Finally the sweet smell of victory! And how sweet it smells. More
reports and pics to follow, but for now enjoy the odour. PK
Full Match Report:
Confusion abounded as to how the team list would look. Huge
quantities of e-traffic flew backwards and forwards; it was a spectator sport
in its own right. Finally, come Saturday night, we were at a full
complement. Sadly, by Sunday morning, we were back down to 10.
Luckily Neil Mackwood was found carousing at a local hostelry, accepted the
king’s coin, and found himself sailing on the tide aboard the good ship Rascal
before he had roused himself to his senses (Thank you Neil, you will be
remembered and toasted for years to come).
More troubles came in the form of the grounds man; the machinery shed
remained obstinately shut. Another round of intensive communiques was
fired off, with the happy result that at around 2.45 a new strip was starting
to be prepared. There was some grumbling along the lines of ‘if only he
took that broom out of his arse…’, but it was happy sight to behold.
Tarquin took on the heavy roller duties and proceeded to leave the perfect
impression of a pair of Rayban aviator’s in the middle of the square.
Amazingly at 3pm the pitch was ready, 22 players champing at the bit, toss
tossed and Eddie had elected to bat. We were on:
Yet again we started very solidly (can we make a habit of this?), with
Rossco and Eddie nearly topping last weekend’s record (?) opening partnership
with a reassuring 102. Rossco went off like a train, sustaining a
near fatal injury to his foot, free hitting his way to a fine 68.
Eddie did not stay at the crease too much longer after being joined by
Jamie Mackwood who set about the job of shoring up the innings with his usual
aplomb. He certainly has the knack of not looking like he has any
intention whatsoever of releasing his place on the crease. Jamie was
joined by PK and the two them went, very nearly to the close of the
innings. This is the only time when Jamie looks vulnerable (for that
he was), when he really starts to open up his shots. PK was
joined at the crease by newcomer Olly McIntosh for the last 5 balls. Showing
no signs of nerves, he hit a sweetly struck six straight back over the bowlers
head on his second ball. Your Rascals closed out on 248 for 3 off
their 35 overs
A beautiful tea was laid on by Rossco (is there nothing that man won’t
do for the team?), hoovered up by 22 hungry players and cleared up by a
beautiful new addition to the kitchen, the delightful and ever youthful Vanessa
K.
Having set them 7 an over, we were quietly confident that the first
victory of the season was within our grasp. With one wicket and only
4 runs hit off the first 5 overs spirits were soaring in the Rascal camp. Olly
McIntosh was tearing in from the pavilion end delivering some weapon grade
pace. Quite extraordinarily, their opener decided that the best
answer to this was to charge down the wicket to him. Something that
left us all slightly confused. Is it really worth risking life and
limb for the Impediments?? Got to admire the commitment though.
Two Collier boys made a good stab of trying to rescue the game for the
Impediment’s, until Alex C skied one to the heavens off Eddie’s bowling. A
short cameo from various bowlers (Mynott x 2 and Jasper K) at death brought
around a final score of 180 all out off 34.3 overs.
Jasper K had the rare honour of being asked by the umpire to keep quiet
while the bowler was running in. The fact that he was the bowler at
the time marked it out as a rare event (where does he get it from?)
As there was a wedding and the Bell starting at 4 pm and Neil G was
absent, there was remarkably little debate as to where to repair to for the
post match ceremonies. It took some time to wrangle both teams to
the same side of the Bull, but once there, some fines words were spoken by
David G, Nigel B and Eddie. The bat was duly received by the latter
only to be snatched back immediately for ‘safekeeping’ by Nigel (perhaps he had
seen Billy Grigson at work with another bat earlier?)
Scorebook, beautifully kept (our inning’s anyway) by Jasper K.
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