Lumberjack – Pleasure v Hotdogs

It was a must win game to keep the Pleasure’s final hopes alive, facing off against the old enemy DPR Hotdogs. With half the team participating or directly assembling at the SRFC, the bus ride from the Camel proved uneventful.

Arriving at the SRFC relatively early, we had time to enjoy the SCC v Hong Kong Pirates 20/20 match. A good crowd saw a tight match, with the Pirates just missing out on bringing home the victory.

With some inspirational words from our skipper, Bugs, the bowling attack fired up for a big day. Billy steaming in claimed the opening Hot Dogs wicket, well caught by Pothole at deep gully. Some tight bowling continued from opening partner Growler.

The Hotdogs had luck on their side, with up to 5 close catches just not falling the Basher’s way. Shots were falling either a yard short or just lobbing over the fielders head but the Hot Dogs were contained and the runs not flowing. Growler grabbed the 2^nd breakthrough with a caught behind, 2 for 19.

Tank put on an impressive display of multi tasking during the next change of over, taking the opportunity to skull a celebratory beer from the earlier 20/20 match, good effort!

This preempted some quality bowling spells with a run of Hot Dog wickets. Tiny – 2 wickets in the same over, 2 wickets to Sinbad, 2 wickets to Tank in the same over, and 1 wicket to Bugs. A Trois did some tidy work behind the stumps taking two catches. Elsewhere on the field, the Basher’s catching woes continued but it was an all round impressive bowling performance from the Pleasure. Hot dogs all out for 113 in the 27^th over,

Pothole and Pitstop opened the Pleasure batting. Pothole’s stay in the middle was short, first out, caught behind for 3. Mrs Pothole took out chirp of the day award singing out “you’re still a winner to me” upon his return to the pavilion, very nice work.

Next up, Growler and Pitstop had a 32 run partnership with Pitstop combining some agricultural swats with sweetly timed strokes to rack up 20 good runs before being run out, crashing into the fielder half way down the pitch, very unlucky.

Regular wickets began to fall with Tiny, Growler and Swoop all out in quick succession, our small target beginning to look difficult at 5/45.

The pleasure batting steadied with some cool heads in Bugs and Korean. With a healthy match defining 47 run partnership before Korean was trapped LBW for 19. The total was now looking very achievable at 6/92, only 21 runs remaining. In true Pleasure style, we chose the difficult route to victory with Manoj A Trois out for a duck before skipper Bugs, on the lookout for a quick second run, was run out. Sinbad, who’d decided that one was enough on that occasion was left at the crease with the score at 8 for 98. Tank was next into the middle leaving a nervous Billy all padded up and waiting to go.

Sinbad and Tank took some clever singles and notched up 7 off the bat. The Hot Dogs also helped things along nicely with a very well timed series of wides and byes. The day was closed out with a wide, the Bashers home at 8/114. Well done to the not out batsman, Sinbad and Tank. Billy, to his relief, was denied the chance of a bat in his last Basher game for the season but it was a real pleasure having him on the team and we’ll look forward to welcoming him back next year.

A spirited fine session was led by Tank to finish up an all round great day for the Bashers.

Cheers to the families and supporters for a great showing on the day and also to Cranky for leading the naming session of two new geishas Inky (Mrs Tiny) and Howler (Mrs Growler).

Bring on next week and the finals!

• Sunday 21 August 2011 SRFC Near
  DPR Hot Dogs 113/10 (2.73)
  Bashers Pleasure 114/8 (7.14)

2011 Division Two