v Croydon - 13th May 2008

Date: 13th May 2008 Versus: Croydon 

Venue: Ruxley Lane 

Result: OCs win by 83 Runs

Report:

Cricket hadn’t passed through the mind of the author as he made his way from Tolworth Station to Ruxley Lane, I was expecting just to do the usual, OCs win the toss and bat, author umpires for 20 overs, author then fields for 20 overs and may get a bowl, no attention paid to who the opposition was. 

Turning the corner to the pavilion I notice the Croydon Skipper and anticipation grows as I try to figure out which ex colleagues I will be playing against, turn another corner and I find out, Everton (a member of the OCs one cap club) and Naveed (aka robobat).

Anyways, the table is set up, the chairs are placed and OCs are in to bat first with yours truly fielding for Croydon because they are a man down.

Reuben the father and Dave James, fresh from his trip to Italy, open the batting and are pegged back by the economical and accurate opening bowlers. Everton White bowls to James who plays it straight to yours truly who has some form of paradox or syntax error on whether he should catch out one of his team mates or catch off the bowling of a work colleague. Anyways, yours truly makes hard catches look easy and easy catches look hard and drops him.

James then proceeds to spend a lot of the innings having a charmed life or maybe the author had a contagious case of “dropped ball” disease as James has about 4 or 5 catches dropped leading him to be called “half a cat” before being bowled middle stump at first change. Reuben the father breaks down again and retires with a dodgy calf leading to test match Trevor and Sparky taking the middle. The run rate accelerated so OCs were looking at 65 off 15 overs with 100 looking a good target, until Croydon put Naveed on.

Poor Naveed, had he been bowling to Dan Reuben he may have gotten a wicket with his frustrating high, slow deliveries, unfortunately he was bowling to Sparky who hit him for three straight sixes. At this point it should be noted that the OCs growing mainly female support came out in force with the “4” & “6” markers and squeals of delight and appreciation possibly fuelled by some white wine and possibly some bubble mixture after last week. After Sparky got his eye in, it was surprising that the banners hadn’t been worn out as he bludgeoned his way to 71 not out ably supported by Collett who should have “looked at the ball” rather than “look up” as about 70 runs were put on in the last 5 overs as OCs hit 134.

TEMPORARY FAULT: Viewers should be made aware that due to a fault with no one knowing where the scorecard is, bowling figures are not known due to us using Croydon’s book, normal service will be resumed shortly.

OCs bowled as they batted with Collett taking one off Reuben the eldest behind the stumps in the second ball of Croydon’s chase to have economical figures off three overs, while Munawar opened at the other end and had a good spell for two wickets. Sensing victory fairly early and not noticing any southern hemisphere accents Bisson sent Beeks and Mahesh on possibly in an attempt to make a game of it, however Croydon decided to have a bit of a mini collapse as Mahesh took two wickets and Beeks took one with a deceptive straight one after a couple of wides.

During this time Reuben the younger showed the author how to chase after a ball leading to some banter and haring round chasing the ball between current Players' Player Beeksy and three, thats THREE! time Players' Player yours truly.

Smelling rabbits, Bisson brought himself on, only to see his bowling get spanked around the ground for almost half the Croydon total off three overs before the rest of the team told him to “have a blow”. Yours truly finished off from the other end, getting some swing allegedly, although the ball was not ball shaped by the time it was in my hand, getting a wicket for his trouble and having a mini duel with Everton who kept the tail wagging by charging down the track leaving both batsman and bowler laughing all the way to the pavilion.

Croydon saw out the overs with 51-7 and all retired to the bar, next week sees Knoxy playing for the oppo playing reverse psychology with his claims of a “weak” team.

Champagne moment: The female support cheering an opposition 4 on a least one occasion during Bissons spell.