The unedited version

I quite simply do not know where to start with today’s events. But for those who are interested in the nitty gritty we defeated Creevedonnell by 27 runs.

Also before I begin I am going to say that when I type … that means Jordan Hope did something stupid…. …. …. …. …. This will mean that this report may well still be current by the time I finish!

Today marked the return of Stephen McChesney to the ranks and he was that keen that he was at Burndennett in time for the milk delivery around 6.00am ahead of the rest of the troops around 12.30. Keen as mustard that wee lad!

Once the opposition turned up and decided which strip of grass they were going to cut, got the mower out, hacked away at it merrily for 10 minutes then the captains wandered to the middle for the toss. Skipper Brian Anderson called correctly and seeing as we were playing on a patch of grass no bigger than a roundabout decided to let are wee pro try his best to smash the life out of it. He was ably assisted by Neil Cahill who was soon undone by the wicket keeper who was playing the game we all know and love as “one hand one bounce”

The bowler didn’t appeal, everyone who was at the ground, who due to the size of the ground were about 6 yards from the incident, saw that the ball bounced a good 3 or 4 feet in front of the keeper had dismissed the incident as a near miss and were assuming the ball had gone dead before the old umpire at the far end decided that he was going to trigger Mr Cahill. A fielder ran past Neil on his trudge off the ground to say how he thought it was a joke, the fielder who came down towards us on the boundary said it was clearly not a fair decision, but yet the complete and utter headers in the rest of the BallyMcBackward team were ecstatic with the decision. To a man we thought this was the worst bit of unsportsmanlike conduct we had ever seen, unfortunately this was merely an appetizer.

Young Avadhoot was finding going tough on the two paced patch of field that they had prepared for us 10 minutes before the game started. Although all things are relative and he had passed 50, although how far passed 50 he got is open to question as our scorer was not top of the class when it comes to counting. Estimates range from 50 odd to 70 something for Avi’s total before he was ‘bowled’.

Now. to say the the Creevedonnell ranks were bolstered by an utter moonbeam of Phil Mulholland proportions is putting it mildly, he seemed to spend the first 15 overs talking to himself in the field before being thrown the ball and asked to bowl his right arm muck. After a short period he decided to start bowling off half a step while the batsman wasn’t looking!

Avi complained to the umpire that he was not even in his stance before the bowler was bowling, the umpire ‘seemed’ to take these protests seriously without actually taking steps to stop the bowler doing it. This continued for a couple more overs before, while avi is still taking guard, looking at the ground in front of him, the bowler bowls and hits middle stump. Avi did not motion towards the ball at all, he didnt have time to get out of the way as he didnt know the bowler had bowled the ball at him. The umpire raises his finger and the BallyMcBackward squad went crazy.

After this wicket Phil ‘il knock his pan in’ Mulholland proceeded a one man ‘il show these c**ts’ crusade, i will describe his innings as a crusade!

At every opportunity trying to smash his ‘brother from another mother’ out of the ground. He was soon joined by our esteemed and level headed Vice Chairman, Ian Latham, who’s tactic to stop the bowler bowling whilst the batsman was not ready was to try and back up on the bowlers side of the stumps! This started another bout of finger pointing and effing and a jeffing all over the place. Vice chairmen should know better than to lower themselves to the BallyMcBackward level!

Wee Phil did well as did the VC after the wee scroat was bowled out to get us up to a respectable total with some good hitting and sensible running.

As this is the only meaningful contribution I had in the whole match my innings gets a mention (editors licence). I came to the wicket and ‘smashed’ a couple of lovely 4’s even if i dont remember one of them! we closed on 250 odd before Andy once again stepped in after about 30 minutes of tallying up the books to say the total was actually 231.

Its at this point I would like to pay tribute to our hosts Burndennett who provided great hospitality and the Sausage, Chips and Beans is an absolute winner as far as this athlete is concerned!

The second innings began with plenty of …. and some more …. (see my notes at the beginning of this report) while Brian and the ‘at this stage’ controlled Alan Blain kept it reasonably tight for the first few overs before Brian got some fearful treatment into one of the many fields nearby.

Some more … occurred at which point the webbed feet brigade on the side line began to get on poor Jordan’s sizable back so every time the ball went near Jordy, he firstly messed it up and then the BallyMcBackward lot loved every minute of it.

Avi was then told that the 5 millimeter thick white legs on his sunglasses were a distraction to the batsmen and told he could not wear them whilst bowling. Il just give you a few seconds to digest the stupidity of that particular umpiring call…. (that … was not jordy related!)

We thought that wee Phil was the only one in our ranks that could start a Fight in a Phone Box but our Scorer Andy McCulloch started one in the Scorehut which resembled a phone Box whenone of the bowlers entered the hut to inquire how many overs he had left. Now as you may have gathered Andy isnt the best scorer so was trying to tally up at the time and the bowlers patience ran out waiting on Andy to come up with an answer at which point Andy requested that he leave the Score Hut via the door or he would make him leave via the window (this is a heavily edited version of events which involves swearing)

Although the ‘Cousins Select XI’ were hitting the odd big hit we were still picking up wickets regularly and apart from the odd … and obviously some more … we were doing ok to restrict their ‘Pro’ who until shortly before the game was their captain before falling out with the whole team and sulking on a wall for most of the day and refusing to do pretty much anything. He then fell to our Prodigal Son Bod, who to say he was delighted at getting his first wicket back at his Home club would be an understatement and nearly put his back out jumping around in delight.

Some more …

Then Alan Blain came back on to bowl.

Death bowling takes what the Athletico Madrid Coach recently described as ‘Big Cahones’ Blainers decided to leave his at home today, which in hindsight provided the funniest story that I am sure we will all tell our Grandchildren about.

Before I start I should point out that Jordy took a catch, eventually, and there is no more … in this report!

Yes back to Blainers! He got No Balled, which in this competition results in a free hit, which resulted in several more no balls, which resulted in more free hits. Now we all know the only way to be out off a free hit is run out, hence the description, FREE HIT.

Blainers in his scrambled state had shortened his run up nearly to a few strides, clean bowled the batsman to turn round and celebrate in front of the jeering BallyMcBackward fans only to be told that he was a complete goat and that it was a FREE HIT and that he had to get back to his mark.

I fully accept that this is a version of events with many gaps and stories I have missed but it was a win in a game of cricket that although enjoyable that we came out on the right side of the result was on the other hand a complete disgrace played against a side devoid of all sportsmanship and good manners and umpired in a way which was baffling at best.

All I can say is, Jordy, enjoy the 3rd XI game on Saturday and Blainers, you are a moonbeam… but you are our moonbeam!

Feel free to add your own stories and highlights of the day and we can amalgamate them into an accurate account of what was one of the weirdest, maddest days cricket i have ever been involved in.

Goodnight… and you stay classy Creevedonnell

Leave a reply