Migrant Labour

Thanks to the free migration of European labour, Señor Iggy joined the Saturday team at Farmborough for their duel with Bath Exiles, one of whom had presumably been exiled a bit too far away, leaving them a man short.

RT1 won the toss and opted to bowl in muggy conditions under an overcast sky, with a full armoury of bowlers up his sleeve. While he took the new ball down the hill and bowled a customary tidy spell, Max (no headroom) wheeled and sprang from the bottom end and explored the batsmen's corridor, finding swing and bounce and passing the bat or finding edges on numerous occasions, one of which Pete was unlucky not to cling on to at slip. Both runs and a breakthrough were hard to come by as the score ever so slowly crept along. Talking of which, at one point, Exile opener Ozzie Brian removed hs gloves and appeared to dig in the crease behind him and remove a worm, or perhaps a witchetty grub to augment his tea later, placing it several feet behind him. As he resumed his stance, Westy remarked that it was on its way back.

Iggy replaced Max, with his new 2-step run up, conceding a few runs at first until he received a knock on the head and improved considerably, taking a sharp return catch to remove one opener and then conspiring with Ollie, keen as mustard with horseradish and chilli sauce, to have the other one stumped. It was about the twelfth appeal for a stumping that Ollie had uttered, at least a couple of which should have been referred upstairs, if such a thing had existed.

Meanwhile, once he'd wrenched the ball from Michael's hands, your correspondent had started a spell down the hill and seemed to be getting away with it, though it was Iggy who claimed the scalps of the two new batsmen with successive balls, bowling one with a peach and trapping the other plumb lbw first ball with a pomegranate. With all that fruit around, a crumble was on the cards : Exiles plummeted from 60-0 to 67-4 which soon became 72-7 after Max took a smart catch above his head at mid-off, Raj swooped to pouch one in the covers and a 79 year old batsman played his stumps instead of the ball. Iggy finished with 4-20, the other one 3-11.

With both bowlers completing full spells, Michael was by now salivating to be given the chance to bowl and not best pleased that Ollie put a snick to ground in his first over, having caught and stopped pretty much everything else all day. Raj came on from the other end and wrapped it all up in five balls, thanks to an astonishing catch by Happy in the covers, where he leaped to his left and somehow curled an outstretched paw around the ball to make it stick. Like his T-shirt said, 'Top Boy' and naturally the Cider Moment. Two balls later Raj bowled the last man and Exiles had lost 9 wickets for 20 runs to be all out for 80.

Thanks to Ollie and cooperative scurrying about, we had tea. There was enough to feed the spectators, comprising two men and a dog.

Raj and Iggy opened the batting as Cliff the visiting scorer, still eating tea from a china plate that he'd brought with him, confessed that their bowling wasn't up to much either. Two boundaries from the first over suggested that he could be right. Westy insisted on conducting another Torygraph quiz and for a while everyone lost a portion of their brains to trivia and shouted out random words

The batting was exemplary, both openers determined to play balls on merit, work the ball around for singles and blast boundaries from the loose stuff. Iggy thundered a ball into the chest of the aforementioned soon-to-be octogenarian, fielding at square leg, which would have startled anyone's ticker, but the old boy looked unruffled and had saved a certain boundary. There may have been a drop and a half chance or two, but it was mostly straight bats, high elbows and wrists and a pleasure to watch. It was a bit of a shame when the total was surpassed in the 15th over with Raj undefeated for a stylish 35 and Iggy on a dangerously-close-to-a-double-jug avoiding 43 as the Cowboys won by 10 wickets. The Malaga migrant unanimously won the Man of the Match vote, while 'Top Boy' Happy's catch will be hard to beat all summer.

Scorecard

Captain Fantastic! (?)

                                                Ev writes :

With Iggy away on Ange’s stag Captain Taylor took the reins for this one against our old friends Exiles. It seems Exiles are yet another team struggling to put sides out this season and for this game they had borrowed young uns from Lansdown and Stothert and Pitt CCs to make up their numbers.

The Wuns too had a bit of a reshuffle, with no Angelo, Ian or Dave T in came Steveo and Grover, and Rich O making a Wuns debut.

Despite the previous nights rain the pitch looked ok, slightly damp and rather green. On winning the toss the Landlord put Exiles in to bat. On the way out to the middle Kalu took one of the opposition youngsters, who had been assigned umpiring duties, aside for a bit of a chat. Kalu explained to the somewhat bemused lad that should he appeal for LBW it would be a mistake not to give it out, as he only appeals for deliveries that are going straight on to hit the stumps.

RT1 and Nick opened the attack and it was soon clear that their was a bit of pace in this wicket, the ball coming through quick and with decent bounce. Aussie Brian, the Exiles opener played a couple of nice square cuts early on and with a quick outfield found the boundary. At the other end a young un was finding Nicks pace difficult. It wasn’t long before Nick had him bowled, playing back to one he should’ve gone forward to.

A big appeal from Ollie and Rob had the young umpire raising the finger soon afterward, though as Brian trudged off we all agreed the noise we heard was probably ball on thighpad. Soon afterwards Rob had their number 3, who had played a few shots, plum LBW on the back leg.

Tim and Kalu took over from the openers and bowled fine economical spells, dominating the batsmen and both claiming 2 wickets apiece. Tims included a sharp catch from Ollie standing up despite the pacy wicket. And Kalu had a batsmen out Hit Wicket, had he not smashed his stumps over he could have been given out caught behind as Ollie claimed he’d also hit the ball, which ended up in Ollies gloves.

With Tim and Kalu dominating so completely nothing much was happening in the field so Nick kept himself and his teammates amused by chirping truly terrible pun laden advice to Kalu at the beginning of each over. I can’t repeat it here, but take it from me, it was bad.

At 76 for 7 Exiles seemed to be crumbling but a stubborn 8th wicket stand pushed them over the 100 mark, with the Exiles skipper playing some big shots, but when Kalu, fielding at shortish fine leg spotted him dawdling outside his crease he threw down the stumps, running him out and winning Cider Moment in the process.

Samad and Nick polished off the tail and Exiles had made 116 all out midway through the 40th over.

Tea was baguette styley owing to the dodgy looking weather but with the inclusion of tortilla, as is Evans wont. This drew praise from Grover, who seemed impressed by the addition of cumin to the recipe, though he still insisted it was “indian eggy veg which has no place in an english cricket tea”.

Evan and Ahad began the chase. Perhaps because of the low target Exiles opened with two slow bowlers. They bowled well enough but with the pitch playing well it was easy for the batsman to get in. There were enough bad balls to hit, and following a bowling change, from one particularly nervous lad lots of wides, meaning no risks were necessary and despite some much better quick bowling towards the end Cowboys knocked off the runs inside 22 overs without losing a wicket. Ahad is yet to be dismissed for the Wuns.

Tim won man of the match for his figures of 8-6-8-2 and SteveO provided us with a fruity little number before we went back to HQ and met up with the victorious Toos for more beer and shouting at the telly.

Scorecard