SCORECARD

Fitmen Fell Lapworth
Fitmen 263-7, beat Lapworth 168-9, by 95 runs

FitBatting
Reported by A. Martin
The coldest May Day bank holiday since 1982 apparently - ([Ed] - trumping 2018 which was the Hottest May Day Bank Holiday weekend !!!). Coats, hats and snazzy personalised T-shirts courtesy of new club Kit man (and fielding advisor), Fraz, were the order of the day. When the toss was lost, the Fit XI, huddled round the clubhouse roaring open fire (fan heater) were expecting to be sent out to freeze their proverbials off for a couple of hours. Not so. The ever-genial oppo’ Lapworth skipper declared “We’ve got a strong bowling attack today, so we’ll field”.
So it was Hall and Jawad who were inserted to face the daunting task of dealing with Tim Fell, a legend of a bowler on the county circuit. The nemesis of many a Fitman. Gavlar however was not to be a victim of Fell today. He had other ideas. Facing a test from Faber coming down the hill, Gav flicked a hip high full toss straight to square leg 2nd ball. Interestingly – “The FABER test is performed to evaluate pathology of the hip joint or the sacroiliac joint”. You couldn’t make it up. Faber Test – Failed!

Bice and Jawad then put on 70 runs in the next 13 overs. Bice’s 43 off 42 contained 6 fours and was a mixture of cultured brutality. Deft touches followed by seal clubbing heaves. Jawad, a class act, supported well with a more gentile 15 off 38. Bice limping (calf), decided he couldn’t run anymore and got himself out, the first victim of the Long family. It’s quite difficult to hear bowlers names shouted from the field of play, but Q.Long bowled a very tight line, finding a nice length (as his name would suggest) and was rewarded with 3 Fit scalps.
Jawad missed a looping straight one and Harry Eames, gutted to be triggered last week for a debut duck, cracked a couple of quality fours before dragging on to Q.Long again. Suddenly 71-1 turned to 90-4 - surely last week’s collapse wasn’t on again? Different week, different skipper is the Fit Mantra and with drinks now taken, Tucker and Sharif were at the crease.

What followed was an epic 160 run partnership (which included an all-run 3....!!!). Sharif 37 off 51, supported SkipTuck on his way to his debut Fitman century. It took Tuck 31 balls to reach 18 runs, with some feisty bowling from Spence and S.Melia who both bowled very well. The introduction of V.Long from the golf course end, who just couldn’t quite get his length right, led to an absolute massacre with the ball pinging over the boundary ball after ball. Some distinctly average fielding (I counted 9 dropped catches in all) did assist this pair, but Tucker was in swashbuckling mood. A 49 ball 50 turned very quickly into a 69 ball 100 with 13 fours and 4 sixes. An absolute beast of an innings, finally out bowled for a memorable 109.
Spence and Melia continued to bowl well despite the onslaught and did finally get deserved wickets, but with a nice wag from the tail, a mammoth 263 for 7 was posted.
[Ed] Thanks to A. Martin for the above....

Tea - Unbelievable Jeff!!!
These aren't any old savouries...these are Marks & Spencer savouries....or so Gavlaaaa would have us believe.
After trying, and failing, to (personally) get out of doing "faffy" egg-mayo, Jonesy boy pulled out a dream mix of wholemeal and white, lashed with egg-mayo-extrordinaire, that "he" managed to somehow ruffle up whilst still kissing the zeds. Tea debutant Harry saladed up the excellent ham sarnies, whilst Stu Mould expertly moistened the cheese butties with a great choice of pickles.
Sunny decided to take it easy on the inaugural wings of the 2019 season, clearly only marinating them for circa 20 hours (text on Saturday from Sunny, to Skipper, timed at 16:12 to query "We still on for tomorrow"), which kept the Scoville scale in the low thousands 🌶....thank the Lord we don't have to field after tha....oh wait....
Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood were unavailable, so we turned to our trusted Famile Bice, who would surely smash any bake-off with an absolutely splendid suite of cakes....the juniors in the crowd were straight in and left suitably sated.
Absolute cracker of a tea and thanks to all for top efforts.......even (ahem) you Jonesy 🍌...

FitBowling
By failing to beat already (long-time) relegated Huddersfield, Plastic Manc Sunny was left looking for his Passport and sifting the TV Guides for Thursday night viewing (again...) - this spurred him on to send down some unplayable Guy-esque swingers in 7 tidy overs, before the bespectacled Number 10 slapped a few to the ropes in Sunny's all-or-nothing last over. Wicketless after his first 5, returning in the final throes of the game also didn't garner any wickets, but back-to-back economy awards beckon after 7-1-20-0... at least he contributes with the wings hey?
Opening partner Cuacasian Curtley C.Jones also nipped the ball around well, and was rewarded with 2 wickets from his 8, but took some tap into the shorter square-leg side as the visitors looked to up the rate. Jonesy bowling through for 8-0-38-2.

With Raj refusing to take the new ball, and requesting to be first change, it felt only right to allow him to patrol the whole of the Abyss like leg side alone, as Sunny's swing merited a 7/2 split field. Note that of the 2 leg-side fielders, one of them was Sharif...so in reality it was a 7/1 split 😜 ...Raj's self-inflicted tactics no doubt a plan to warm the glutes etc., before coming up the hill to bowl well for 2 for 31 from 6 - one beautifully deceived to make the batsman drag one on through the gate, one a nice catch courtesy of the reverse mincing Gavlaaaa.

Fraz and Sharif took turns in setting/arguing/changing their own (and others) fields, yet somehow, amongst all that, managed the middle of the innings delightfully, turning the screw with 4 wickets between them - Sharif, 6-3-17-1, pushing Sunny for the economy trophy already??
Fraz, now bedecked in finally-dry-whites, and adoring new spikeless spikes...took a nice return catch in his 6-0-21-3, his other 2 wickets being beauties that nipped through the gate to clean bowl the oppo' opener, and the hard hitting middle order skipper. When asked to change sides whilst fielding though (yes...by Sharif), an attempt to leap the track resulted in a perfect landing - from height - right on a length - presumably the same patch of track that last year was dry-soaked during CardboardGate....memories are made weekly with this one.
Stu Mould was among the wickets again, assisted by those that can catch, including Harry to remove the dangerous looking Spence who was starting to motor - Stu 6-2-20-1.
After Gavlaaaa watched and learned (from Jawad) how to field properly, he was requested to launch down the final over in an attempt to dislodge the obdurate Number 11, the legendary Tim Fell 🧙‍♂️…previously Fell could not be outLegended by the Fitmen equivalent (Sharif 🥊), and indeed, even after a Chris Gayle style change of bat (needed 100 off the last 4 balls – had to go for the Big Edge Willow…), still the Fitmen were unable to remove the hat-trick hero of 2012, the oppo’ ending the 40 overs on 168-9.
Thanks to the usual suspects for opening up/locking down; tea assistance; bar duties; cleaning post-match...you know who you are...
Time for a few beers to celebrate popping a Fitman Century Cherry, and the first W of 2019, before a trip to Erdington beckons on Wednesday to hunt down another W against Rick Bowels Village.