Colonel Mustard returns to bring more joy into your busy lives, with a report bursting with pep and ginger, on the Bayshill’s latest giddying escapade.
Selecting a fixed number of players to represent any team whether it be in the muddied waters of synchronised swimming, the lichen-covered ancient sport of dwile flonking, or Morris Dancing with its sagging bladders, ribbon-strewn sticks and ridiculous number of swinging and jingling crotal bells, has more than a few trials and tribulations.
The Bays indoor cricket team happens to be comprised of six individuals and is, I advise you, not to be set apart from any of the above fine examples of sport and indeed other leisure pursuits, in the raw, as they may be described.
Players it must be said, have their own, particular or peculiar peccadilloes to be sure, but then you the doughty reader, must realise that you, if I may be so bold as to suggest have in your possession, the odd fault or three. Own up now! Don’t be shy. No matter! What is of grave importance here, is whether a regular player is available or not. Of course, there are a reasons various, why a regular player may decide to not turn out for the club on a wet, windy and cold night in the clutches of early December gloom. Here to clarify my case, is a list, a nosegay if you like, or selection for your own perusal and personal calibration, if that is the right word.
Firstly, having had your car broken into and as consequence be put in the position of having to wait for the gentlemen or indeed ladies in blue to attend to the matter seems most acceptable. I hasten to add that is acceptable as an excuse, but not for such an event. Second, injury or illness along the lines of not quite being fully immersed in the River Styx is passable. But what about turning a fleckled foot away from the crease towards celestial glitterball stardom?
I know, I know, I truly know, that you the reader are reeling from such a heinous suggestion. And when I say reeling, I am not referring to the weaving in and out of a line of dancers. A ridiculous thought of yours, and one with which, I am afraid to say that I’m a trifle disappointed. How could you the reader let me down with such a cheap interpretation? Now where was I, before you interrupted my flow?
Oh yes, a Bays player, who shall remain ‘strictly’ anonymous in this treatise, has gone away from our hallowed game of cricket to Foxtrot the night away with some, dare I say floozie or flapper. That’s right, all the signs were there to see during last season. When this gentleman dressed in white was calling for a single, he wouldn’t shout, ‘One!’ but, ‘One-Step.’ Or ‘One Rumba.’ For a rapid two, the shout was, ‘Quick-Step’ or indeed ‘Two-Step.’ Also, to the casual observer, his cricketing foot-work in the middle had a distinct ‘American Smooth’ look about it. Furthermore, afterwards, he’d been seen Tangoing or Jiving up to the bar for a pint of Waggle Dance or Electric Boogaloo. The signs were there in plain sight for all to see, but see them, we didn’t. Also, there were the sequins on his cricket shirt, the merest hint of a Tallulah Bankhead perfume and indeed customised cricketing boots with suede soles and pivot points for easier turns. Will this Prodigal Son of a mighty cricketer return to the Bayshill fold? We all hope so! And we hope it’s soon.
Before I rush madly into the game, I have a few financial warnings to offer to the cricketing reader. If you’re not involved in the game, then you should look away now and not reap the benefits that will accrue from the following titbits of information.
First, I turn my strained eye towards a company ‘dealing’ in car warranties. Yes, I know you’re thinking that this is completely irrelevant to cricketers and the cricketing sphere in life, but I’m afraid you’ve come adrift and should immediately massage the coconut for inspiration. Most cricketers use the automobile to attend nets, indoor and outdoor games and dare I mention it, hostelries. So there, put that in your virtual pipe and don’t smoke it. The company I wish to warn you about goes by the name of Grand Theft AutoProtect or at least should do. When asked to fulfil their obligations, they run to the small print and hide in shrubbery of deception. A mechanical breakdown of the order of suspension collapse, needs in their minds, detailed photographic evidence, blood groups, video evidence, Zoom meetings, finger prints, forms to be filled on their ‘Portal’ and multiple phone calls. When, finally their generous decision has been made after two weeks, it is, for no reason changed! Be warned cricketers! Don’t get the pip by wasting your money on useless warranties with a company such as this.
Secondly, I turn with an upset stomach to a garage, that ‘lies’ not that distant from the Prince of Wales Stadium; Halfords Autocentre, no less. This business must surely have Greta Thunberg as their patron, as it does everything in its power to keep cars well and truly off the roads. Nothing I can assure you, is beyond their means to delay repair and then try to squeeze as much as they can from the juicy four-wheeled orange you have served them on a silver salver. 35 phone calls, four visits and almost unbelievable breath-taking unprofessionalism, allied with lashings of good old-fashioned lying is their normal fare. They may charge a reasonable £40 per hour, but then if it costs £1,450 to change the front spring and shock absorbers, it must take them just short of 24 hours to accomplish this task. I won’t bore the reader with further details chronicling their lack of oojah cum spliff, but leave it up to you whether you dare trust your jalopy with such a shower of incompetence. Be warned!
Thirdly, I report to you on the matter of Asda stealing the writer’s first match fee of next season. Yes, you read it here first. Shopping adding up to £14.30 received just seventy pence change from an automated till that has been furnished with a crisp new plastic £20. Shop assistants assured the writer that the tills never make mistakes, implying that the complaint was being made by a money-swindler, burglar or chancer, who fancied getting his hands on an ill-gotten fiver to live the high life! The issue was sent upstairs, but the tills balanced, so that was it! I’d been given out and cast off Asda’s field of play feeling like Mike Gatting after his altercation with Shakoor Rana. Not so much as an apology, but a shrug of the shoulders and look at the door. Cricketers beware the automated tills at Asda, which work veery well for them but not all their customers. So much for the season of goodwill or the adage that, ‘the customer is always right.’
I don’t think anything more need be said. I think I’ve said all I need to say. Hang on a minute I seem to have omitted the cricket from this cricketing report, so I’d better squeeze it in here at the end.
Alex Van Dyke a cricketer with about as much goodeggishness as you can imagine, won the toss as was expected and the Bays were in the plastic or to be precise, the field. Holder and Jacques fresh from their recent win over the Bays in the Cup, got off to a steady and profitable start. Tom Liley went for 9 and Adi uncharacteristically 15 off the first couple of overs. 7 and 5 more runs came off the next pair, from the Bays’ bowlers, lifting the score to 36. The game was poised nicely for the neutral observer, with no indication of what was to come. The Bays were unlucky with a number of possible catches that bounced awkwardly off the walls to be spilled or just observed. Angus, back from lumber-jacking duties in Canada went for 12 and Al Wyman just eight and at half way Birdlip & Brimpsfield had amassed 60, but without loss. The next over saw Al Wyman run out N Shetty for just four, but more importantly for B&B, they had already two players retired and back in the filthy hutch or balcony. Al Wyman was then spanked for 19 off his second over whilst Angus went for just the seven. Further runs were being accumulated at an alarming rate, as one hundred was passed in the early part of the tenth over. Bays had one more breakthrough, that of Burt, who was well run out by an Al Wyman and Angus combination. The score at the end of the twelve overs was 130.
In the balcony at the change over point, there was a chilled silence that could easily have been packaged and sold in tubs as ice-cream. Frosty the Snow Man had yet to make an entrance for the Bays, but it seems that he’s been covering Rod’s out of the way, ancient glacier tormented and tartanned homeland, with the white stuff.
Adi Rai and Al Wyman donned the pads and gloves to open for the jolly old Bays and before you knew it, the score had shot to 11 off the first and 17 after two. The tone was somehow set with the first ball. Adi smacked it true and hard, missing the bowler’s stump and the straining bowler, to be denied by the umpire’s foot. One ball gone and no runs, whereas a certain four was denied! Adi and Al both managed to hit the back wall in their 4th and 3rd strikes respectively, strangely worrying the speckled taters in the upper circle. Sausages was the cry from the higher echelons!
B&B used five different bowlers on the bounce, taking their first wicket in the fifth, Adi Rai for 15 (off 14) caught Burt A, bowled Holder. After six overs, the Bays were starting to drift away from the necessary score, like a like a boat whose rudder was pointing the vessel towards the back wall. 45 posted and with 86 needed off the second half’s deliveries.
With the run rate climbing and the viewers wondering how much more good drinking time was being taken up with the ponderous rate. Wyman went in the 7th over for 19 off 19 and the score still 13 adrift of the half number of runs necessary. Alex Van Dyke the team’s chief coleopterologist decided that if you’re struggling with dots and blocks the only way out is to hit the back wall, but on the full. This he did with aplomb smashing 3 sixes and single in 4 balls, before retiring on 27off just 14. Stirrup was next out in the following over for just the
single off 3. After 9 overs the Bays had climbed to 85, with Tom Liley and Angus ‘The Lumberjack’ Guthrie now in. Tom made 19 off 11 not out with five fine sausage 3s and Angus 25 not out off 14, including a four as well as five fine porky sausages of his own. If the Bays had gone for the sausages earlier on, then a celebration barbecue might have been in order, but it wasn’t to be. With one ball left and the score some 15/6 short, Angus retired on his 25, to be told to remain there as the non-strike balsman. A wag in the balcony asked he run himself out, in order to ensure that Alex Van of the Dyke denomination lost his wicket. How cruel can the Bays’ supporters be I ask?
The game was up, the Bays just 15 short of the target, with the thought at the back of the mind being, what would have happened if the Bays had got a shifty on a bit earlier. Well dear reader, it matters not, as we’ll never know. Also, speculation is a fine thing, but something not to be taken too seriously, as indeed are a lot of things that end in, ‘tion.’ Other fine examples being, ‘Constipation,’ ‘Evacuation,’ ‘Syncopation,’ and of course, ‘Moderation.’ We look forward to the next match with our interest heaving gently, like a saucepan of porridge about to reach the height of its fever.