SCORECARD

Fitmen cruise to victory despite tense start
Where to start? The weather? The food? Or even the Cricket? No. lets start with the fun pre-match shenanigans…
Skipper rolled up slightly late 1:10 and was thinking about calling tails (south Brum, you know) only to be told that the toss was already done and we had called heads (clearly somebody failed to do due diligence in this area) and we were asked to bowl first.
N.B: Not good form to undertake a toss without the skipper but I was content to let this pass (this time). We were fielding first; and this is what I would have done on that pitch anyway.
The players walked out onto the field in relative sunshine, albeit there was a nice breeze all day which ensured long-sleeves were the prevalent attire. Everyone was raring to go against an oppo we are usually competitive against. When the Umpire gave us the “match” ball, that’s when all hell broke loose.
The thing about wannabee Alpha Males is that they often only end up making themselves look foolish with their pseudo - “machismo”. This was certainly the case with a certain member of the Oppo, and what’s even more galling is that it was the Oppo’s skipper. When we expressed our opinions as to the state of the match ball (let’s just say it was not quite new), their skipper took umbrage and met this with lobbing hand-grenades at us and blew everything out of proportion. Once the footballer-esque handbags were over, we were actually able to start the game (and were given a slightly newer ball in the end).
Waseem (8 ovrs 3 mdns 2-15) and Adrian ( 8 ovrs 2 mdns 1-18) opened the bowling and gave us a terrific start. The pitch was mis-behaving slightly with uneven bounce on occasions, but both bowlers were accurate and consistent and so their openers were kept very quiet. Each was rewarded with a wicket apiece early on: this included that of the afore-mentioned skipper. If he batted as feistily as he talked, they would have got over 400. In the end, he hold out tamely to Waseem without much troubling the scorers. Both players bowled out their overs in 1 stint and the scoring for the oppo at that stage was barely 3 an over.
Bal ( 8 ovrs 1-37) bowled first change and bowled well and their batsman found it difficult with the slower pace. Lockyer, and Mouldy unfortunately proved a bit more expensive but by this time one of their batters had got his eye in and was hitting out. At least Sam L got an attempt at perfecting his new 3 card trick (6, 6, W), which worked well btw! Chris and skipper were then left to complete the innings and avoid too much damage. In the end they scored 207 which was a reasonable score from where they were after 20 overs. However, with the knowledge that the pitch was drying out and a fast outfield with 1 short boundary, the Fitmen were pretty confident in being able to chase this score down.
With the continued inconvenience of no proper “teas”, there was some consolation in the way of the sponsored hot dog stall. I have it on good authority that the £7 is well spent. At least the bar was open (even with a pointless 1-way system), and it even had a gadget that did a mock Guinness draught! Apart from that, there isn’t much else to say so on to our batting.
Mo and Simon both started well and kept the score ticking along at a decent clip to ensure we didn’t get bogged down. Simon fell for 16 and Sam Moore strode out into the middle. After a circumspect start, Sam started to find his feet and played a couple of lovely shorts, but he too fell against the run of play.
After this it was the Mo and Tucker show. Both batted really well and made the most of early let offs in terms of dropped catches. Good bowling was interspersed with some buffet bowling and both batters gobbled these up with relish (no pun intended towards Uncle Mo who was fasting). Mo would end on 91* off 88 and Mark 61* off 49.
All in all it was a comfortable win for the Fitmen. Apart from the earlier incident there were not too many dramas and the rest of the oppo were a solid bunch of guys. Hopefully everyone got some sort of game and it was great to get our first win of the season on the board!

p.s.
A Police bulletin has gone out across the South Birmingham area after a man has been seen acting suspiciously with a device in his hands. Locals have described the device as being akin to some sort of detonator used in demolishing high rise buildings. He was last seen in the Lapworth area crouching down with said device wearing military attire..