Radley (H) Cherwell Div 5c
I am afraid you have me again… but I know why! You all want to know about the Tea situation..So without further ado…
What would the MMM (Mabbs Mega Manwich) contain? Well, I upgraded this week by walking to Waitrose! The 1% pay rise this year was clearly helping as I bought lashings of French Butter, Torchons of Ham, Port Salut, Comté, Saucisson, Moutarde, Mayonnaise all enclosed inside a French Rustic Loaf. Things were going to be good.
As before, scoop out some of the bread to allow the ingredients to sit comfortably and not spill out the side (unlike Colin’s drop at gully, which fully spilled out the side whilst everyone else was celebrating what they thought was a good catch). Butter the bottom layer, arrange the Meat and Cheese in alternating layers until there is none left, and sparingly smear mustard on the top layer. Top off with a good drizzle of Mayo and cap with the top of the loaf. This week, to spice it up, I cut the loaf into quarters so as to share with more people.
With Summersbee absent, because it was his son’s birthday, Mr ‘Sir’ William Harvey Esq. SIC. MEB. MFD [Stand In Captain, Most Excellent Bowler, Mr Forward Defence] took the reins and promptly lost the toss. On the hottest day for cricket, we were bowling first!
I took a wicket early on, getting the ball to swing a bit and taking the edge of the opener P.Burrows for a duck. Soon Harvey persuaded A.Pike to hit the ball straight to Colin at backward gully for 17. But, the Radley batsmen started to get some runs with some wayward bowling, with many many wides throughout the innings, and some big boundaries. This helped them to get on the board and push for a total. ‘Great’ Scott…Saunders got the breakthrough with Spenny taking a good catch, and then again an over or so later when he took a superb Caught and Bowled removing Y.Yasin for 2. Stan ‘Lee’ ‘Eminem’ ‘Marvel’ Sparrow claimed his first wicket for the club removing A.Liaquat for 24, a very needed breakthrough and a Jug from Dad next time he is around! TPL was been accredited with a run out removing N.Ahmed for 18… I have no idea who actually fielded it, but Timmy’s giant mitt flapped at the ball and expertly guided it onto the stumps to have the batsman a yard short. So, probably worth giving that to Timmy.
At 2nd Drinks, there was a concern that Radley could smash lots of runs, but we tightened our lines and bowled well. Tweekey picked up a wicket getting A.R.Khan for 28, and then I cleaned up the rest, bowling Malik for 9 and pinning Salim plumb LBW for 0 aaaand fielding the ball expertly at backward square leg, realising the situation and giving a good throw to the bowlers end for JC to demolish the stumps. Its gone down as Jonny’s run out, but we all know it should be mine. There was a fierce exchange between the two batsmen and a thrown bat. But that was that…
Tea was superb. I shared the MMM round and all was good. Chasing 175 wouldn’t be that hard, right?
Wrong!
Colin out 4 balls into our innings for a duck. TPL getting triggered LBW to a ball that hit him in the upper thigh, Liam being bowled to a ball that ragged back “at least 2 foot” (or so he claims) for 3. The score… 3 for 3! Classic Wantage! At this point my wife turned up, looking beautiful as ever, and she buoyed on the team to start getting some runs. Spenny and JC hit some boundaries and it looked like we were back on course. Wrong again!
JC ‘triggered’ for 22, with even the wicket keeper calling for a review as “the ball was clearly missing leg and even pitched outside” (A.R.Khan 13/08/22) and corroborated by JC himself. Spenny said he was plumb! You decide… Challand chipped a C&B back to Malik for 5, and I walked out looking to impress in front of my family and my new nephew, who was called James after his uncle’s prowess at cricket! I hit a couple of nice shots, a glorious cover drive for 4 and felt comfortable. Spenny said to see out A.Malik’s last over, but a ball just on the line of off stump looked a little full, so I had a drive, only to nick off to the keeper. Balls! Scott ‘of the Antarctic’ Saunders was out 2 balls later and once again, Wantage were looking likely to be bowled out for less that 100. Stan stuck around bravely but was out for 0. Spenny was bowled for 27, and it was down to ‘Skip of the day’ Sir William to get us out of the hole. He and Tweekey hit some lusty blows, even smashing a 6 towards the clubhouse and we scraped ourselves up to Nelson before Tweekey was finally caught for 13 going for another 6. All out for 111!
Disappointing for sure, and we all agreed that we hate losing!
Pigs Ear – Went to… no idea because the stand in skipper didn’t record it properly! Probably went to Mr Harvey for some reason. (Maybe when the skip is back with the book he can update this record).
Champagne Moment – went to T.Weekes for his powerful 6!
Man of the Match – went to me again! I definitely didn’t deserve it, but I suspect people wanted to hear about the Manwich again! (Its L-Dogg’s turn to provide tea next time so we shall see!)
For the full scorecard and result see here…WGCC v Radley Match Scorecard
Sometimes cricket is crap…but against Radley our batting was crap-er!
Mabbs Out!