With wintry conditions on the horizon, Colonel Mustard, who knows his job from soup to nuts, tries to brighten your day with his latest match report on Bayshill’s fourth game in Division Three. The team before this game were sitting pretty at the top of the division with three successive wins under their collective straining belt.
With three of Divisions Three’s finest teams, already but dust beneath the Bayshills’ chariot wheels, game number four was always going to be a difficult encounter. As all educated readers will be aware, four is quite a tricky number and one that is not to be taken at all lightly. There are as you know four points to the compass, four essential elements (earth, fire, air and water) and four phases to our Moon’s cycle. In Korea, 4 or hanja is the unlucky number, as it sounds like death and as a consequence, their buildings have no fourth floor! (For the pedantic, that doesn’t mean their highest buildings only go up three floors or alternatively that floor five and above somehow hover above the gap that would have been the fourth. You see, dear reader, over the past few reports you have become so pernickety that such silly explanations have to be included to the detriment of this fine cricketing literature).
Where was I now, before I was so rudely interrupted? Ah yes, tetraphobia is not a pleasant thing to behold in anyone, let alone one dressed in white who wields a wand of willow on a Wednesday in Willy’s stadium. Four wonderful wins in a row, was the aim of the team today and by jingo and indeed crikey, did they achieve that or was their high expectation blunted, nay dashed on cricket’s rocky shoreline of despair?
Did the Bays win the all important toss this evening? The answer in short is that they did not, but despair not avid reader, for there was no coin of any description involved. Chrissos Horner, Bays’ indoor captain and Campari drinker extraordinaire was simply asked, ‘Which hand is it in?’
Now Horner, with many years of virtual pipe-smoking experience to call upon, instantly chose the left hand before him. Of course, when it comes to mind games, the Bays are up there with the Greats. I could run through those whose finest works would have been improved considerably if they had but chosen to study the Bays’ team just a tad, before publishing their finest works, but I won’t for fear of losing the casual reader. But then, a casual reader wouldn’t be reading this epistle anyway, so here goes anyway. Marcus Aurelius’ tome ‘Meditations,’ Plato’s ditty, ‘Republic’ and Nietzche’s bonkbuster, ‘Beyond Good and Evil,’ would all have gone up at least one notch in the opinions of those treading the dusty academic corridors of Oxford University, Cambridge University and of course Pittville Indoor Cricketing University.
Horner needn’t have worried like Erwin Schrodinger, whether the hidden object was alive, dead or indeed somewhere mysteriously in between. It was really a case of ‘mind over matter’ and Horner like Baruch Spinoza ‘guessed’ if I may use such a crude word quite correctly.
Naturally, as day follows night, the Bays were in the field and ready for Oakley Vipers’ openers. Tom Liley as is customary for the Bays set the standard by bowling the first over for just a single, but having Simon Fowler temporarily retire having hit him in the face with a rising ball. Angus Guthrie’s initial over went for six as did Tom’s next. Angus then tightened the noose just a little, by taking a caught and bowled (Aggarwal 4) and going for just 4 in his second over. The Vipers were 17 for 1 after four overs or to put it another way, a third of their innings.
Alex Bertie Van Dyke, a most respectable married man and beetle expert to boot went for 12 of his first over, but his new bowling coach, Winston would not have batted an eye lid, because it is the context of the over within the match which matters. Angus bowled his last over for nine and Alex his next for eight.
Marc Best was then clean bowled by Fran in his first over, the 8th, for indeed 8, with the score 55/2. Alex bowled his last over for 11, but saw opener Chris Hall depart for the balcony unbeaten on 25. Fran’s next, the tenth over in all went for 9, leaving The Vipers on 74 off 10.
Tom bowled the penultimate over, going for 8, but more importantly bowing Marc Leslie for 7 and having the returned Simon Fowler for 7 caught by Angus Guthrie. Fran bowled the last over for 15, with the returning Chris Hill trying to make up for his team’s slow run rate. Vipers finished with 97 for 4 off their 12.
Bays began as ever with Horner and just back from his holiday, the returning Stirrup. The first and second overs saw the openers take eight and ten respectively. Fran smacked the third ball of the second for 6 and this seemed to settle any nerves the Bays may have had. However Aggarwal’s first over went for just 2 runs, taking Bays score to 21 after 3. Marc Leslie bowled an expensive first over for 14, but also had Chris caught and bowled, just hanging on to a low straight drive. Simon Fowler bowled the next for just five and bizarrely didn’t bowl further, seeing Fran reach his 25 in this over (25*/16/0/1).
Tom Liley in at 4, ran a two and struck a well hit four in the first over he faced against Chris Hill, with the over going for 10. Bays were now 50 at the halfway stage. Rajan Aggarwal then bowled a tidy over for just 6, before Dean Allen was smashed for 22 off his second. Tom hitting 8 with his second four and Alex 14 with two consecutive sixes. Suddenly, the Bays needed just 18 off the last four. Alex (25*/13/0/2) and Tom (25*/10/3/0) were soon both retired and safely back in the balcony.
Angus Guthrie and Steve Liley saw the Bays over the line, with the former hitting three singles off 4 balls faced, whilst Liley added a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ with a perfect innings of 0 off 0.
The mighty Bays were over the line in 9.4 overs, meaning that they stay at the top of their league, with a 100% win rate. Back at the Rotundra, Chrissos Horner was tucking into a vat of Fish and Chips to celebrate the evening’s fine win. Four players and the chairman braved the elements, sitting outside on a mid-November evening to dispatch a couple of bracers. This is Colonel Mustard signing off on 14th November, a bright sunny morning, with a spring in his step and a photo of a particularly nasty looking goblin tree in his pocket.