SCORECARD

Frankie Goes To Ashfield!

Old Moseley Arms 128-8 , The Village 130-1

Old Moseley Arms lose by 9 wickets

On a bright and breezy evening at The Graveyard, round three of the Fitmen vs Village series took place with the score standing at 1 victory each. Admiral Lord Frost won the toss for a change and it was decided to bat, with Sharif promoted to open the innings with the Bicemaster and Simon Howarth (or Howard?) offering to give others a chance moving to number 7 in the order. Numbers 6 and 7 in the batting order equated to Numbers 4 and 5 however, due to a dismal start as prophesised in the comedic “Up Pompeii”...

Cassandra: Fitmen’s batsmen will befall the fate of the sinful men of Gomorrah!
Lurcio: Will they, indeed?
Cassandra: And Sodom
Lurcio: Ooh, I agree, the lot of them!

First to depart second ball was Sharif, then Tucker who had the unfortunate experience to face a leg spinner who could a) spin the ball, b) pitch the ball and c) bowl a googly. Fresh from his destructive innings in the Sunday fixture against the same opposition Ade was expected to be equally productive with the bat, but struggled to hit or time the ball for once and departed for 7.

In came Frost and assisted Bice, who was by now striking the ball cleanly, in advancing the scoring rate rapidly. Quite how he only faced “7” balls for 7 runs before being caught at long stop of all places, is a mystery of accounting second only to that of the disappearance of the Mirror Group pension fund in the 1980s.

Green, Howarth and Ralphie all suffered the fate of Cassandra’s prophecy in failing to trouble the scorers too much, before Tom Houlgate and Ash saw the innings to a completion on 128. Only Bice made double figures with an excellent 51 the next highest score being 7. Fortunately, extras once again came to the assistance with 46.

The Village / Ashfield reply began slowly, with Ash and Ralphie bowling with good pace and movement through the air and off the pitch, giving both openers a great deal of difficulty in making scoring shots. However, they both stuck to their task and once the difficult opening overs were completed were particularly severe on the Chairman and Chris Jones.

Enter stage left Simon Howarth, recorded as F.Howard in the scorebook. Titter ye not though, for it was to lead to the downfall of the opener courtesy of a catch by Ralphie in the cow-corner region of the field, after cunningly enticing him with a long hop to be dispatched over square leg earlier in the over. So having lost the Turgio appendage some while a go, perhaps it is now Lurcio? Ye may titter, titter ye may!

The rest of the innings was unfortunately a procession, Rameez dispatching Ralphie’s fastest to all parts to leave only 2 for victory from Chris Jones’ next over. A four off the first ball sealed victory in the match and series, and the prophecy had been fulfilled.

The bowling figures did not make for pretty reading, save for Ash, who could count himself very unlucky not to have a number of wickets following his fine spell early on.