SCORECARD

Old Mo 153-4 (20 overs)
Sportsman 96-5 (20 overs)
Fitmen win by 57 runs

One over the Sportsman – at last!
In the five match ‘series’ The Fitmen were going in to the final game 3-0 down. We’ve never had a 4-0 whitewash series loss to the Sportsman before – possibly due to having never played them that many times in one summer – and this (a good season so far) wasn’t the time to start.

The Skipper, still suffering from a bit of post Claverley OCD, won the toss and elected to bat. The plan was simple, get the top order functioning and there’d be too many on the board by the time dusk fell with 5 overs for the Sportmen to bat through in the dark! And it worked a treat…..

A tight first 4 balls seemed to indicate it might not go to plan, but the 5th and 6th ball sorted that out and 9 from the first over set the precedent for the evening. Eagle-eyed umpiring added to the run rate and the top order maintained a steady 8 an over throughout.

Bice (24) looked to be seeing the ball well before skying a mis-hook, Frost did the same (apart from not seeing the ball well). Butch calmly stroked his way to 33 before running himself out ("makes a change" Not me, this was texted in by : Mark T, Location: B’ham Womens Hospital, Ed - See * at foot of report), Tom (16) anchored an end until playing round a straight one and then Chiz and The Don calmly (almost too calmly) wandered at about the same rate to a decent scoreline with nothing extravagant – in fact the Mogadon Twins barely broke into a sweat.

154 to win at 7.7 needed a good start from the visitors, but instead they came up against a mean opening trio (Ash, Sunny & Caesar Snr)who gave away less than 3 runs an over for the first 8. The highlights included the leg stump being uprooted by Sunny (4-1-8-2) and a lesson on which stump he really should uproot by Ash (4-0-11-2).

Chiz made 12 stumping attempts (one of which involved the batsman moving his foot), Caesar Snr (4-1-11-0) waved at a C&B and Howes minced 30 metres to drop his C&B. Sharif had a split personality – his first persona was someone who couldn’t bowl because he had a sniffle and the second was the same person who’d just remembered he could.

Caesar Snr pulled up trotting backwards and took an early bath, but it was all over by the time the gloom started descending. Nice pint of IPA down the Coach & Horses and excellent bragging by the skipper about his new Au Pair (apply in writing to Lord Frost of Bournvita).

*Note: Congrats to Mark and Mrs Mark on the birth of their son Joe. Joe was a bit early so is in the Childrens Hospital for a few days. We wish him well and trust he inherits the best bits of his father's talents behind the timbers!