Bashers Business Top the league after the first round.

The Bashers Business have taken the first round honors after a commanding batting display saw them easy winners over Pu Dong Power on Sunday’s final round-one clash.

2011 Division One

A 7am meeting time was greeted with an impressive level of compliance with the expected exception of Sir Dick at 2mins and 30 seconds past the buzzer and Sin Bad who as it turned out was on an entirely different Time Zone. There was a positive mood in the camel as the Business and Pleasure teams assembled. A fragrance of optimism hung in the air which barely managed to overpower the odor of the Camel’s previous evening festivities.

After about 20 unanswered texts and phone calls the decision was made that Sin Bad should be cut loose and the 20 Bashers that were on time should no longer wait. This lead to the first challenge of the day to get to the bus we were going to have to leave the safety of the Camel and walk past the gates of Hades to get to the bus door. One by one Bashers timed their run to the bus. The coast was almost clear when one of final languishing Bashers was called out by name. Oscar looked like a eucalyptus tree as he was mounted by a rabid koala looking for love in all the wrong places. He eventually and seemingly reluctantly broke free and got on the bus.

At SRFC the outfield was slightly moist and the sun was going to play a bit of havoc for the team that had to field second so a good to toss to win. However, Dipso lost his first toss as the 2011 Div 1 skipper and was put into bat by the Pu Dong Powerhouse. Very little was known about this Pu dong side other than the fact they had already claimed the scalps of the Hot Dogs and K2 in earlier games.

Dipso choose Filthy (in the absence of Oscar [injury]) to be his opening partner. The pair of them got into the usual amount of blocking and prodding and general milking the extra through the first few overs. Filthy had just crept into double figures when he flashed at one outside off and was caught behind putting our total at 33-1. This brought a determined looking Dazzler to the crease. They saw off the remaining openers overs and then witnessed the mental destruction of the first change bowler. He would bowl a 17 run over consisting of one boundary and 13 extras. Unfortunately in the midst of that over he did mange to bowl one straight one which Dipso was not expecting for obvious reasons and was clean bowled. Bashers 48-2 in the 10^th. Stats was next in and was gone soon after putting on a partnership of 5. Extra 3: Dazzler 2 Stats:0. This brought to the crease Cassius. A consolidation of the innings was needed, the pair grafted away from the 11^th over through to the 35^th over and with a excellent display of running between the wickets and some big hitting and managed to stay in the middle for the longest time in living Bashers memory (137 minutes). In a combined partnership with Cassius of 153 runs off 153 deliveries. On the sideline there was a bit of action as Sinbad finally showed up when it was 7am in his Bahraini time-zone right on time. Meanwhile, Dazzler played some sensational shots in a Dazzling 88 and and after coming close to exhaustion started playing some bigger shots as the push was on with wickets in hands. He was eventually bowled, putting to rest the saying “Good batsmen don’t get bowled”. This brought in Sir Dick who had been waiting for what felt like an eternity on the sideline. With 6 overs to go and 5 wickets in-hand it was time for the slog-fest. Kevin played a couple more expansive shots before finally being out caught on his highest ever Bashers knock of 64. Sir Dick found a couple of fruit deliverers and gaps in the field to get to 40 of 16 delivers, before again adding to the counter argument of “Good batsmen don’t get bowled” It’s worth mentioning Hedgehog whilst only scoring two himself ran about 20. Bashers were then 258 for 7 with 11 balls to go. Whilst until this point we had seen some pretty good running between the wickets this fell away a touch as the mind was willing but the body just ain’t what it used to be set in. In a rather bizarre end to the innings, SinBad despite loosing a fair about of girth in recent weeks wasn’t able to get the motor into 4^th when he was run out. Given it was the last ball and in the interest of saving time. Sinbad backed up at the non strikers on behalf of Leppa. And was again run out. So Sinbad was run-out twice and Leppa was run-out without even getting on the field this time. Bashers did the Business in reaching 265 all out. A superb batting effort from Dazzler and Chewie building the foundation of the innings that was almost the highest in Business history.

So with a mammoth total under our belts the unknown Pu Dong outfit was going to need 6.6 an over to match us. So all we need to do was keep things under wraps and we would be fine. Cranky opened up with 12 off the first over and at that rate we were all going to be going home in the 23^rd over having suffered a humiliating defeat. However, thankfully Filthy was pretty fresh and bowled some tight lines to keep the batsmen in check. Cranky soon followed and Pu Dong were slowed to 45 without loss after 10. The required rate was now above 7 and the Bashers were feeling pretty confident that things weren’t going to get out of control in a hurry. If Darren was tired enough already he was then given the ball and asked to take some wickets. And delivered again he did for the Bashers as he knocked the middle stump back as far as the springing mechanism would allow before it returned the stump to the upright position. So if you had have blinked at the wrong time it would have just looked like the bails had fallen off which is nowhere near as impressive as what the non-blinkers saw in real time. I digress, its now 48 for one. At this point their scorecard gets a bit messy and hard to understand. Essentially straight after drinks we brought on Leppar who in true Leppar fashion won battle after battle with the batsmen’s minds. Some fantastic catching from Filthy and an easy one for Dipso showed them that if you are going to hit in the air you better clear the rope. Chewie had a couple of stumpings (to make up for his dropped catches) and shit-me-days if Leppa then had a 5 wicket haul. All of sudden the Pu Dong Powerhouse were looking like a suburban sub station. They were 160 for 6 needing ten runs an over off the final ten. From here on in basically things got a lot slower and quite frankly really boring. Unless you were bowling or behind the stumps there wasn’t too much to keep you involved in the game. At one point even the Geishas became irately angry at how bored they were and started trying to G things up Geisha style.

A couple more wickets fell to break-up the scintillating action happening beneath our feet as the grass grew. Everyone was going through the motions so much that Oscar had to come to the field to tell us that 40 overs had gone and we could now come in for beers.

Pu Dong made 201 for 9 which was a surprise to us given it felt like nothing was happening. So not only did they sneak 200 runs of us but they also escape as the only team we haven’t got all out this year. A bit of a brain fart form us to fall asleep for 40 overs in the field but what is one to do on a nice spring day in Waigaiqiao.

• Sunday 29 May 2011 SRFC Near
  Pudong Power 201/9 (4.01)
  Bashers Business 265/10 (8.45)

So a convincing 64 run win to the Bashers Business.

Man of the Match: Darren Manning

Best Bowler: Leppa 5-65 off 8 overs.

Special mention and thanks to Dave for making the trip out to spend a day with team and do a fantastic job of the scoring and also taking some nice safari pics.

A very special mention to Tank for sending the bus back and putting a full Esky on their for us – what a champion. A Gushing thanks you To Lady, Dipso, Dick, Stats and Cranky for their support.