Pleasure vs DD Dynamite, Sunday the 28th of July

Sicknote had some difficulty with the blog – so here is the Lumberjack he emailed to me. S.S.

Some of us bleary-eyed, and others hungover, Division 2 assembled, bright and early at the Camel at the ungodly hour of seven thirty. After a bit of morning banter we boarded the bus and left for Dulwich. It wasn’t until 15 minutes in that someone noticed that, indeed, we should be headed to the SRFC. Apparently no one told the bus driver, who had no idea where the SRFC was, and neither did his hapless GPS. This resulted in a busload of Bashers screaming ‘You gui’ and ‘Yi Zhezou’ at the poor chap, until it seemed like he could no longer drive under the pressure. Alleged help came from the back of the bus where instructions were passed forward from the omniscient GPS of Latex’s iphone. Sicknote was roped in as translator by dint of him being closest to the driver, while during the proceedings our calm and stoic captain, Long Dong chose to conserve his energy for the match and decided to not to get involved.

With directions being passed from the back of the bus, this game of Chinese whispers resulted in a communications breakdown, with the bus driver being told to take an exit that we had passed 5 meters ago. In defense of the beleaguered driver, he showed admirable levels of disregard for the traffic laws, prompting our umpire and fellow bus traveller The Korean to exclaim ‘ I haven’t seen someone reverse on the GaoJia in years!’. Likewise upon being told to take an exit just 10 meters ahead, our stalwart shifu cut across 4 lanes of traffic with consummate ease and minimal swearing. Time was getting tight, with the opposition threatening to declare a default win if we did not turn up at 9. It didn’t help that we seemed to be in the slowest bus ever made. With Sharapova already being at the pitch, the toss was made and won. On advice of the whole team, Long Dong went against his gut feeling and opted to send us in to bat first. With Swoop padding up inside the bus, we arrived in true Bashers fashion just 7 minutes shy of the match started. Unfortunately, this encapsulated most of the action and excitement for the day.

Golden Shears Swoop and Sharapova started the batting offensive, with a brave 3 over, 11 run stand against Dynamites opening bowlers before Sharapova was dismissed LBW. Shit Shoes got off to a breathtaking start with a high lofted shot to mid off for 2 runs. Golden Shears Swoop shifted gears into defensive mode and focused on passing the strike and staying alive. Shoes and Shears Swoop kept things ticking along tidily till the next wicket fell at 31 runs, Shoes being clean bowled after reaching 15 runs.

Growler strode confidently to the crease and got off the mark immediately with a sneaky single. But before being batted in, a mistimed shot had him caught out, the partnership with the ever defensive Golden Shears Swoop coming to 7 runs. Being 37 for 3 off 9 overs it looked grim. Hard times call for hard measures, Long Dong sent in our danger man, Post Op. First ball, 4 runs. Second ball, 4 runs, and we were back in the game. Having opted to not wear a hat, Post Op felt the brunt of the day’s heat, looking like he had melted during the break.

After the break, with Shit Shoes at 3rd leg umpire, the Dynamite fielders appealed for a stumping decision and lo and behold, our stalwart 3rd umpire was busy taking a video. In a brilliant effort to bring Shanghai umpiring to the 21st century, Shit Shoes played back the video on his camera to the square leg fielder to quell any doubts over his “not out” decision.

Golden Shears Swoop was the next Basher to fall valiantly in the line of duty, LBW for 5 runs from his lengthy defensive innings. Determined not to be all out before making the fielding side bake in the heat as long as possible Long Dong gave out the order to bat defensively. Swoop Golden Shears rose to the challenge by getting caught the very next over. Scooby replaced him at the crease and kept things going for 4 more overs, doing a great job of keeping Post Op on strike who proved he was warmed up (literally and metaphorically) by hitting 4-2-4-4 in quick succession. The comeback was short-lived though and Post Op was bowled, as our highest scorer for the day at 24.

Latex up to the crease to prove that our lower order batsmen still had some fight in them, but barely had he got off the mark when Scooby was caught behind. 81 for 7 off 19 overs with it looking increasingly unlikely that we would bat out the whole innings. Sicknote in next for a low-scoring 5 over partnership with Latex, then dismissed bowled on 3. Captain Long Dong bringing up the rearguard, ordered Sicknote into full defensive mode in order to bat out the rest of the innings. Sicknote replied by getting out LBW, catching the ball between his pads in an ill-timed glance. The yet-to-be-named new Basher, Tom Boyle came in as our last batsman and made good account of himself, keeping a 5 over partnership alive before Long Dong was unceremoniously bowled. 99 all out with just 2 balls left to come in the innings. At least we managed to keep the fielding team out there as long as we could.

Korean led the team in a bout of fielding practice before our bowling innings and spirits were up. A unforgivable lack of detail in the scorecard for our fielding innings leaves most of the summary from memory which has understandably been blurred by the post-match fines sessions.

Long Dong got an early wicket in the second over, lending credence to the thought that perhaps we might pull this one out of the bag. but the next partnership dragged on racking up 30 runs. That is before Post-Op came up to bowl a magnificent first over, culling two wickets in short order. Sicknote dropped a sitter of a catch, bowled by LongDong that was in the air for a good few minutes, or so it seemed. Not all the fielding was as bad, deft catches from Tom Boyle and a couple of fast hands from our keeper Latex saw the Bashers keeping a tight field, and then the 15 over break was called. With just 16 runs needed after the break, and 6 wickets still in hand, things looked grim. With the batsman playing defensively, some marvelous chirping from the team kept morale high. Incoming batsmen were encouraged to be the hero who scored the winning runs and whether or not this worked, we still managed to pick up 2 more wickets in good order. Shit Shoes got that recently dropped batsman out on the second ball of the his first over, and Long Dong picking up a caught behind, but our score was just not enough and the final run was conceded as an extra.

Bowling figures:
Growler, 6 overs for 32 runs,
Long Dong – 6 overs for 29 runs and 2 wickets
Post Op – 3 overs, 24 runs for 2 wickets
Unknown bowler in the scorebook (Golden Shears perhaps?)- 1 over seven runs
Scooby – 2 overs, 10 runs
Shit Shoes – 1 over and 2 balls – 6 runs, 1 wicket

Fines underway saw our new Basher being christened Miami, by dint of rather weak wordplay Boyle -> heat -> Miami heat -> Miami. With our previous new basher being named Hollywood, a disturbingly geographical trend cropped up but never to fear, in the post-fines Camel drinking session, where everyone was inexplicably (inexcusably?) drinking cider, Tom Boyle was rechristened as Susan with the approval of the fines master: Shit Shoes and match captain: LongDong, and took a second drink out of the box. What a trooper! All in all a jolly cricketing day.