It’s fair to say that few of us made the trip to Bill Quay expecting play. The forecast was ominous, the dark grey clouds threatening, and the odd speck of rain seemed likely to turn into a downpour at any moment. For once, however, the weather gods decided to take it easy.
Before play could get underway on a miraculously dry evening, however, Colin kindly furnished the squad with some additional protection from the elements – a full complement of bright yellow rubber duck bucket hats, presented in exchange for donations to Skipper Mark’s charity fundraising trek to the Himalayas. For those who missed out, Simon can be seen showing off our rather fine new headwear in the attached photograph, which also doubles up as a fresh headshot for his modelling portfolio.
With hats dished out and the weather keeping a respectful distance, play could begin. Except it couldn’t, because while rain didn’t stop play, Colin did. With all of his team-mates on the field and ready to begin, Mallards’ wicket-keeper seemed to be having some trouble in the dressing room, his head occasionally visible bobbing up and down frantically in the window. Whatever he was doing in there, it didn’t work.
After several confused minutes, Colin came jogging out to the crease having entirely failed to kit himself out, clutching two pads (the correct number) and three gloves (not the correct number) none of which were attached to the appropriate parts of his body. Then, halfway to his mark and in accordance with the universal laws of comedy, his trousers fell down.
Having successfully cleared the area of women and children with the unexpected sight of his unmentionables, Colin finally got himself sorted out and play was able to get underway, with Ryan and Ankush taking the new ball and giving the batsmen plenty of headaches from the start.
While Ankush went wicketless, his guileful bowling proved tricky to get away and he finished his three overs having conceded just 10 runs – but Ryan’s fiery spell produced back-to-back wickets with a pair of almost identical balls moving in sharply to take the top of the stumps. The hat-trick ball was fended away, but the damage had been done.
With the seamers given a well-deserved rest, Liaquat and Simon added their spin into the mix and both created plenty of grief on a slow deck. Liaquat topped the bowling figures with three wickets (one courtesy of a stumping from Colin, who was clearly eager to make amends for earlier indiscretions) and while Simon didn’t get one from his three overs, he did prompt one befuddled batter to inform his colleague that he had been “turning it bloody miles.”
Hamid and Jamie rounded things off with some more slow stuff, the former picking up the sixth and final wicket and the latter helping to keep the run rate down with an excellent maiden towards the death. Bill Quay finished on 62-6 from their 15 overs.
As we get to Mallards’ reply, your humble correspondent finds himself in the awkward position of having to describe his own unexpectedly useful innings. As a man who abhors immodesty, I would certainly not wish to declare my own unbeaten 33 to have been either match-winning or swashbuckling. Let us simply move on to the rest of the batting. But do feel free to linger over the scorecard if you so wish.
Uday opened up alongside the author and played some tremendous strokes on his way to 19, perishing only when he found a fielder in the deep in the attempt to launch a lusty blow high over the boundary rope.
His dismissal brought Colin back to the crease – fully clothed and wearing his protective equipment in the right places on this occasion – and he added a couple of boundaries to the total before Khalid replaced your retiring correspondent to hit the winning runs and wrap up an impressive nine-wicket victory inside nine overs.
A fine team performance against some very welcoming opposition was celebrated with glistening piles of chips and a pint or two in Bill Quay’s clubhouse. We came expecting a washout, but instead left with a win, some snazzy new headgear and the sight of Colin’s underwear lodged unhealthily in our hindbrains.
-MG