SCORECARD

Coftonians 180-9 (40 overs)
Fitmen 104 all out

"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King(s)".

Tchaikovsky would have been proud to see that the Fitmen recognised that his famous ‘Nutcracker’ was actually adapted from a two part novel written by E.T.A. Hoffmann. ‘Nutter’ played the first part to perfection and (with one notable exception) the FitBatsmen did an excellent impression of timid mice for the second.

So what happened there then?

Beautiful afternoon, prospect of a full day in the sun with the temps nudging just over 20 degrees. All was well with the world.

In fact all was well in the Fitmen world for about ¾ of the game before it was wrestled away by either devastating bowling or woeful batting……..a combination of the two was the more likely.

We even had a star of the show in the bowling department followed by a similar feat in the batting – but still lost.

Losing the toss (and a batsman light due to a last minute withdrawal) the Fitmen were given first use of the ball and to good effect.
Ralphie and Guy opened with good quick bowling causing all sorts of trouble for the opening pair. They stuck to it, but the run rate was low. Ralphie ended up with a couple of wickets including a stunner at gulley from the ageing Chairman (are you reading this Ben??) who the previous week couldn’t catch a cold. Guy was tight ending up with a miserly 20 runs off his 8, as did Sunny and TC.

Step up Ian Nutt to claim his first ever ‘five for’ with superb figures of 7-1-48-5 including a Swann-a-like wicket off his first ball. A total of 180 seemed about 20 more than we thought they’d get, but it looked like a good track and we had some decent batting to come.

The tea-time chilli chicken wings were factor 8 (where 10 is illegal) and Sehdeva pakora right up in the top slot. The desiccated coconut cake whilst perfectly satisfactory was not in the Green-league.

And so to the reply. Tom (on the back of 3 half centuries in a row) and Rich Harris looked comfortable against the longest run up seen at the Graveyard for many years. WE figured the average over consisted of around 400 metres of sprinting…..couldn’t last really!

The first wicket (a sharp 1st slip catch) fell after an opening partnership of 50 dominated by Harris who went on to register 66 off only 37 balls. A perfect platform? You’d have thought so.

Raj dug in and looked good, Chas seemed happy with his long defensive stride, Chiz got rid of some of the cobwebs for only his second game of the season – plenty in there surely?

Alas they all fell……………………….before we knew it, we’d gone from 50-0 to teetering on the brink. 3 ducks from the lower order pretty much wrapped it up. Post match analysis (over Nutter’s 5 for round) concluded…inconclusively. How did we get to a losing position (and by a fair margin) after most of the game was pretty much under control.

Congratulations to Coftonians for sticking to it but really was a poor show from all but one of our batsmen. We certainly missed a second batter to accompany Rich.

Still – Claverley next weekend!


Foot Note: “Deadly Assassin” ( a novel by by Sunny Singh……………….)

In about the 14th over of the Coftonians innings, the deadly assassin almost literally knocked someone’s head off.

The non facing batsman called a quick single to short leg, in shot (comparatively) Sunny, picked up one handed, heard the shout ‘bowlers end’ and fired towards the waiting chairman. It all went in slow motion then as the batsman scampered to get in at the keepers end.

The excocet masquerading as a ball met with the batman’s forehead slap bang in the middle. Olympic archers with a target circle couldn't have done it better. Not only did the collision stop the batsman’s forward progress, it actually knocked him backwards.

A great deal of concern was allayed when it appeared there was no more damage than a large dent! Credit to the batter who retired hurt for a while then returned at the fall of a later wicket.