SCORECARD

Two jugs butter no parsnips.

Sammy Moore was dead, to begin with….

The opening line of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ is the most fitting way to describe Sam Moore’s appearance at Sunday’s epic encounter against Aston Unity and I may need to borrow more from the works for descriptive purposes later.

The day started in typical fashion with me, ‘Skipper Mould’, arriving over an hour early, deciding to fuel up at the nearby McDonalds, an idea gleaned from Gavlar’s life coaching manual (One must flick through the right-wing rants, flattering photos of Boris Johnson and chapters with titles like ‘Why we used to be able to leave our door’s unlocked’). Survive all of that and you will encounter his match preparedness drills, often involving fast food and bad beer. Prep complete, I awaited the arrival of our warriors, optimistic that they’d all manage the asking time of 12:30 (none but Waseem and Raja did). Jonesy was also absent due I’m sure in no small part to Ian Nutt not having allowed him out of his pocket this week to play. I did however receive a message from our protagonist, Sam, at 12:25 stating “I’m gonna be there about 10 to mate”. We all know what that means….

Sam Moore did indeed arrive at about 12:50 withdrawn, ghost like and, though he wasn’t bound with ‘chains clasped about his middle’ he may as well have been as he stumbled weightily towards the dressing room. When asked “On a scale of 1 – 10 how bad is your hangover today?” the response came “14”. Now, we’ve all had bad hangovers, but I don’t think any of us have reached the dizzying heights that Mr Moore is able to achieve. A level 6 hangover or ‘Two-Dayer’ as it is known within the science community, is about as high as it gets for many of us. A level 8 hangover for example is considered un-survivable in many parts of the world. A level 9 hangover is thought to destroy the victim almost completely, weaving their atoms through the very fabric of time and space until they become like Matthew McConaughey in ‘Interstellar’ pushing books off a bookshelf from behind some other dimension (Spoiler alert). The way Sam looked at the world around him in those opening minutes was that of disbelief, hoping that the entire scene of an impending cricket game was a hallucination, just ‘an undigested bit of beef’ or ‘Crumb of cheese’. Alas, cricket had to happen, and the weather was set fair, albeit framed with threatening clouds throughout.

At the toss I called heads (north of Birmingham?) but the coin fell Queen side down (Sorry Liz) and Fitmen were sent into the field. A decision was made to open with resident magician, Nokia hoping to bamboozle the skilful opening pair into early submission, and from the other end, Waseem with his usual liney-lengthy-pacey prowess. Unfortunately, both batsmen were skilled in the arts of Saturday ‘wandery’ and failed to fall victim to the traps set. However, many of the early runs, and certainly boundaries, came from thick edges and mishits. Luck just wasn’t on our side. Eventually Bilal struck gold, the batsman feathering one into the flawless hands of Bicey (more on him later). Bilal also struck again later with an LBW, superb bowling throughout the spell, deserving of more, probably. We were also grateful for the opposition batsman, Brookes for retiring on 100 instead of staying in and thoroughly ‘Rikki Clarke-ing’ the turd out of us. Timmsy and Sharif partnered up next bowling really well against very skilled opposition, Sharif empty handed but Timmsy managing to catch one off his own bowling and generally keeping it tight despite the batsmen really going at us. Raja’s bowling was the discovery of the week. Leg spin at approximately 150mph was terrifying to behold, but unfortunately, he was just too good to get wickets on a Sunday with batsmen barely able to get anything onto the bat at all. All round it was a great bowling display, and the figures don’t really do justice to the bowlers who all did amazingly well against dangerous opponents. Toward the end of the innings is where a further 6 wickets would fall. Nokia steaming in from one end, and myself, Mouldy from the other. Nokia claiming two wickets from his second spell of three overs, the magic was back. The fielding also, it must be said, was top-class with particular mentions going to Stevie Nicks as usual, and Simon Howarth who both performed excellently. But really everyone was great and committed which is good to see. Bicey was unbelievable with the gloves, probably the best Fit-display of keeping that I’ve witnessed. He took 5 dismissals earning one of two Fit-jugs for the day and all with an injured leg obtained ‘extreme dog-walking’ in some woods.

It’s often said a captain should lead from the front….So I thought I’d give it a bash, strategically bringing myself on when I knew the batsmen were going to go hard at the ball for the inning close. It started a little wayward as is proper from a Mouldy spell but tidied up quickly taking one wicket in the second of three overs, an edge taken well by Bicey behind. But, at the death the reaper did reap. The first victim succumbed to a clever low full toss on the leg side whipped hard towards the ever-hungry hands of Sam Moore. The second chipped a fullish ball skywards and was caught comfortably by the bowler. That left me on a hat-trick ball. The oppo did not want to send another batsman out for the last ball of an innings but I wasn’t going anywhere and demanded satisfaction. Batter located and in place, I stood at the top of my mark, wondering what type of dogshit delivery (customary for jug avoidance policy) that I would send down. In the end it was a decent ball, on a length, outside off stump. The batsman marched down the wicket hoping for glory….and missed the ball entirely which was swept up by Bicey’s bucket hands which then charged the ball into the stumps for a skipper hat-trick! And, for record keeping purposes, beers were purchased for our team and the oppo contrary to standard jug dodging fit-practices.
The batting began with Raja and Howarth taking to the crease to respond to the 247 set by unity. The opening pair started well against decent bowling, but the aggressive nature of Raja’s batting would eventually be his downfall sending one high into the field where a man waited and gratefully dismissed our man.

And so, our protagonist, Sam Moore with a blood alcohol level hovering somewhere between Princess Diana’s driver and Rab C Nesbitt, wandered out to bat and during his brilliant, seemingly effortless time at the crease he would be visited by three ‘spirits’. Firstly, the spirit of Fit-past, Howarth who was still grafting away and whilst only achieving 13 runs on paper, did a mighty job against testing bowling / fielding, eventually falling to a mighty direct hit run-out from outside of the ring. Then, the spirit of Fit-present, Bicey, after an awesome display with the gloves began going at the ball with serious intent scoring 35 runs before being triggered by Skipper Mould (Sorry). Finally, the third Fit-spirit to visit our hero was Stevie Nicks who looked great on 17 when he was himself caught out playing for the win. Sam however was the standard bearer for our innings reaching 65 runs including seven boundaries, a couple of which never touched grass until well over the rope. Cheap innings from the remaining batsmen owed to the fact that everyone was ‘batting for the team’ and trying to get the win rather than just farming averages. The usual cameo from Bilal got us close to achieving it, but in the end, we were just thirteen short in what was a completely enjoyable game of cricket.

And so, as Tiny Timms observed, God bless us, every one!