head of Woodstock. As Woody was undoubtedly passed out before his 60 inch flatscreen surrounded by concubines, our wise and able leader Parrot / Latte saw fit to guarantee his bowling stocks with a series of rousing (and arousing) phone calls timed perfectly to piss off the tall timber and prevent him from returning to slumber. So it was Leisure filed onto the bus and set off for Hogwarts, I mean Dulwich College.

The bus ride was largely uneventful, with nothing newsworthy happening besides the driver being a bit of a dick. Tunnel Beers were forsaken because we passed through no tunnels, and we had to settle for River Beers instead. It was a pretty rubbish river too.

When we arrived at Hogwarts, I mean Dulwich, we linked up with the rest of the Bashers and made a shocking realisation: Wides had missed the bus! In his place instead was his inbred half-brother-daddy, Byes. Who knows what might’ve happened had Wides gone in to bat (and let’s face it, probably top-scored)? Leg side wides were barely given at all, so all runs (besides Byes) had to be off the bat. So be it.

Parrot is a triumphant tosser and did not hesitate to insert our opposition so that we Bashers could avoid the afternoon heat. The innings began with fire and brimstone as Long Dong and Maiden respectively flung down a barrage of ferocious medium pacers and loop-de-doops. Both earned wickets, with Long Dong in particular reaping outstanding figures of 5-0-12-1. A humorous aside occurred as Maiden, fearing that he mightn’t even get a 2^nd over in, even went to the superhuman effort of galloping in off about 5 whole paces for the first bowl he pitched. His ruse worked as Parrot believed he’d turned over a new, athletic leaf and by the time they’d bowled 5 overs each uninterrupted (a new World Record?) Dulwich were about 30-odd for two off 10. Great effort there from Long Dong and Maiden!

I personally thought it was a bit stink that all the Dads came out batting first, while the kids just sat in the school, all padded up with no cover drives to play at and miss. The dads obviously agreed and got a move on; in the next three overs, Dulwich almost doubled their score. Pusher rescued the Bashers though with a deadly donkey-drop that went so high it came down with icicles on it. It bounced at the batsman’s feet and took out middle “a toe-crushing, in-swinging yorker” if ever I’ve seen one.

Woodstock, Ganj & myself kept it tidy in the middle/end and I even picked up a maiden Basher’s wicket, as well as my maiden BS gloat on the blog: nyah nyah nyah! At the innings break we felt optimistic about working the ball around in the heat and chasing down the target of 144. Alas, it was never to be (insert ominous sound effect here).

Just as we were rushing off the field to pad up, Shears ambled in from fine leg with a sore hand. It didn’t look too good at all. But bad news became badder “it was his shearing hand!” Could we take down Hogwarts, I mean Dulwich, with just 10 batsmen and half a pair of shears?

Pusher and Latex strode out to open the batting and I must say, I didn’t get to see too much of our batting effort. Wickets were going down faster than my uncle’s sister, and Filthy’s commentary rang loudly in our ears: Pusher / caught adult, bowled child; Latex / caught child, bowled child; Pothole / bowled child; etc. At this stage, Latex didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

It was left to Desmond Long Dong de Silva, Lord of the Crease, to occupy time and carry the beacon for sensible, no-risk batting. Wickets continued to tumble as the run-rate climbed, and as Maiden enacted his characteristic suicidal single and Long Dong looked to have run out of partners, all eyes turned to the boundary to see who was coming in after the fall of the 9^th wicket. It was none other than Shears himself, his wounded hand wrapped up in specialist sports protection equipment known as “cricket gloves”. He wasn’t going to take this sitting down. At that stage of the chase it would’ve been difficult to win, but Shears still went in for his turn “well done mate, what a champion”.

• Sunday 15 May 2011 Dulwich College
  Bashers Leisure 105/10 (2.05)
  Dulwich Knights Seniors 144/5 (7.44)

And so it was that Leisure lost to a team of children. The only major difference between the teams was the fielding. The Bashers dropped a few sitters that could’ve potentially altered the course of the match (alright, Maiden x3; Ganj x1; OK there you go, I named names). However, the Dulwich boys would hungrily gobble up any balls that came in their general direction with glee. Pusher and Ganj in particular were caught out by two absolute screamers that have no place whatsoever in Division 3 of Shanghai cricket. Tough luck there lads, but just goes to show what we can do with further fielding practice and more diligent pre-game stretching.

Vanquished on the battleground but never in spirit, we stuck around to watch a few gorgeous boundaries from Business showing how it’s done before bussing back to the Camel. It was the perfect temperature to perch outside on the Camel patio and – just as I left the bar – a Chinese bride in full wedding gown was spotted naively asking for a photo with that sexy beast Birdshit. Oh the irony – no worries Leisure, you can catch the ladies “hell, you can even catch an STD”, but the next time we play Dulwich let’s catch some children eh?

2011 Division Three