The conditions were gloomy from the start, rather depressing and with no real sign of improvement…..but enough about Rochey’s love life!

Captain Coyne managed to bully another captain into them batting first, and this seemed to pay dividends as Hansie bowled like a demon from the start, bowling his 3 overs for very few runs and beating the bat at regular intervals. Captain Coyne opened from the other end and managed to snaffle a wicket after a fine catch by safe hands Coley on the boundary. Dan Cox then came on after Captain Coyne was blowing out of his ar5e after one over and produced a fine 3 over stint which had everything including, wickets, beating the outside edge, wides, boundaries and the odd head high full toss. Dan finished up with a deserved 2 wickets. After 6 of the 12 overs we had them at 38-4 and were feeling pretty confident, but unfortunately after that they went a little berserk and hit 75 from the remaining 6 overs, the highlight of which must have been watching Mitchell’s face after one catch went down, then another….then the ultimate humiliation……he dropped a caught and bowled! Olly bowled well but without much luck and Elliott managed to get his first over for Walkovers under his belt, producing the mandatory 5 wides or so and they eventually finished on 113.

Their total was around 15 runs too much than we would have hoped for, but we had high confidence after winning 2 more games than the first team had this season so sent out our prolific opening pair of Simon and Vibs. I hear Vibs tried to change his middle name to Runs which is why he didn’t play yesterday, but this was denied due to lack of evidence from Vibsy. Mr Tickle had already been taken so Vibsy was pretty fired up when he went out to bat. The first few balls went to plan, a couple of singles taken and everything looking calm. That was until Vibs got a straight one which he launched into outer space, creaming the ball through extra cover for four…..unfortunately he forgot to hit the ball though and was clean bowled for 1. Next man in was Steve McGuiness. This man has been described as s*x on legs by many a 12 year old schoolgirl as he started his pre match stretching routine, but I think the adulation got the better of poor old Steve who managed to snick his first ball to the keeper for a Golden Duck. He would not be alone on this one though! Simon, Hansie for a while and then Matt Cox moved the score along at a run a ball until Matt was out for around 10 in the 5th over. This bought Captain Coyne in for what a few people were hoping would be a repeat of the fireworks we saw in the previous round. The damp weather fizzled that out pretty early on and scoring was not as high as we would have wanted. Simon was bowled with bought Olly into bat with Captain Coyne. I say Captain Coyne as Coyne is the Captain of the team. The person people look to in case of an emergency, someone to use as a shoulder to cry on, someone who can maybe help guide a young inexperienced cricketer through the early stages of their career, someone who can help nurture talent…..and someone you would not want to upset as he is considerably heavier than anyone else on this planet!

Ollygate

The ball was being stroked around nicely by this pair but boundaries were needed but just weren’t on show. In an attempt to up the scoring rate Captain Coyne tried to pull a near head high full toss (not given a no-ball Vibsy!) but failed to connect properly. The ball ran out to deep square leg and the batsmen ran a single. A 2nd was contemplated but Captain Coyne (did I mention I was Captain??) sent the young Meaton back. Unfortunately Olly failed to hear the loud, booming yell of NOOOOOOOO and ran up to the Captain Coyne to enquire if the call was yes or no. In the act of asking the question Olly also managed to run past the Captain Coyne, resulting in the Captain of the team being run out with 4 overs to go and 50 runs required! Coley came and went for an entertaining but brisk 16 runs, Mitch got out to a fine caught and bowled, Elliott managed to miss a straight one for the 2nd Golden Duck of the day but at least avoided being run out, and Dan Cox managed to save himself 50p by letting Olly be the last man out after he was caught behind in the last over for a score of around 20 I would say. We finished on 89 off 11.2 overs.

A good performance but sad to lose after being in a winning position earlier on in the game, although conditions were not easy for cricket throughout the match.

Yours in sport

Yogi Bear