Business v Daredevils 22nd May 2016 Lumberjack

Speak of the Devil and he will Appear

The 22^nd of May 2016 will not go down as one of the better days in Bashers history and certainly not some of the individuals’ playing careers.

Lets get the bare facts out of the way….the business team were crushed by 140 runs by an average Daredevils side.

Pre-game talk as usual was focused on the weather, with permanent grey and rainy skies in the days leading up to the game. With most Bashers of the opinion that there was no chance of play, most (not naming names…Bambi, Square Root, Paps, Lunchcutter etc.) took the opportunity to get completely carted on the Saturday night. When grey but dry skies rolled in on Sunday morning, there were a few remorseful souls knowing they had made a bad decision.

The air of negativity continued on the bus, with club captain Square Root being heard to say that “if Jonty and Sanjay aren’t playing, we might have a chance”. We would have to wait and see. Also agreed on the bus, was a new rule that the Basher to drop the last catch of the opposition innings, would be that weeks Lumberjack. Having been chosen to write last weeks report and then not doing it, I headed into the game fearing that it might come back to bite me.

The bus driver had us at the ground in 30 minutes flat, which gave us all plenty of time for nets and fielding practice to prepare. On a very humid and hot morning, Cassius duly lost the toss and we were sent out into the field.

Unfortunately, Sanjay was indeed playing (no Jonty) and came out to open the batting for the Devils. The umpire clearly hadn’t woken up by the time of Swoop’s second delivery of the opening over, as he failed to give out Sanjay who was trapped plum in front of middle stump. It would prove to be a very costly mistake, compounded by the disaster of our own catching performance, as he went on to make 80 whilst being dropped 5 times along the way.

Mid-way through the innings, another failed but valiant effort to take a forward diving catch was attempted by Pope at midwicket. He stayed down for a short while holding his hand and when we asked ‘Are you alright mate?” he replied “it doesn’t look good!” and took himself off to see the nurse with no great fanfare. It turned out to be a dislocated thumb….ouch! If only others had shown such bravery! A few overs later, Cassius attempted to do some ground fielding and managed to not so gracefully fall over. Everyone within a 5 mile radius of SCSC thought that he must have broken his spine, but it turned out he had fallen on the ball.

It was however a solid bowling performance all-round. Swoop bowled a very tight opening spell and deserved more than the 1 wicket he took. Paps, Long Dong and Bam Bam kept things tight through the middle overs and G.I. Joe and Square Root did well to contain the Devils at the back end of the innings. It was a story of what might have been, if only those of us with no gloves on had held any catches. As it was, I actually managed to drop the last two catches of the day, to go with an earlier sitter when fielding at slip and I hang my head in shame as I write this.

The Devils ended up 203 all out off 37.5 overs and the match seemed evenly poised at the interval.

I think however, the less said about the batting performance the better, so we can all move on. Razaq Mahmood opened up the bowling for the Devils and proved too good for the top order. The Bashers were 23-4 in the 11^th over with Razaq taking the wickets of the top three. It was a procession thereafter with no basher reaching double figures.

A fine session took place at El Luchador where we had good support from Bambi’s cheerleaders. Unfortunately, no one could think of any “Champagne Moments” from the game, so our new award/shot devised last week has been very short-lived.

Man of the match – I can’t remember if we actually voted on this, so I’ll give it to Long Dong who keeps picking up wickets, with Swoop a close runner up and unfortunate to miss out.

After what’s been a promising start to the season, we can all agree that that was a fucking shambolic effort. We need a much better performance against the dirty dogs next up.

Lunchcutter