Club Cricket 2011

[Heaver]

We travel to Ottery St Mary this weekend and welcome Plymstock on Sunday. Everytime i play at Ottery it pisses it down so hoping for a change in the weather and a big 20points to keep us up the top. Sunday we are struggling for side so our 100% record might go this weekend but fingers crossed we can continue our fine start and see what happens

 

[James Dunne's Ashtray]

3/3 for the mighty HASPCC 2nds with a 164 run victory over Topsham St James, I only got 1 run, dropped a catch and no wickets so luckily we won.

 

[Jason H]

Bl**dy awful game, on a pitch with a lethal ridge on a good length rendering it almost unplayable, and in hurricane conditions.

In the dreadful conditions we dropped half-chance after half-chance - I was late to a skier that I thought was going down someone else's throat, and instead of holding it I slightly overshot it and got a nasty bang on the bonce, fortunately no lasting damage done. Somehow they ended up 202/5.

In reply Skip, who was like a bear with a sore head all day, got out to one off the ridge, and did a Chris Broad on the stumps (not the best thing to do when the Ump is the Acting Chairman of the league), and we were always a bit behind the rate before being bowled out for 184. I came in at 8 (order slightly rejigged to allow a couple of United "fans" to be up top to get away for the match), and scored 5 before trying to change my style in the face of needing 8/9 per over and being bowled out attempting a slog sweep to the vacant fine leg area.

The 2s won, though, so we're 7 for 8 for the season so far. No league match for the 1s this Saturday, but we have a friendly lined up and a social in the evening.

 

[Jason H]

Oh, the joys of e-mail, which threatened to put a major spanner in the works as things turned pretty nasty early on.

We batted first, and I opened up with regular opener Pes. They had a father and two sons playing - I'd played against the father in particular many times. One of the sons opened the bowling, and Pes was soon taking him apart, leaving me at the other end to face the quick who was peppering my chest area. Anyway, it all started to turn ugly (even uglier than the two sons) when the younger brother failed to throw the ball to the bowler's end despite Pes being home comfortably. He gave his younger sibling a right tongue-lashing, then bowled me a nice juicy one that I put away.

He then started loudly sledging Pes from fine leg, only to then make the mistake of getting personal, which caused Pes to respond with a few choice words of his own, which then brought Dad into play. Now here came the problem. Pes and the Dad are the Fixture Secs of our two clubs. When we arranged the fixture with them, we said about our Social in the evening (a Thai Curry night), and they were keen to join in. Come last week, Pes e-mailed the other fella to ask about numbers. He got back after conferring with their skip that unfortunately they wouldn't be joining us. Pes then forwarded the e-mail to our Social Sec, with the addition of "F***ing t*ssers". Only of course instead of clicking "Forward" he clicked "Reply", so managed to send this two-word riposte back whence it had come. Ooooooooooppppppssss!!!

Anyway, eventually things calmed down. I ended up scoring 19, out chasing a wide one, and with contributions most of the way down for our weak side we ended up scoring 175.

In reply we were always somewhat ahead, having taken a few early wickets, but our desire to give everyone a game meant we were somewhat weak in attack and eventually they got home with 2 wickets to spare - I took a catch late on to take my tally to 3 (plus a stumping) for the season.

Incidentally, our 2s played their 2s in the league, and they were surprisingly strong, winning comfortably, while a few of their 2s were playing against us. Hmmmmm.

 

[Ian Sideman]

Oh, the joys of e-mail, which threatened to put a major spanner in the works as things turned pretty nasty early on.

We batted first, and I opened up with regular opener Pes. They had a father and two sons playing - I'd played against the father in particular many times. One of the sons opened the bowling, and Pes was soon taking him apart, leaving me at the other end to face the quick who was peppering my chest area. Anyway, it all started to turn ugly (even uglier than the two sons) when the younger brother failed to throw the ball to the bowler's end despite Pes being home comfortably. He gave his younger sibling a right tongue-lashing, then bowled me a nice juicy one that I put away.

He then started loudly sledging Pes from fine leg, only to then make the mistake of getting personal, which caused Pes to respond with a few choice words of his own, which then brought Dad into play. Now here came the problem. Pes and the Dad are the Fixture Secs of our two clubs. When we arranged the fixture with them, we said about our Social in the evening (a Thai Curry night), and they were keen to join in. Come last week, Pes e-mailed the other fella to ask about numbers. He got back after conferring with their skip that unfortunately they wouldn't be joining us. Pes then forwarded the e-mail to our Social Sec, with the addition of "F***ing t*ssers". Only of course instead of clicking "Forward" he clicked "Reply", so managed to send this two-word riposte back whence it had come. Ooooooooooppppppssss!!!

Anyway, eventually things calmed down. I ended up scoring 19, out chasing a wide one, and with contributions most of the way down for our weak side we ended up scoring 175.

In reply we were always somewhat ahead, having taken a few early wickets, but our desire to give everyone a game meant we were somewhat weak in attack and eventually they got home with 2 wickets to spare - I took a catch late on to take my tally to 3 (plus a stumping) for the season.

Incidentally, our 2s played their 2s in the league, and they were surprisingly strong, winning comfortably, while a few of their 2s were playing against us. Hmmmmm.

Genius story. Thai Curry invites goes bad......

 

[Jason H]

The great thing was the moment of realisation when the oppo fella twigged who our guy was. "NOW I KNOW WHO YOU ARE - WE'RE F***ING t*sserS, ARE WE???"

 

[Jason H]

Oh, and yesterday saw the funeral of one of our founder members and a great Old Isleworthian, Mike Gibson - someone who was still heavily involved in the Old Is Association right up until shortly before his death. RIP.

 

[Ian Sideman]

Oh, and yesterday saw the funeral of one of our founder members and a great Old Isleworthian, Mike Gibson - someone who was still heavily involved in the Old Is Association right up until shortly before his death. RIP.

Dodgy curry?

 

[Jason H]

If only...!

 

[Jason H]

I had to share this. A few years back, an area overlooking our ground was developed for housing. As was the norm during the construction boom of the mid-2000s, it was all about cramming as many houses in and sod any other considerations, which meant the houses were very close indeed to our boundary walls. Now, there is the thing to consider that if you buy a house overlooking a Cricket ground, there *might* be the danger that stray Cricket balls could find their way to your garden / roof tiles / etc.

A fact that is seemingly lost on one of our neighbours - an e-mail from our Secretary is reproduced below:

Dear All

Another 35 minute phone call from Mrs Lakhanpal last night.
She is not happy with the way we have repaired her roof tiles, even though the job is not yet finished!
Her fence was damaged by someone attempting to retrieve a cricket ball on Sunday.
I was at pains to point out to her that we are not legally bound to pay for any damage, but that we do it as a goodwill gesture to our neighbours.
I suggested that she approaches her insurance company, but she would incur increased costs if she claims.
She wants us to stop "throwing balls" into her garden (she seems to think that we target her house specifically!) and suggests that we move the pitch and play the other way, so that the balls won't reach!
I suggested that she moves house, pointing out that the pitch has been there for for 56 years!

She had to put the phone down because she was so upset.

Barry