Third Team Report Away at Teddington, 8th May 2010
(This week’s challenge was to insert at least 8 ABBA songs, including the legendary hit, “Gimmee, Gimmee a Man After Midnight” Those wishing to cheat can find the songs listed in order of appearance in Note 2 at the bottom of the report.)
Result: T’s 175 A0, Teddington 178-4
In a wind swept Bushy Park Cricket was the name of the game, but keeping warm was our aim. Mamma Mia! Was it cold or what? Tripper’s team looked like Napoleons’ army retreating from Moscow. Every available bit of clothing was donned in an effort to survive the arctic conditions. Talking of Napoleon do you all know our local pub, the Blucher, is named after the Prussian General who played a major role in defeating Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Our battle with Teddington started badly when our skipper (what a super trouper he is!) lost the toss. Apparently the statistics show it is very hard to win batting first at Teddington and given the conditions we were not surprised to be asked to bat. With the ball swinging and seaming in the damp, cold conditions batting was not an easy task. However, Colin Blunden looked in great form adopting his usual strategy of patience combined with brutal assault on the bad ball. Time for a quick quiz. Question: How many cricket grounds are there in Bushy Park? For the answer please see Note 1 at the bottom of the report. Colin’s first two partner’s both fell to the difficult conditions with the swinging ball uprooting James Salmon’s stumps. Tom Platts slipped while running and a nasty back injury reduced him to an invalid for the rest of the game. Cruelly, his watching teammates rejected his SOS call for a pain-killing spray and some wag huddled under a duvet suggested Deep Heat was preferable to the freeze spray. It was no surprise when the handicapped hero became the second wicket to fall. Enter Matt Bendelow who was in for an eventful day. Bendelow Jnr also looked in great form as he punished anything on his legs and anything with width. As the partnership began to develop Colin was given out LBW, the first of three awarded which ripped the heart out of our innings. A fine 43 was a good day’s work for Colin. Junior quickly lost two more partners but found more support from Paul Parnell. Paul was the third T’s batsman to look in good nick. His compact batting style was ideal for the day and he offered great support to Matt, but as again a partnership began to develop the dreaded LBW sent Matt back to the pavilion for a stylish 39. Time for the skipper to get into the action. As the 50th over approached Trippers and Paul started to accelerate and a score of 200 plus looked possible, but guess what? Yes, Trippers joined Matt in pavilion also given out LBW. Attack was now the name of the game and Parnell was out for a classy 30 trying to push the score along. Number 11, Bendelow Senior shivered his way to the middle for his annual bat. A pair of spinners operating and instructions for his skipper to push on. The first ball was flicked into the empty square leg area for a jogged run (4th gear for TB) but unfortunately his partner decided not to run allowing midwicket to swoop round and complete a run out to leave the T‘s on an inadequate 175 on a ground with short, straight boundaries.
With chattering teeth the T’s scuttled back to the warmth of Teddington clubhouse only to find four teams battling over the food. To rub salt into the wound T20 cricket was on the TV and the frozen cricketers enviously eyed the sight of cricket being played in blistering sunshine. Huddled together like a pack of penguins on a tiny iceflow the viewers ‘ spirits were raised as the Sky camera lingered over bikini clad belles. From the back of the pack a Dancing Queen quite reasonably insisted on equality of viewing . A volley of abuse was directed at Sky including the plaintive plea, “Gimmee, Gimmee a man!” After midnight in the Twickenham bar the Sky predilection for highlighting attractive females was revisited and the assorted drunks mooted match fees should be raised by £1 to fund a subscription to a porn channel, but it was sadly concluded we couldn’t afford it as it was a rich man’s world.
Meanwhile, back at
Bushy Park the T’s opening bowlers, Kulkarni and Dadarkar found the
howling wind had dried out the pitch and batting was far, far
easier. With neither bowler getting any sideways movement the
score raced to 60 off the first 10 overs. Trippers decided it was
time to take pace off the ball and brought
himself on. JT immediately generated some swing
and found the edge several times, but the score marched onwards
and upwards. Time to take even more pace off the ball as TB was
wheeled into action. The effect was immediate as the scoring rate
screeched to a halt with TB bowling his first 7 overs for 4 runs.
This allowed Trippers to deploy a Bendelow family bowling
attack with the Junior partner taking an attacking approach. The
strategy worked as 4 wickets fell to the spin of
Junior leaving Teddington on 120-4. At this point of the
game the pressure was on the home side. T’s had their tails up and
55 runs were still needed. In the next over from TB the new
batsman lobbed a gentle catch to mid-on, but alas the chance was
spilled. From here on Teddington moved reasonably easily to their
target. A promising spell from Garth Borain and
a returning Rohan saw the remaining runs knocked-off fairly
quickly. Garth was also tasked with the collection of match fees
and he proved very effective prowling the bar demanding, “Money,
Money, Money!
So, 10 points to Teddington and none for Twickenham as in this format of cricket the winner takes it all. Positives from the game? On the batting front, Blunden (43), M.Bendelow (39) and Parnell (30) looked in good form and should all score plenty of runs this season. On the bowling front TB (12-0-24) demonstrated the art of tieing down an end while an extremely ungrateful offspring profited to the tune of 10-4-44. Behind the stumps Karl Rand gave a very tidy display despite some wayward bowling.
Last, but not least the Tea grading. Even though he didn’t linger the author found only scraps when he managed to fight his way to the table and consequently can’t give a personal grade. I did, however, take an exit poll of 4 team members. The consensus was pretty positive and the 4 marks were ABBA!
Note 1: Answer: Don’t know, but ask Jawid as he visited them all trying to find the right venue.
Note 2: The Name of the Game, Mamma Mia, Waterloo, Super Trouper, SOS, Man in the Middle, Dancing Queen, Gimmee, gimme a man after midnight, Money Money Money, The Winner Takes it All