SCORECARD

FITMEN beat the Young Men
As last week’s fixture was cancelled due to the World Cup final, it was with an added bonus that this week’s fixture was held against Romsley and Huntington CC on a bright and pleasant Sunday afternoon with an excellent bar to boot. The only thing to dampen the sunny skies was the knowledge that the oppo had chased 240+ on the corresponding fixture last year. The mood was not improved when we saw energetic youngsters practising on the outfield whilst the Fitmen warmed up by walking to the bar and getting early lubrication in!
With echoes of “win the toss and bat” ringing in his ears, Skipper Raj went to toss up and duly called tails and lost the toss (wrong side of Brum!)…. However it was with some mild surprise that the youthful Oppo skipper, perhaps thinking about last year’s , decided to put us in.
It was fairly clear a short while later why this was: there was not much bounce in the pitch.
Uncle Mo (35 off 43) and newbie Javid opened the batting (having held a bat before was good enough for the skipper to put him into the deep end) and, shortly after, Javid was the first to get out; top edging a full toss to square leg. This brought in Tom Caesar (33 off 40) and he combined with Mo to steady the ship. What was noticeable at this point was that anything full was getting the treatment but otherwise one had to be mindful of the lack of bounce for anything straight.
The score started to tick over nicely even after Uncle Mo was out as this brought in Tuckerrrr (66 off 77). It was an unfortunate dismissal for Tom as there had been an intense battle with the bowler in terms of how many bounces the ball would take to reach the batsmen, even despite the dodgy umpiring signals of our inebriated Samosa Man (I think we counted 9 having been eaten by the end of the day). As it was, Tom met the ball on its 2nd bounce and timed it so well that it lobbed tamely to mid off.
After Jim departed cheaply (6 off 14) a partnership was required and was duly provided by Adrian (59 off 43). Together with Tucks, they feasted on some wayward oppo bowling and brought the total past 200. Once these 2 were out, a late cameo by Bice (16 off 8) (including a last ball 6), brought the total to a respectable 254.
After a fine tea, the Fitmen went into the second half with a degree of optimism sure that the treatment at the hands of the oppo batsmen would not be as severe as last year.
Raj and Faraz opened the bowling. Despite the occasional good ball, the batsmen were prepared to throw their hands at anything full and dealt with any width ruthlessly: the score ticked along at a pretty fair clip. Fortunately the runs were stemmed after Raj managed to get a breakthrough and the wiles of Sharif proved to be a key factor in the tide turning.
Knowing that there was limited amount on offer for the quicker bowlers, Sharif varied his pace and lengths really well, eventually accounting for the dangerous opener who was cleaned bowled and rather showed he preferred pace on the ball. Figures of 8-1-27-1 were reflective of some excellent work.
All the bowlers contributed in some way to the stagnation of the oppo’s scoring rate but they really didn’t help themselves with 3 (suicidal) run outs. With Stuart bowling in tandem with Bicey and Faraz at the end of the innings, the win was never in doubt and the Fitmen won by a comfortable 57 runs