I’ve never been so effing cold in all my life. We had to play against 7 men, one child, 2 Monkeys and a Giraffe as Durrell were a bit short, but the more concerning thing for the newly established Rebels was the fact that there was a -40 wind chill factor. I don’t think the wind dropped below a force 7 all evening, which was made worse as we were playing on the top pitch at Les Quennevais!
For the third time in three games Captain Coyne made the opposition bat first. You may say this was luck, but the fact we haven’t actually had an official toss (easy Cow) to start the match means I have managed to bully 3 opposition captains….long may this continue. Durrell batted sensibly at the start against some fine bowling from Paul Spencer. His 2 overs went for a miserly 2 runs with the added bonus of bowling one of their opening batsmen. Fine stuff indeed when you take into account a strong cross wind….something Matt Cox didn’t when opening from the other end! Coxy struggled a little but considering it was his first bowl of the season he stuck at the task well and was rewarded with 2 wickets from 2 overs. Both wickets were regulation catches by Tristan and then Spencer. Olly then popped up for an economical 2 overs and also managed to bag a wicket for an encouraging start to the season for the youngster.
Everything was going the Rebels way until there was a big turning point in the match. Chadders was bought on to bowl after being heard talking to the Eskimos at deep backward point. They had found somewhere colder than the North Pole and their strange dialect seemed to have struck a cord with Chadders and his mother tongue! Durrell had a big brute of a batsmen who was looking to go big most of the time but had failed. On came Chadders who ran in with all his might. His hair (singular!) was flapping hard in the wind and there was a real grace and beauty to his run up. He jumped high and led with his front arm, followed in a flash by the bowling arm. The crowd held its breath to see what the batsmen would do. He swang his bat as if he was trying to hit it to the moon….and missed. The ball clanged into his bollosh harder than you would want to imagine and the batsmen was down quicker that you could say ‘Hatton v Pacquaio rematch?’. As we are a graceful and sporting team, we all fell about laughing whilst the batsmen was in obvious pain. He took his anger out next ball by swatting Chadders for 6, but Chadders had the last laugh by bowling him a beamer next ball! After all that fun, and Tristan taking his first wicket of the season by bowling the said batsmen Chadders hit, Durrell finished with a respectable 90 runs from 10 overs.
We needed something big, we needed something steady, and we needed someone to help Elliott avoid being run out twice in 2 games. 2 out of 3 of those statements isn’t bad is it!
Coley and Jake opened the batting in the absence of Craig ‘The rock’ Vibert who had been called up on Island cricket duty…..4Island duty that is! Coley got off to a swift start but unluckily missed a straight one and was out for 11. Jake batted sensibly and ran far too many singles for my liking, although there was a little controversy in the wicket of Elliott Gump. Forrest hit a good looking shot behind square for a certain 2. As Forrest was lapping Jake after one run, Forrest swears he heard a whisper saying ‘go for a third’. We can only assume that the whisper was from Jake and Forrest was short of his ground for the 3rd game running. He had the fortune of having the first 2 runs count for him though so has avoided a duck. This bought Simon in and to cut a really long, boring, single pinching display short, we won by 8 wickets with 1 ball remaining. On a serious note Jake and Simon batted really well and judged it perfectly. Jake ending on 27 not out and Simon on 35 not out.
Reporting from the North Pole
Yogi Bear