The Quokkas – Victory

Our Australian visitors from the big smoke gave us a good game yesterday. We started early at 11am and played a 30 over game as we mutually wanted to finish by 3.30 to watch the England game.

We batted first and after a shaky start and some dubious LBW decisions, batted out the 30 overs. David “Muppet” Henson put in a good performance, playing some nice shots between the fielders to get valuable runs. He got 24 before spooning a ball to a fielder. I got 21 with some ugly but effective shots, after being dropped in my first over. A nicely timed mow shook the clubhouse roof when the ball hit it getting a small cheer from the crowd. This was eclipsed by Colin “Naboo” Mercer’s six, the first one that he’s ever hit, that went sailing into one of the neighbours gardens. Alan “Raffles” Mercer went to ask politely for the ball back and was coerced into helping the lady with carrying her shopping into the house before he was allowed to get the ball. Colin finished on 59 not out. An innings that saved the match for us and gave us a total of 167 for 9.

Unfortunately I don’t have the bowling figures yet but Stewie “Angel” Bulpitt and Duncan “Lovedog” Wooloff bowled well and stopped The Quokkas from getting too many runs too early. Tweekey and James Mabbett also bowled well and the wickets started to fall. Tweekey’s first wicket went to an appalling full toss which was caught. His second one went to a much more worthy ball, possibly one of the best balls he’s ever bowled, clean bowling the batsman with a deceptive yorker.

Carl “Stripper” Galvin also took a couple of wickets bowling his usual slow but effective line and length deliveries. Muppet bowled tightly too. James finished off the game with a lovely over that the opposition tried, but failed, to cart out of the ground as they approached our target. They finished about 10 runs short of us.

I think everyone enjoyed themselves. They were a great team to play with some excellent banter that carried on well into the evening.

Man of the match – Naboo for his 59 not out and some excellent wicket keeping.
Champagne moment – Naboo for his first ever six.
Pig’s Ear – Raffles for a poor joke about haemarroid cream that is not worth repeating.

Thanks to Alan and Mike who came down and ran the bar during the game. Also thanks to Olly who was supersub for Graham North and therefore couldn’t bat and didn’t get much of a game this week.