Leisure vs Wellington Lumberjack – Sun. June 18

(Courtesy of Paps)

FATHER’S DAY, BASHERS, CRICKET ALL HAPPENING SUNDAY MORNING!

Our very sober skipper first to be at the camel only to find out it’s closed! Calls were made to the club captain, who called Alice. She didn’t answer. Bambi called Steve, Tampon called Steve, Alice called Steve, Steve didn’t answer. All the while, we were being subjected to life affirming soundbites from three gurning kunts who had just come out of Lola and decided to latch on to us. Eventually we got in, but pies not an option. It’s Ok, at least we can pack an esky but what’s this…no bus either?! So leave the Esky for business

Boy what a fun captain but with the right attitude as he says no worries.

No bus no worries

No pies no worries

No esky no worries

No kitbag no worries…..

Taxi’s to srfc……

Winning the toss and very rightly opting to bat despite some grumbles in the background. It is worth noting that the boundary was set very far back by Wellington.

Our veteran left handed prez Parrot marched out with Fisty Cymbals, while the pavilion belted out a cracking version of Suspicious Minds, with some castrati-esque backing vocals from Omega, followed by Blister in the Sun….  forgot to mention Shit Shoes had brought his guitar. Pope was learning to score under the tutelage of his wife, and was inserting some interesting names for the bowlers. Notable bowlers for the opposition included Richard Pintooo and BJ

Parrot found a couple of edges for the boundary and got cleaned bowled by the afore mentioned Richard Pintoo and that brought Spanner on to the crease, who looked rock solid & was hitting the ball with authority & so much power that he broke the bat. While Spanner was going at it hammer and tongs, Feisty Cymbals was going at a more sedentary rate causing some consternation in the pavilion but he was still there when Spanner got bowled, propping up the innings.

Shitshoes on the crease was a bit hung-over from last night with whiskey @some gay event  (who was later named as Shanghai Shane ). He hit a great straight four which nearly reached the SCSC patio before also being bowled. Cymbals still propping the innings up.

That brought Paps to the crease who was soon involved in a run out with Cymbals. Cymbals had called the run but Paps stayed glued to his crease resulting with them both ending up at Pap’s end and Cymbals having to go. Cymbals, who was reluctant to leave the pitch eventually came back to join the rest of us in the Pavilion on the stroke of drinks and was unhappy, to put it mildly. Consensus from the sidelines was Paps was at fault…involved in 2 runouts in 2 weeks but Paps probably didn’t think Cymbals would be running based on his scoring up to that point in the innings.

Omega stuck around for a bit but during his short tenure was heckled from the side lines for not ‘running one for the arm’, which he had been telling everyone to do before he went out to bat. He was eventually out caught giving the fielder a dolly catch.

By now Parrot had taken over from Pope as the novice scorer and was so aggressive towards the other team during this period, that he might need a sit down with Long Dong.

Pope & Paps steadied the innings with some 60/70runs odd partnership and safely brought the team total 174 as required by skipper (pope 38 not out and paps 41).

This was a good score considering the length of the boundary, which had led to us running an extremely high number of 3’s.

Bowling

Paps & Hardon shared the new cherry and kept the run rate under control.

First change Omega & SS and particular Shanghai Shane produced a magical spell with 4/15 and special mention to Spanner the pregnant gazelle taking two great catches, one of them caught over the shoulder running at full pace….an absolute blinder

The tone was to register another victory at drinks with the opposition at 65-4 with 12 overs to go,

but hang on there was still a twist to make this winning game interesting. Sharapova was called to bowl and I doubt there was any legitimate ball in her first over but she came back to bowl again and improved with every one of her remaining 2 overs. Messi had a relatively expensive over and it was looking like Wellington might chase us down with 50 required off 6 overs with us having conceded about 60 since drinks.

Paps came on to steady the ship a bit but even though he bowled well, Wellington kept scoring runs past a prancing Shit shoes at deep square leg/3^rd man, the only place where the boundary was short. This meant it was getting to squeaky bum time with 26 required off 3 overs to go. Hardon came back for the anti-penultimate over to leave him with one to go. With Paps bowled out, the ball was thrown to Messi. Once again Messi stepped up and bowled a crucial over when it mattered, partly due to the fact that their best batsman retired on 50 during his over.

Still Wellington required 14 off the last over and skipper turned to the legend of Hard-on and what an over it was, where he took 2 wickets in 2 balls, including Pope’s first ever catch as a wicket keeper. For the hat trick ball, which was to Andrew Jackson, and with the pressure mounting, the passing Dulwich squad had started a slow clap, scenes very rarely seen for a leisure match. In the end Hardon let everyone down, including himself by not getting a hat trick but ended with 4 wickets.

But it was a great win for Leisure leading the way for the Bashers.

Special mention for 12^th man Chancellor who stood our whole batting innings at square leg and then while we were fielding went and bowled 100 balls in the net on his own as a penance for some kind of inner torment.