I wasnt there so cant comment

Deciding to drive to SRFC – nappy changes for juniors and taking wrong turns on elevated highway placed Omega squarely in this role of reporting.

With Birdshit’s Shakespearean prose setting a new high , this report will bring it crashing back to earth .

Digital Devils bat first , and Swahili and Bugs opened with vigour, aggression and 2 early wickets , should have been 3 as an edge heard at the scorers table was somehow turned down – the resulting conceded runs – too many

First to drop a catch was Tiny . Then he took one by finger tips . Then he became the magnet by which all shots in the air were attracted, resulting in the Sanjay keeping his wicket and resulting in field changes until the 24th over.

Not to be outdone Long Dong did his best to impersonate a fielder with intent, only to back down with said catches falling safely.

All the time the Devils kept scoring boundaries , one of which Pitstop popped his ankle and our out fielding thus gifted even more runs as he took a hobbled spot at point.

The recent frugal bowlling of Swoop, Omega, Long Dong and Bada Bing impersonated Elvis with each conceding at least one 12 plus over and only Tiny , Swahili and Bugs keeping it tight.

In fact with 6 overs remaining and the opening bowlers brought back a flurry of wickets fell. Notably Bugs getting 3 more wickets and 2 run outs . The Devil’s Sanjay(83) pairing up with Parthiban (65 ret) but way too many dropped catches to allow them this total.

Digital Devils   8 / 227  and Bashers in with a fight.

As the Leisure were whooping it up on the Main field , Omega opened with Tiny as Pitstop was injured.

New Basher Nemesis Chaitanya then took Tiny’s and Omegas wicket in the first over . First ball of his second Ghengis gave his up and for a few overs Swoop and Bada Bing resisted and put some runs on the board

It was all to be short lived . Swoop with 19 and a short cameo from Swahili with 3 boundaries and 16 runs gave a little hope but once our nemesis was re introduced with a 6 man slip cordon , the remaining batters showed little resistance and an all out total of 64 was just plain crap from a team who should do better.

• Sunday 13 May 2012 SRFC Far
  Digital Devils 227/8 (4)
  Bashers Pleasure 64/10 ()

Few beers after the game with the only victorious Bashers team of the day , and back on the bus to what I can guess was a sedate fines session.

The one consolation, at least the beers were cold in the bus!!

Notables – Bugs 4 for 29

Swahili 2 for 33

Swoop 19 runs

2012 Division Two

Need a better showing this weekend , and with our usual players available from stepping up to Business duties a more competitive team should be on the park.

NB. Not going to drive again !!

Pleasure are at SRFC starting at 13:30 and the Leisure are at Dulwhich starting at 09:00

Please let me know if you are available or not below as soon as possible.

Thanks

CC Latex

The morning was dreary and drizzly when the team assembled at the Camel. The captain was a notable absentee, calling to put Swoop in charge as he was running late. Importantly though, there was an abundance of pies and sausage rolls.

At the ground, Swoop performed his VC duties well by winning the toss and inserting the Leopards. The Bashers took the field and waited as Korean made his way onto the ground in the nick of time. Not that the game could have got underway without him, as he had the match balls in his bag.

• Sunday 29 April 2012 SRFC Far
  Leopards CC 122/10 ()
  Bashers Pleasure 125/8 (4)

Swahili and Swoop opened up. Swoop was his usual niggardly self, and Swahili was on fire: four overs in the spell, with a wicket in each over. The only thing which derailed him was his raw hatred of traitors leading him to bowl a barrage of bouncers at a former Basher. His wickets included two clean bowled, and catches to Hog, and the nonchalant Long Dong.

First change was Basher newcomer Chitty, who bowled fast and straight, claiming his debut wicket by bowling the aforementioned traitor. Long Dong and Tiny also had brief spells for no reward, and Sinbad came on to claim a wicket with a ‘yorker’. The fielding was good throughout, the highlight being when Tiny and Hog combined for a run out as the batsmen tried to take on Tiny’s arm from the boundary. There was also time for another new Basher to come on the field as Postman Pat relieved Swahili for an over, although his only touch of the ball was over the boundary.

At drinks, the Leopards were seven down for 99: slightly more runs than we would have liked, but a few good pieces of cricket would finish them off. Soon after the break, Chitty was brought back to try and end the innings, and he did so in spectacular fashion, claiming the last three wickets in one over (bowled, LBW, caught and bowled), while also bowling one of the most horrific hat-trick balls in cricket history. Unfortunately, this denied Swahili the chance at a fifth wicket, and with Filthy present as scorer (thanks) and Business selector, may also mark the end of Chitty’s Pleasure career.

The upshot was that the Leopards were bowled out for 122 in only 17.5 overs. Surely the Bashers would cruise home, erasing memories of the previous game’s collapse. We did end up getting the runs with 5 overs to spare, but it was another nervous finish with only two wickets in hand.

Pothole started well and looked to be back in form, middling every ball he faced, and Tiny scored a 5 early on to boost the run rate. Unfortunately, both openers soon perished, bringing relative newcomer Hog, and debutant Genghis together. They looked in control, particularly Hog who had a sweep for six and a number of classical cover drives in a good innings of 33. Wickets kept falling, however. Genghis fell LBW to one which kept low, Swoop managed to get stumped first ball, Hog hit one back to the bowler, Badabing wasted some good form by running himself out, and Chitty smashed one boundary before being bowled.

Seven wickets had fallen with 36 runs still required when Korean joined Swahili in the middle. Korean started accumulating dots and ones while Swahili swatted his way to 18 before being given out LBW. Enter Sinbad, with only 13 needed and plenty of overs in hand. The Leisure had completed their win by then and made their way to the far ground to be treated to some textbook forward defence from both Korean and Sinbad. Korean stonewalled his way to 7 (all singles) off 23 thrilling deliveries, while Sinbad batted maturely to score 9 not out, guiding the ball to the third man boundary to bring up the victory.

With two victorious teams on the bus, we got to see where Long Dong’s loyalties really lie as he defected from our fine session to join the Leisure team in the back of the bus. Then most of our team went AWOL as they hung around outside the Camel to finish the Leisure chilly bin before joining a mellow afternoon session in the back bar, where Swahili was awarded Cock-of-the-walk, but managed to escape with his language faculties almost intact.

All in all, it was a pleasing win. Great bowling and fielding left a low total to chase. We made much harder work of it than we needed to, but got the runs in the end without even needing Long Dong to come in for one of his legendary finishes.

2012 Division Two

Leopards 122 all out (17.5 overs)

Swahili 4-0-33-4

Chitty 3.5-0-15-4

Bashers 125 for 8 (24.3 overs)

Hog 33 (37 balls, 3 fours, 1 six)

Swahili 18 (22 balls, 2 fours)

Pothole 15 (20 balls, 3 fours)

The Pleasure and Leisure teams are in action out at the SRFC, both with 9am starts.

With a lot of new faces and hopefully some old ones back in town we need to have a good number of players available.

As usual regardless of which teams you have played in so far please post your avaliblity for this Sunday. A third win for these teams will lead us into the 2 weeks break for both div 2 and 3 nicely.

Lets keep this momentum going!

CC Latex

The day was off to a bad start as there were no pies (Social Director took the blame- hence Lumberjacking!) and a lot of insults flying all over the place with several Pleasure players skipping breakfast expecting delicious pies… Nevertheless the bus was on time and we set off in style in the “BIG BUS”. The bus ride was fairly eventful with people suggesting the Formula one (which was going on in Jiading) be held on a street track in Shanghai instead- the infamous ‘Yanan Lu”. Pitstop also had a great suggestion that they have a Shanghai taxi company Formula one race as well- I vote the yellow one wins as those “shifus” (is that how u spell it?) got some crazy speed…

Anyways back to cricket… The Korean won the toss and with no hesitation put the opposition into bat (First battle won- as the Pleasure are known as a great chasing team!). With a little warm up (Sinbad ran around the ground twice) and some catching practice (where each player threw it to Sinbad miles up in the air- WTF!) the boyz set out onto the field.

The captain opened with the two S’s- Swahili and Swoop… Both bowlers kept it tight with the occasional boundary. Swahili finally got the batsman to nick at one (faintly I might add- as the batsman walked) and set the ball rolling. Swoop at the other end bowled brilliantly with the field up with his fastish off cutters causing the batsmen all sorts of problems. Finally he snapped one up- a short and wide one smashed straight into the waiting arms of LongDong who seemed to “get real low” to snap it up! 2 down- easy as u like. Soon Tank was introduced where he peppered Bernie (Div 1 batsman) with some short stuff and had him ducking to save his life- gotta luv the aggression. Tank was unlucky to have some fours hit off him as there was some atrocious fielding on the fine leg boundary by Sinbad who would have looked better in a soccer field with all the kicking he was trying to do…

The Pleasure needed more breakthroughs and the Captain went to his deadliest pair- The D Silvas… Sinbad and LongDong. Sinbad started off with a rubbish over where he bowled one of his rank full tosses that was easily helped to the boundary… (at this point Korean signalled to Badabing to “warm up”)… This made Sinbad dig real deep as he found his rhythm and started to burn and turn… There was the off cutter, the doosra, the teesra, the carrom ball. The batsmen were in disarray. Finally Bernie (Div 1) couldnt take it anymore and was foxed by an arm ball and Hog had a great stumping (Job done!).  Another Div 1 batsman- R.Cool ( Wat a “Cool” name!) was sent back by Sinbad- bowled!!! It was a ripper- split seam and the batsman played all over it! At the other end LongDong was doing wat he does best- putting pressure as he chipped away at the batsmen piece by piece. This resulted in 2 LBWs- one of them being Captain James Gooding… LongDong was unplayable!!! Both D Silvas were unlucky to not pick up more as balls were poppin in the air and landing into gaps!

Back to Swahili and Tank… Swahili had their main batsman pop one in the air and as the ball seemed to fall back to earth you could see LongDong make a small sign of the cross before he scooped it up nonchalantly (no SINBAD drop award today he said!). Now fielding also played it’s part in 2 wickets- First Pitstop moving like a gazelle to unleash a rocket that was picked up by Hog who was practicing his “bowling” skills by knocking the stumps to get rid of The “BIG MAN” P. Kushalan (He scored 34 and was soon to haunt us further! On him a bit more later!). Second was Tank showing off his arm skills where he fired one in (clocked at 99mph) to run out good ‘ol Andy Baggot without facing a ball.

During this period Korean was leading  by example and showing off his brilliant fielding skills where he spent more time rolling around on the ground then on his feet. He also won the SINBAD “drop” of the day award but I must admit it was not even close to being Sinbadesque as if he had pulled it off it would have been a blinder and “catch of the year” in my opinion! Nevertheless Korean redeemed himself by taking a brilliant catch looking into the sun off the bowling of Tank. Oh yeah Swahili was hit for a massive six by the number 9! (but he would get his revenge!!!) Final score 160… Great fielding all round (well…) and each bowler having a wicket to his name. Now for the batters to knock the score off- should be easy for this all star line up… hmmmm!

Opening the batting was the usual steady combination of Pithole and Potstop…. They played out a couple of maidens as the bowl was swinging all over the place. Pothole finally succumbed as was clean bowled by James Gooding (although I think he was blinded by Hog taking his shirt off on the sidelines- this was not to be the first time in the day!)- One bowled… No problem in comes Manoj “A toi” to swing his club around… He had a quick 8 but was soon bowled by a bowler he didnt even know which way he was turning it. Manoj was unlucky to have a inside edge onto pad (again this was not to be the first time this happened in the day)- 2 bowled! No worries in came the star of the show this season- “Swoop”… Surely the rest of the batting line up could sneak a couple of beers in. Unfortunately Swoop was beaten and was out for 1 as he was bowled by “BIGMAN” Khushalan (again this name was to haunt us !) that’s 3 bowled!

In came Tank to swing things Pleasure’s way… He swung a couple away before also hearing the knock of wood as his stumps were shattered by Khushalan! 4 BOWLED??? OMG!!!  Up came a nervous SINBAD in his new batting position 6! Is KOREAN CRAZY??? Sinbad was told to play like a batsman and that’s what he did as he left a lot of bowls outside off before swinging aimlessly looking as if swatting flies. At the other end Pitstop was the anchor holding the innings together as well as constantly telling Sinbad to calm down and play straight. After Drinks Pitstop had finally had enough of people getting bowled and decided to snick one outside off to be caught behind bowled by none other than Khushalan. A good knock coming to a swift end. In came Captain Cool- Korean. Korean got off the mark with a crisp cover drive that sped away to the boundary in a flash- it looked like this was going to be his day. At the other end Sinbad was padding away deliveries on leg, middle and off and somehow getting away with lbw shouts.  Korean trying to up the score was then deceived by one that hit his bat, pad and somehow snuck in to hit the stumps.. Another BOWLED!!! Thank God not by Khushalan.  5 BOWLED!

In came Badabing ready to save the day. He looked in fine touch as he swatted away balls to the boundary with ease. Sinbad soon followed suit as he handled the spinners the way K2 had handled him the last week- SMASHING the living crap outta them.  Badabing told him to stay put but Khushalan was introduced again and got one to nip away and smash Sinbad’s stumps! 6 BOWLED!!! Sinbad walked away in disgust! Never mind Badabing was still there and was joined by Div 2 debutant Hog! Hog felt uncomfortable with his shirt on and sadly nicked one to the keeper for one off the bowling of Khushalan!!! NOT BOWLED!!!

In came Dongy with his usual one pad! Badabing at the other end was also BOWLED by James Gooding!!! OH NO!!! In comes Swahili with the score on 94 and 8 overs to go!!! Could this pair do it??  LongDong calmly played out a maiden… Swahili boiling from the six that was hit off him, smashed one as flat as a pancake out of the ground to take the Pleasure to 100! Pleasure hopes were up again and as the ball was almost lost- Sinbad inquired whether that would mean a tie??? In the end Swahili swung again off the next ball looking into the same spot he had hit it earlier only to find his bails flying all over the place! OH NO!!! BOWLED!!! Longdong stayed not out on Zero….

• Sunday 15 April 2012 SRFC Far
  Bashers Pleasure 100/10 ()
  Pudong Power 160/10 (4)

DAMN!!! The Mighty Pleasure had been beaten by last yrs Champs by 60 runs! 8 Bowled and 2 caught behind! This stopped the unbeaten streak! Oh well – u cant win em all! This was obviously a bad batting day by Pleasure (the root cause for the bad batting was found to be the lack of pies in the morning as the batsmen were hungry in the second innings! DAMN SOCIAL DIRECTOR!)

2012 Division Two

Anyways as The BASHERS always do in good spirit- we shared a couple of Beers and banter at the SRFC with the opposition… Back on the bus on the way to THE CAMEL!!! Everyone on??? Captain says YESSS!!! but wait Manoj A toi was left at the ground!!! Apparently LongDong and Korean were supposed to wait for him!!!! HMMM- we had to do a turnaround as we never a man behind! DOUBLE FINES!!!

Fine session was led by Swahili as people mounted the fines onto Longdong for being “Man of The Match”! Unfortunately Longdong had already consumed so much beer that he kept up his trend of not thinking of a fine- having to drink more!!! Sinbad was also constantly fined was his NEON green undies….

With so much traffic it was looking like a good time to polish off some beers!!! Unfortunately the fine session was cut short by lack of beers on the bus (if only the Social Director has listened to the Club Captain and put in another case!! Damn Social Director! He shuda listened and known that this was a Div 2 fine session and not a Business one!!!). One man was happy though- PITSTOP!!! true to his name he stopped the bus in the middle of Xujahui as he proceeded to break the seal in the bushes by the bus. Girls passing by were not impressed!

Finally making it back to The Camel in one piece…. Jenny traded jerseys with The Cricket Coach dude who had rode the bus back with us… We Also all took a picture with him showing The Bashers are friends with all clubs and discussing a future match with his club in Oz  (Sorry at this point stuff got a lil blurry!).

Fines continued into the late hours of the night. “Swoop” was named Cock of The Walk for his performances over the past few weeks but didnt take full advantage of it! The Hawks won ( I think) and Rosberg won the F1 (WTF!!!).

All in all a great day for Cricket but unfortunate day to lose… Let’s regroup these next couple of weeks and get em the next game like we know we can!

Special Thanks to Latex, Jenny (Inky), Tiny Tim and Tara for coming out to support and all those that scored and umpired! Let’s not forget to support Div3 this coming Sunday! Special mention to THE BEAST- Khushalan who completely decimated our batting with 5-12!!!

Also sorry for the pies! I’ll make it up this saturday when yall attend the Teppenyaki and Pub Crawl!!! DO IT!!! Details to come up soon… GO BASHERS!!

Stats:-

Bowling:  LongDong 24-2 of  6 overs, Swalz 36-2 of 6 overs, Tank 39-1 of 6, Swoop 20-1 of  6, Sinbad 37-2 of 6.

Batting: Pitstop- 21, Sinbad-16, Badabing-9.

Fielding- Longdong 2 catches, Korean one catch, Hog 1 catch, 1 stumping, 1 run out.