Five's Phoenix Fails to Fly From a
Flaming Phoenician Field.
Sandwiched between the central line and A40 the Ealing Central
Sports
Ground was the unappetising setting to play host to the fives' first
match
against Perivale Phoenicians IV on a debilitatingly warm June
afternoon.
With regular skipper Holger 'H' Kriess sunning himself in Cape Town,
stand-in tosser Gilbert 'Dirty' Sanchez, discussed with his team the
possibility of batting first on a reasonable track in soaring
tempeatures
before promptly winning the toss and electing to field.
In the absense of H and, indeed, any other player of vague
wicketkeeping
pedigree, Nik 'Wicketkeeper's cough' Walder selflessly acquiesced to
the
team's plea to don the pads and thus saved the team from watching D
'Not
Alec Stewart' Henderson helplessly flap behind the poles.
First up were Pete 'Night' Mair and Surav 'Tea Towel' Burman. Both
plopped
the ball on the spot more than not and Pete inparticular elicited
considerable swing into the batsmen as he came down the hill.
Odd tennis-ball bounce off one particular spot on the track cause
Pete
some consternation as one ball an over was able to be picked off
despite
the openers having nary a scooby on the other five. This, combined
with
the beating sun and a score of 80/0 lead to an early introduction of
evergreen B 'Hello. Brian Thorne.' Thorne who drew back the rate and
then
got into the pole-taking act with a fine forward-diving snaffle at
gully
from N 'Needs a nickname' Parab.
Henderson came on from the other end and joined in, getting BT
involved
in
the game once more with a tumbling catch at slip. Now Thorne hit
stride
and wickets fell regularly from his end. Soon speeding past the
five-fer.
Hendo was able to winkle a second thanks to the glovework of Walder
before
a final-wicket impasse was met.
With the last two openly wasting time, Thorne was at last withdrawn
with
seven to his name and Mair duly peformed the coup de grace,
displacing
the
leg pole.
The Ts walked off the field to a dissappointly meat-free tea
wondering
if
they'd got out of gaol with Thorne's 7-fer and Walder's four
dismissals
behind the stumps reducing the hosts to 159 all out.
A confident opening partnership comprising an albeit exhausted
Walder
and
relieved Sanchez got the reply underway, but low bounce from the A40
end
removed Nik LBW early on, and was to wreak havoc with the Ts top and
middle order.
Gil stood helpless as Nitin, Shibu 'Paul Shibu' Paul and Pat
'Sightscreen'
Mongon departed for little contribution before he too was out,
forcing
himself to play off the front foot and spooning to mid-on. Most
falling
to
the Perivale top-end opener.
Rocking at 26/5 after ten overs, returning stalwart Steve 'Kockers'
Kokri
tried to bed in with last week's hero Chris 'D D' Marshall and then
Surav,
but by now any hopes of victory had disappeared with the chimes of
the
departing ice-cream van.
Kockers and Hendo tried to drop anchor and creep towards the 60 runs
that
mark the first batting point as Perivale rang the bowling changes.
The
opener who had caused much havoc pulled up and had to leave the
field,
and
was replaced by an unorthodox off-spinner whilst leg-spin was
brought
in
from the club end. The 60 was only just passed when Kockers fell to
the
legger, mis-timing a block to silly mid-off.
The biggest partnership of the day then developed as Peter Mair, no
mug
with blade, was treated as a bit of a bunny by the Perival skipper
and
he
exploited the gaping spaces straight of the wicket with aplomb. An
erratic, but blisteringly quick, seamer was survived albeit with not
inconsiderable bruises and the occasional lash at a beamer, before
the
90,
and another point, was brought up.
When Mair finally succumbed, BT joined in and moved the score up to
just
over the hundred before playing slightly too early to the wristy
off-break
bowler and offering a leading edge to hand.
The Ts trudged home the losers by 50 runs, and conceding 25 points
to 7
in
their league chase. Several jugs of Carling were needed to complete
the
post-mortem with next week's game against Ickenham IV (whose threes
punched 333 past the fives two years ago) the first chance to put
the
conclusions to the test.
Must do better, really. Could be the club's season motto. |
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