Statics Not Enough to Make Vandals Stand Still

The Statics CC were the visitors to God’s country on a miserable Sunday 31st May. A gloomy start to a day doesn’t help erode a night before’s hard drinking. With Sambo absent for the toss procuring a scorebook, that duty was bestowed upon Hillsy, who won the toss and elected to bat. Play started earlier than anticipated: shortly before half two. 35 overs a side to account for weather delays.

With the Happy Sundays short of a player due to late drop-outs, Statics kindly offered us a player, having not even asked. Their opener Kishore was given out LBW by Wally for 0, score 0/1 from 2. Oil rig “Vegas” Holloway, having impressed at 3 the week before, came and went quickly too, being bowled for 0. As Shane Watson and I can both attest, it’s difficult having the best rig at the club, but it makes you seemingly undroppable, and Vegas will be returning for more top order batting next week.

At 11/2 we looked in early misery, and like a blind man at an orgy, Vandals were going to have to feel their way through. In-form “Berol” Foreman Jr. joined Smokey at the wicket and they got us up to 122 before Gaz fell for a brisk and entertaining 55.

Hills was next in and when he was out caught for 6 runs, he had the look of a man whose dog had just been shot. Meanwhile, down the other end, Smokey was in no mood to be hanging about and was hell-bent on rehoming the cricket ball to all parts of Brownacres. It’s fair to say the lad hits a bloody hard ball, and in one of his 6 sixes wasn’t far from joining Ken Perry’s Bay 13 over on the patio.
Anish came in at fourth drop and played himself in nicely and eventually made 16, looking good all the while. Sambo was in at 7 and scrapped around like a hungover man with a cricket bat due to being a hungover man with a cricket bat, and made 14* but the star of the show was Smokey at the other end – who, despite trying to give a boundary catch right at the end, finished up 149* including, as previously mentioned, 6 sixes, and 13 fours. A very entertaining knock and well batted, squire!

Happy Sundays finished up 262/5 from their 35 and on we went to tea. Teas this season have been brilliant; thanks to Maria being in charge and a special mention must go to her for taking the time to put on a fantastic tea every week. Like a Berber at a traditional North African lunch, I was particularly excited by the presence of cous cous. And talking of North Africa, if I’d had a fez then it certainly would’ve been placed on Wally’s head (by the way, "The Statics" is an anagram of "A Chess Titt"), for he decided it’d be wise to keep his pads on through the duration of tea. Strange cat!

So, The Statics batted and they would need to get off to an electric start to stay on our frequency, and that is the sort of thing that really Hertz fielding sides.

The eccentric, lovable, crazy cat that is Statics CC’s captain PD Amin - whose name is alarmingly close, when spoken aloud, to everyone’s favourite Ugandan dictator – opened up for Statics and tried an array of stances at the batting crease whilst amassing 7 runs, before the Last King of Scotland was bowled by the accurate Suchin Kumar. At the other end was the dependable Geoff Foreman, who received a little bit of tap this time around and was replaced after 5 overs by Anish. It’s notable at this point that there were two father-son combinations for the Happy Sundays: the tried and tested Foreman partnership, as well as G&L’s Kumars.

Anyway, Anish bowled with cojones; keeping on tossing it up despite getting hit and eventually had a catch taken by Sambo...10 yards over the boundary. He kept going and persuaded the captain that he’d get his man. He kept at it and eventually got Desperate Dan’s Indian cousin, Dangerous Dilesh, bowled for 48. Just reward for showing intelligent bowling and gaining more and more control. 7-0-47-1 for him. Suchin bowled bloody well too and finished with 6-0-30-1, showing that he could consistently bowl Yorkers and providing what England desperately want: a left-arm over the wicket seam bowler. I was very impressed by what I saw of Suchin’s bowling and he’s got a patience about his bowling beyond his years, it’d seem.

Nikhil picked up a couple for 34 in 5 overs: importantly the danger-man Akil, who made 88 at the top of the order. Statics were in need of a battery replacement to complete the circuit, but they were never really going to be parallel to our score after Akil’s fuse had blown, and from there it seemed that they didn’t have much left in the Volt.

Vegas came on for a trundle and picked up three wickets in his 4.4 overs, including the last, and Geoff Foreman supervised the final deconstruction of Statics’ power surge, with two wickets.

Statics finished up all out for 235 after 34.4 overs. The game finished late: around 8pm so thank goodness we didn’t play 40 a side. The next in the series will be at G&L Presidents’ Day, I believe, and we look forward to more entertaining, social cricket with The Statics then.

SB.