Bashers Business go down drinking in Div One Final

Division One Superbowl Clash – Bashers Business lost to Pudong Power CC A
SRFC
2 November 2025

Business went down to a narrow defeat in the Division One Championship Final. There was passion, integrity and controversy. But most of all, there was beer and good cheer. Business went down drinking.

Paps, standing in for the Skipper Haseena for the opening formalities, won the toss and put them into bat. They started quite well with the openers batting with some skill and enjoying a slice or three of good fortune. But Dettol was in a mood to clean up and got the left-hander to nick off, with Soapy taking the catch behind the stumps. If a multinational corporation – Unilever, Procter and Gamble, Huawei – could bottle the Soapy-Dettol combination, there would be no need to worry about the looming post-antibiotic cataclysm. Enough said.

Paps was looking like a man rejuvenated after his neck massage earlier in the week and was peppering the batsmen with in-swinging bouncers. But into the attack came Yeti Dick, spinning the ball like a magician who had just come back from dervish school. The poor batsman was back and across when he should have been forward and straight. Caput. Diana Ross had a song for it: Inside out.

After that, Haseena threw some fearsome pace bowling into the hellfire. Suka was swinging it around like Jimmy Hendrix in 1968. The crosstown traffic was too much. Juggler seemed to have six chainsaws up in the air: result – some severed Pudong wickets. Perhaps most fearsome of all was Lucifer: watching him bowl you could understand the Mick, Keith and all having sympathy for the Devil, as he was banging it in and sprinting to the catches. A man possessed. Not since the Book of Revelations had there been such a prophecy of Beelzebub and doom. The horseman of the apocalypse for the hapless batsmen.

The result was PDPCC bowled out for 164. It was gettable. 30 overs. We started our response well. Eight off the first over. Paps had a fantastic strike rate but was a bit unlucky with the bounce. He settled down to some rum and Coke in the pavilion. In came Yeti Dick. He would surely have DRS’d the LBW decision against him. But we Bashers had to respect the umpire’s decision. Soapy was caught on the boundary, driving for glory. Skipper Haseena was unlucky with one that caught the glove. Mr Tickles misjudged one.

But still, it was looking good for the good guys.

It was all going well until the PDPCC played their chump card: THEY HAD JOE DI FUCKING MAGGIO PLAYING FOR THEM. He was chucking it as if this was the Kentucky Superbowl. For goodness’ sake. Really. The umpires responded to our protests by saying that we would look at the issue next season.

Di Maggio’s elbow was more bent than a three-bob note. Enron, the Dutch tulips scam. Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford, Martha Stewart. That email from the oil tycoon who wants to bequest you $15 million if you could just provide your bank details. The guy who sold London Bridge to the Americans. The last time your Lumberjack had seen something this crooked, he was cartoonish villain who was later pummelled into submission by Batman.

I think you get the picture.

We protested but let it go, respecting the umpires’ decision. Did it cost us the superbowl championship final? Perhaps. Was Joe di Maggio chucking? Does Trump occasionally use a bit of fake tan? Was Madonna sometimes a bit open to suggestions in 1984? Was your Lumberjack occasionally led astray by temptation in Bangkok, a long time ago, in an age of innocence? If you had the same spinal flexibility as dogs, would you spend most days in bed? Is Sympathy the best Stones track, but Exile the greatest album? Does Drake sometimes think to himself, in a sad, forlorn moment: “Perhaps shouldn’t have started that beef.”

YEEEEESSSSSS!! Apart from the Bangkok one. Honest.

Did we let it affect our spirits? Obviously not. Suka was batting superbly. Lucifer was wielding the blade like D’Artagnan: the dastardly bowlers even began to start acting like Cardinal Richelieu. Glory was close.

But it was not to be. Business fell just 10 runs short of the super bowl title, just two strike outs from glory. There was hollering, squawking and hooting from the gracious champions. Something was missing. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

In the meantime, Covid20 had turned up in Channel shades. Leppa/Inquisition had appeared with Claire, who had no Bashers name. Anna had made an appearance, glowing. Yeti had brought along Little Red Riding Hood. Claire was named “1963”.

A ceremony, fines session and some beers. Anyone who didn’t know the result would have assumed that we had won. And, in many ways, we had.