Runs
9
24
15
14
2
3
16
14
7
Batting Points
9
24
15
14
2
3
26
14
17
0
0
Fielding
If this had been your fantasy XI for the week, you would have scored 292 basic points, & with DC1 as captain, 314 (& it would have cost a record low price £63Bn).
This week's report comes once more from our correspondent James Tinkler:
Cricket can be a game of misfortune and pain, a freakshow in blistering conditions with humiliation only ever one ball away.
Friendships won and lost, money squandered, reputations destroyed.........
There is also a downside.
In crazy heat with much admiration of female fashion along the way we arrive in Flax Bourton...man it's nice. A large ground providing 20 different wickets across the square, the possibility of a straight 6 into a bus on the main road, long boundaries, flat wickets and those (different) pesky kids again.
Most 2nd or 3rd teams we face contain kids guided and coached by the older generation of their club. It is good to see and should I ever be daft enough to live in the sticks, particularly with family, I would not hesitate to join in.
It has to be said that being beaten by able and willing youth (calm down gimp) is better than beating untalented youth (i said calm down).
We won the toss! Our chosen openers strode out, the captain's theory and faith. Grant and Nellie.. I'm umpiring. First bowler a lefty, quick. Bowling over the wicket from as wide as is legal to basically first slip. Gotta wide him. 3 in the first over. He tweaks it, from pitching middle hitting slip to pitching middle and passing off stump by millimeters.
Mr Boycott (Grant) never looks back, doesn't blink. He knows where his off stump is.
Last week I implied a work in progress. This week I can verify progress.... and determination. 36 overs the man batted as we crawled towards 128 for 6, batting the 40. Honourable mention's go to other players as the man of the match nominations confirm.
It was a pleasure to play on a surface like that. Grant, attracting Boycott comparisons from the opposition played well, the coaches in the club only need to grab him to teach and install the confidence for an off drive and we will lose him to a first team.
Man it was hot.
So 128. Not enough. 50 60 runs short on a pitch like that. BUT...we did well to get there and see the overs out. Alex, Wayne, Dave H, Stroddy understood their job and stuck the last 50 runs on the board.
Alfie opened our attack, the opposition needing 3 an over did the usual thing and punished the bad ball. Wayne suffered similarly and Flax Bourton accumulated happily. Alfie got a wicket and (I missed this) his victim headed for the clubhouse and smashed his bat to pieces. Thus earning the cider moment award.
I got a wicket, a classy catch by Reg, Nellie took a catch of Stroddy's bowling. All in vain. Flax got the runs in 19 overs. So an early finish and time to go to the Plough for the last night of Kaz and Otam's reign.
10 years they have served and suffered and new owners await. What will happen,? what will the new look pub be like? My local for 25 years.
We will have to wait and see.
Farewell Laurel and Hardy, welcome Little and Large?
Beaver Patrol? You had to be there!
All this is on the Q.T and strictly hush hush.
To add notes & comments on personal performances or to attempt to initiate some sarcastic sniping please email: fantasycowboys@gmail.com