Bleeding in the Rain (Business vs Pudong)

“70 percent!”

“Mine says 100!”

“90 for me!”

The Bashers are on the bus and desperately seeking captain Cassius’ approval for the title of “Owner of the most accurate weather app” – Swoop narrowly missing out with his bold claim of “I am absolutely certain that it will not rain today”.

Pre-match talk on the bus was as boring as blue balls – so much so that Lunchy fell asleep at the front of the bus whilst the rest of us argued what we should do if Cassius won the toss. Words of wisdom from the wettest member of the team (that’s Soggy Biscuit) were, as always, “It’s a synthetic pitch, it won’t get any better later on!”. Man’s a genius. Arguments in favour of bowling first were something to do with Duckworth-Lewis, run rate and the chance of rain – which ranged from 0 – 100%. In the end, it turns out nobody has a clue what actually happens if time is lost due to rain.

We poured off the bus and into the nets as the skipper won the toss and put Pudong into bat, much to the dismay of pretty much everybody on the team. However, spirits were quickly lifted as Swoop opened with a fantastic maiden with Rooty opening from the other end. Heads were back in our palms as he chucked up a full toss that luckily only went for 2 runs.

Square Root was a bit hormonal on the day so we had to be a bit careful around him – he’d forgotten to pack his tampons and after the first wicket we noticed large amounts of blood around his crotch. He alleged the blood was coming from his finger… so I guess he likes to flick his bean when he’s on his period and playing cricket. Whatever floats ya boat fella.

“What’s your blood type? B for brown?”

Soggy (8-1-17-3) and Swoop (7-2-24-0) carried the team with some inspiring bowling  from the no-river end of the pitch as the rest of the team shambolically put down about 8 catches and bowled absolute tripe from the other end – until possible world’s oldest man Long Dong took a catch off Soggy’s bowling and came on to offer a master class in swing bowling. After one bad over and a drinks break (fag break) – Dongy smoked himself to life (8-0-40-4) and wound up with a 4-wicket haul – including catches from Soggy and one from Bambi, who was chastised for being one of about 3 people on the team who can actually catch a cricket ball.

With Pudong 8 wickets down and struggling to score runs after 32 overs, youngster GI Joe was brought into the attack to bowl opposite Long Dong – after a dubious first over featuring a number of wides, which may or may not have been witnessed by the random girls he’s always Facetiming, he went on to pick up the 9th wicket before the umpire felt a drop of rain and began ushering the Bashers and batsmen off the field.

Well-respected and knowledgeable Pleasure captain, Skid Row, took the pause in play to offer some solid advice to the team: “Whilst this astro-turf is wet the ball is really going to jump up – let’s be ready for that when we’re batting”.

Nominations for the new Pleasure skipper will be at drinks on Thursday.

The second most entertaining moment of the break would be credited to the bus driver, who we watched from afar whilst he was having the time of his life driving backwards and forwards in the car park. He then drove off just as we decided to head back to the SRFC clubhouse. Perfect timing.

The bus journey back was on par with the team’s fielding display – pretty shit but exactly as expected. Shout out to Fruitbox for his knowledge bomb on scoring/bowling: apparently if the batsmen plays the ball on to his stumps, he is not ‘bowled out’ – he got out ‘played on’, and that’s what goes in the score book. Maybe when the stomach cramps have stopped and he can leave the house without bleeding out, Rooty can give him some lessons.

There were two awards (shots) handed out on the day and these were, “Champagne Moment” and “Man of the Match”. Honourable mention for Swoop who was nominated for both awards (a champagne moment of sheer brilliance stopping a single at point, and some efficient bowling, generally not-shit fielding and not dropping a catch [I think Swoop was the only player to not get a chance to prove his worth in terms of catching] contributing to MOTM potential) but missed out to:

Champagne moment: Long Dong’s moment of burning rage as he picked up the ball (yes that said picked, not kicked) and stared down the batsmen as he threatened a run out. Love the passion Dongy.

Man of the match: Soggy Biscuit for outstanding bowling figures and not going home when he found out we were fielding first.

Real Man of the match: Long Dong because as runner up he drank Soggy’s shot when Soggy ran off to his missus the second we got back to the Camel.

Catching practice next weekend for:

Square Root

Cassius

Lunch Cutter

Skiddy

Bambam

Fruitbox

GI Joe

You shit cunts.