SCORECARD

Pre Match warm up (Hereford beer Festival) report to follow……………but here’s the cricket

Once more unto the borders……………
Fitmen 227-6
Kington 231-8
Kington win by 2 wickets

The now regular trip to The Marches is never dull.................

It started with a remarkably early arrival by 9/11 of the team caught the hosts on the hop………..closely followed by die familie Bice.

A quick reccie resulting in no satisfactory WiFi lead to the swift departure of ¾ of Das Bice in the miniaturised Bice Bus bound for Stokesay Castle. Apart from the draw of the complimentary audio tour bringing the castle's long history to life, it is, quite simply, the finest and best preserved fortified medieval manor house in England.

The ancient tradition of calling ‘Tails in the Marches’ was turned on its head………..and the Fitmen were duly inserted.

One of the openers reported being inadvertently entered into a vintage car rally somewhere between Leominster and Kington resulting in Messrs Bice and Caesar jnr filling in. A good fill in they were as the opening stand swept past 50 with Tom threatening to middle one at some stage.

First to go was the imperious looking No 1 (31 @ 103) who decided a dodgy hamstring was the best excuse to turn down singles and opted to rattle the clubhouse roof tiles.

In strode the vintage carry rally enthusiast who paced his innings (0 @ 0 off 17) followed by Tour Leader (12 @ 37.5).

Partnership of the innings saw Raj (38 @ 86) and Tom (95 @ 88) seemingly take the game away from the hosts. Best umpiring moment from Nutt RRRR – lofted hoik to cow, enquiry to nearest fielder ‘6 or 4’? ‘Dunno, didn’t see it but probably 4’…………..’6 it is’!

The not uncommon running mix up (a feature of tours) saw Tom off to allow Sharif score 7 at a run a ball before The Tooth Fairy finished the innings in a flourish with 17 plundered off just 8 balls.

A fine total (perhaps a tour record?) of 227 meant a relaxed and high quality tea was enjoyed in a carnival frame of mind. Our grateful thanks to the excellent hosts at Kington.

Regulation stuff for the hosts innings……………..tight up front, reduce to a 30 over game and job’s a good ‘un. And in fact it got better than that with Kington quickly reduced to 30 odd for 4 as Ralphie (5-0-27-3) looped his grippers in and The Chairman (5-1-13-3) tore in at 80mph.

Herr Kapitan was visibly twitching at the thought of squeezing in a couple of overs but knew he had to democratically allow other ‘specialists’ a turn first…………

Geraint, downhill from the valleys end, kept the pressure on (6-0-24-1) as did Raj (3-1-16-0). A bit of Nutty Slack (9-0-79-1 between them) plus a bit of grunting from Sharif (5-0-34-0) gave the hosts a feint whiff of a chance but the tourists knew there were overs up the sleeves………….don’t panic Captain.

The crack of Nutts provided synchronised fielding on more than one occasion and along with a pretty tidy performance all round kept the hosts honest. The threat-ette from the Kington middle order was duly snuffed out by Ralphie and with the last wicket pair at the crease and the sound of bunnies whimpering in the surrounding woods on came the leader.

It all went to plan as glory beckoned……there were a few twitches as FitBlokes struggled with mental arithmetic ….but not to worry …..those overs from the opening pair were still safely up the sleeve.

They’re not really going to get 50 odd from the last 5 overs with just the one wicket in hand. Twitch twitch……

All looked under control and a relaxed skipper even had the luxury of Rob ‘Yips’ Green at the bottom end as he skipped in from the top……….commandingly restricting the batters to 13 runs off his first 5 overs. It was effectively a net for the final T/20 on Thursday.

A large bubble appeared over the skipper’s head as we all read “Tell you what…...it’s all going so swimmingly well I’ll keep myself on for the last one…………they ain’t going to cart me for 17 in 5 balls …..I’m only giving away 2 or 3 in a whole over.………”

Well, he was kind of right…………….two no ball boundaries meant there were still six left and just 7 required. Eeekkkkkkkkkkkkk
Hey ho – ultimate tourists………………they’ll welcome us back next year.

A quiet changing room for a few minutes but then everyone manned up and Tom duly won the ballot for the Tourist Trophy (Si came second with one nomination).