SCORECARD

Fitmen catch little after an evening visit to Selly Oak Hospital

Fitmen descended to the familiar setting of Ash Lane Hopwood, but this time to play on the top pitch. An astro strip and even side boundaries made for a surprisingly enjoyable playing arena.

Trainers and whites were donned in the quaintest of changing rooms (big shed) and the toss was lost. But, surprisingly, Fitmen were inserted.

Opening proceedings were the Trojan War Hero Ade and Skipper Jonesy. Ade (in form since his return from injury) tee-ed off from the first ball, mainly inside out, over cover and mid-off.

However, the game was interrupted during the first over for a mismatched dogfight. Big German Shepard v Little Terrier. Bets were made, but thankfully, some brave fielders (no fitmen) stopped the contest in the first round.

Ade finally fell bowled off his legs for a spritely 34 off 21. Sammy Moore took the torch, bashing two fours before spooning one up for a caught and bowled.

Next up was Howarth. He utilized his first ten balls for communicating the word "SSSS" in Morse code, inscribing it in the fresh scorebook. Jonesy, who started like a virgin on Tinder (ugly singles), finally found some timing and hit 44 of 34, including one sixer into the sightscreen before also getting caught slogging.

Finally, T20 Simon entered the game and played some outstanding cover drives. Although Timmsy was too busy working on his NVQ in scorekeeping, he didn't notice or score any of these.

Unfortunately, Simon injured his carve and sent for a runner. The best man for the job, Tony T stood up and volunteered. However, while chatting with a fielder, Tony accidentally ran Simon out. If only we had Fit-TV - one for the Fitmen highlights reel at the end of the season.

Paul and Tony saw out the remaining overs hitting 11 and 10, respectively—total 145, gettable, but also defendable.

Paul and Timmys opened the bowling and both bowled good areas. Paul took two wickets, whilst Timmys, who has experience playing on astro wickets with his park mess-about team, was unlucky to go wicketless. He did look good in his new knitted woollen jumper. (Is that a Krakow stitch?)

One of Paul's wickets involved four fitmen running from North/South/East/West towards a skier. Billy, Jeet, and Paul collided with each other, but Sam was able to avoid them and take the catch cleanly. Again Fit-TV "What Happens Next!" round.

Now Selly Oak Hospital isn't a one-man team, but we are establishing a Nemesis in their number 3 bat. Just like the Ashfield fixture a month before, anything inside his V was dispatched with thunderous hawk power.

After Paul and Timmsy balled out the first 8 overs, we rolled through all our bowling assets, Billy, Jonesy, Nokia, Ade and Dave, but all went for over seven an over due to the big bashing number three.

Notable mention in the field to Howarth, who almost took the catch of the season, but the ball bounced out on landing. Mitchell Stark would have claimed it!

Now we never like to point fingers in a match report; however Sammy Moore earlier fielding displays went from the sublime to the ridiculous dropping a dolly off the number 3. It may have turned the game, but it may not of. I'm sure no one mentioned it afterwards.

Selly Oak tightened up with 12 balls to go when only needing ten but got over the line with two balls to spare, despite some excellent death bowling from Ade and Nokia.

So 1-1 and two even games of T20 played in the right spirit.

Beer was taken in the bar after, and as the sun set over Hopwood, talk between the teams was that we would try and find space in the congested fixture list for a deciding game.