New Village Cricket Season Begins – a summary

The new cricket season lurched into action with the first team visiting Brislington at the Old Reds Ground to play St Mary Redcliffe in the preliminary round of midweek cup.

The home team batted first and your correspondent arrived to see red-faced veteran Paul Long (59) underneath a straightforward steepler.  Sadly, Longy had failed to raise his hands and the ball landed straight on his nose.  Blood was flowing at a rate of knots as his chortling team mates helped carry him off the pitch.  Luckily, his looks have not been greatly affected by the injury.

Nigel Johnson and his civil partner Henry Winterman put on a half decent partnership taking the village to within 12 balls to tie with two balls left.  In near darkness, Winterman then clubbed a six leaving six from the last ball.  Winterman advanced halfway down the track only to miss the ball by a yard and his stumps were shattered.

The Village are now in the Plate where they meet…St Mary Redcliffe, who lost in the first round, away from home. The venue is situated near an old rubbish tip which is somehow appropriate.

On a further low point, Dan ‘Five Bellies’ Dunt forced foul-mouthed gobshite Bowers to apologise for a volley of abuse towards the official umpire.

Next up, the first team went to Sadly Broke and batted first.  

Predictably, the batting collapsed and they were soon struggling at 14-4.  Lamber battered for nearly an hour without scoring a run but the village’s fortunes improved when Bowers arrived and slogged a quick fire 62, giving the village a chance against the home side.

And incredibly they did win.

Meanwhile, the seconds were at home to Frampton Cotterell and conceded well over 200 runs.

The Sheriff, John Black was unavailable on account of a football jolly in Torquay and the sound of barrels being scraped could be heard far and wide when Black appointed ‘Taff’ Russell to captain the youthful (not useful) side in his absence.

The seconds were never going to get near the visitors’ total, especially when it turned out that Morph Meaney-May was actually the third most experienced player in the side so a 160 run defeat was par for the course.

Man of the match was undoubtedly Harry Black who took no wickets, dropped three catches and was out to a golden duck.  Don’t call us, Harry…..

Normality was resumed last weekend when the weather ensured both games were postponed and the players could concentrate on the main business of spending the afternoon in the Air Balloon.