Bashers Leisure v Pudong 24 Apr Lumberjack

Leisure took on Pudong, our great rivals in D3. The morning started off disapointingly for Truffles as he trundled down to The Camel a few minutes early to meet his Sunday morning fluffer out on the front steps but alas this week there was no pre-game warm up and we all hoped the day would improve from there.

During the trip out however, it was discovered that the umpire for the day had joined our bus and was a fully paid up player for Pudong, on top of this he tried to sell us cricket bats during the trip out that he was making at lunch time during work. Go for it if you dare, sounds like a bargain. Things weren’t looking good. The days worries compounded as we lost the toss and went out onto the mud pit of the field to see if we could turn around these mounting omens.

What ensued was an exceptional day with the ball that buried the demons and their omens. Our bowlers turned on a display of line, length, bodyline, chin music and bruising, pacy deliveries to leave the opposition battered, bemused and bruised and although we took only 4 wickets it was more down to the fact that they struggled to get bat on ball than lack of excellence. Hats off to Hard On, Rash, The Chancellor, Shit Shoes and Square Root for all bowling the best we have this season and for restricting Pudong to 131.

The talk of the fielding effort (and the day) came from what has been widely lauded by many old hands who saw it as ‘easily one of the top 10 Basher’s catches of all time’. The Chancellor, quietly stalking the batsmen at a short square leg, saw the ball smacked his way and dived to his left at full stretch and then some, stuck out the left (non-favoured) hand and took a absolute screaming, dipping catch just above the deck worthy of a trip for two to Barbados sponsored by Schweppes. Rash, during positive fielding fines, likened his catch to an ‘eel at full stretch’ which confused us all a bit as firstly the eel out of water should have been gasping for air and half dead and secondly being slippery by nature meant he probably should have dropped it. Don’t be distracted though, it was a belter of a catch.

Sir Dick and Shit Shoes opened the bat and quickly took charge of the bowling. Sir Dick managed to nutmeg a fairly square mid-on for 4. Shit Shoes cleverly nutmegged the wicky striking his helmet lying on the grass behind him and was very upset when the extra 5 runs went to extras and not his total. He departed for 27. Sir Dick was seeing them like watermelons but in a rush of blood on 47 swung exuberantly and holed out. Spam (me) took his (my) average to double digits by scoring 11 (is this a Cassius?), Spanner spanked 27 quick runs to take us all so close and Moist (9) and our new basher Noisy (0) cleverly guided us to a win on 2 wides in the 22^nd over in what was a bit of an anti-climax to an otherwise well orchestrated, never in doubt run chase.

The rest of the batting team had meanwhile been tucking into G&T’s in a civilised fashion. Although Square Root had turned up with his missus in tow and everyone thought, ‘best behaviour chaps’, except Hard On who, over the course of the game and a couple of G&T’s in, managed to engage her in conversation mentioning something about the Sanya Sixes, Square Roots tooth brush and his ass. As mentioned, all very civilised.

New Basher #280 is Noisy. He didn’t say boo on the bus to the ground, said even less than boo fielding out at fine leg all day and made even less noise on the scoreboard by not posting a run for his handful of balls faced. He’s new to town and rumour has it that he got here from NZ as a stowaway amongst a flock of sheep on a live export ship where he had to stay as quiet as a sheep with laryngitis to escape being discovered, sex must have been tricky. He fired up appropriately during fines sessions on the way back on the bus however so good on you and welcome Noisy. Must have been the addition of the VB cans to the eskies this week.

So back to back wins for Leisure putting us in 2^nd spot on the table, tally-ho!