Super Cricket Match report 2 .

To the Inner Sanctum,

Firstly, I must offer my sincere apologies for the delay in posting this match report but the last couple of weeks have been very challenging for me and I have had a lot on my plate. After a somewhat unfortunate “incident” in the above match I have had my whole life turned upside down, I have been on the receiving end of much verbal abuse from friends, team-mates and complete strangers, a barrage of hate mail and have even been relentlessly pursued by the media who have camped outside my front door 24/7.

I have been able to cope with all of this but the most devastating thing I have had to live with was the fact that I have been offered an unconditional open clearance from my beloved Patties to any other cricket club in Australia with a $5,000 donation thrown in as an extra inducement to take me !! I even had to flee interstate for a few days to try and get some respite, but even over in W.A. the word of the “incident” had spread and I was shunned by all and told I would not be welcome at any cricket club and my picture has been widely circulated throughout the media warning people to steer clear of me!!

Much has been said and written about the “incident” and I feel that to date only one side of the story has been put and I think that the time has come to set the record straight and give the other side of the story which should hopefully give a more accurate description of what and why it happened.

For those of you that are unaware, the “incident” involved the unfortunate run-out of the St Patrick’s cricket club’s only living legend, club superstar, club royalty, club walker on water, club six hitting record holder (sixes off your own bowling don’t qualify you for recognition in this category Nicho!!), club god, club run machine, club undefeated beer drinking champion, the immortal (even though somewhat slow between the wickets) Peter “Douglas Bader” Duck.

Whilst to the massive crowd of 3 plus my team-mates sitting on the outer it may have appeared as though he had been run out in cold blood – Actually one wag said he had been “walked out” as he never at any stage broke into a trot (artificial knee absolutely no excuse when competing at such an elite level as this!!) and he still only missed out by 3 metres!! However, there was a much more complicated and intriguing sub-plot going on out in the middle.

As I wandered out to the middle to replace Nicho, who had once again just cruelly been robbed of another century by the narrow margin of 94 runs due to a recurring wrong shot selection decision, I was met by Ducky who was at this stage was about 25 not out, and to be brutally honest, he looked an absolute mess. He was gasping for air, sweating profusely, eyes rolling around in his head, frothing at the mouth and his skin colour was the same colour red as that of our embarrassed Bernie O’Donnell whenever he is reminded of the two catches he took off Nicho’s bowling on that fateful day last year!!

His speech was even more incoherent than what it usually is after 11pm on a Saturday night and it would be fair to say that I and the fielding team held grave fears for his welfare. As we know the opposition in their team had a doctor and 2 lawyers and they put it very bluntly to me that they desperately wanted to complete the game and should Ducky collapse in mid pitch that it would ruin their game of cricket completely, and an ambulance would leave tyre marks on the pitch which would hinder their run chase, that the amount of paperwork involved and autopsies and legal proceedings etc, could go on for years, and because I would have been the one batting with him at the time of his impending collapse, then I would most likely be held responsible!!

But most importantly to them was the fact that the game would have to be held up for some time until the ambulance arrived and that would reduce both theirs and our after match celebration time!!

When put into a corner like this there was only one reply I could possibly give them – “Leave it with me” - and the rest is history.

So I guess the big question to be answered is why a person should receive so much bad publicity when his truly heroic and selfless actions have actually saved the life of our club legend?!?!

To the game – The team was Gobba, (captain & president) Chuck, Nicho, Geoff Ambrosi, The Kotzurnator ™ , Drummo, Henno, Bernie WMD O’Donnell, Hilly, Ducky, Frank Oaser. Absent – Youngy – Revered Premiership Captain – 3 broken vertebrae (no excuse as still has 15 perfectly good ones) – Soft Starry – Speaking commitment at the East Rand over 85 women’s’ bingo club. Jack – Recovering from surgery – acceptable excuse Greg Lawrence – Home washing and trying to get the grass stains out of his brand new cricket long trousers.

A few of the boys were a bit the worse for wear after the club’s mystery bus tour the previous evening, particularly Henno, who continues his ongoing masochistic behaviour by trying to drink with and keep up with Youngy all night!!

In a surprise twist Dallas was also early which clearly unsettled everyone because we all thought we must have been late!! We won the toss and batted first and most got among the runs and we managed to get to a very healthy 180 off our 40 overs with Ducky, Gerard, Dallas and Frank looking good.

It was particularly pleasing to see Frank back to play instead of accepting the overseas playing offer . He said the assurance from Gerard that he could look forward to the prospect of seeing Henno and Bernie bowling a lot more overs, along with the other usual suspects, was enough to convince him that there will always be plenty of bricklaying repair work to the houses in the vicinity of the grounds to make a comfortable living!

The only real dramas with the batting were of course the “”incident” and also the tension created with Henno fortunately surviving two raucous appeals for caught behind when there was a very loud woody sound as he played a couple of attempted lusty drives – but once again it was his neck cracking. One day Henno reckons he is going to get within 5 inches of the ball with one of his trademark cover drives disguised as a cross bat slog over mid-wicket, and he fears the neck clicking could bring about his demise.

As usual the fielding provided its fair share of entertainment but we were able to bowl the opposition out for 90 to record a comfortable win. Chuck and Hilly bowled very well at the start and ripped the heart out of their top order. Dallas is back on song and had a good day out – scoring runs, taking wickets, catches and even a run-out, but clearly the real standout feat was obviously arriving before the start of play!! - The Kotzurnator ™ is back!!!

There was a very regrettable and shameful moment when Gerard was bowling and that was when he was called for over-stepping the front crease when bowling!!!! This sort of action is totally out of place at this elite level and one would expect more from our club leader, and we hope that this never happens again otherwise severe sanctions may have to be imposed on him. (The rest of us are usually finished our follow through before we get to the front crease!!!- mainly for self protection as it gives us more time to see and evade the ball coming back at us at about 28 times the velocity with which it was bowled!!)

There was one very scary moment of great uncertainty whilst Nicho was bowling when he hit a guy on the pads and turned to the umpire, dropped down on one knee (always a move fraught with danger to all of us with such wobbly knees) pointed his finger at the umpire and let a very long full volume blood curdling scream. To be totally honest, we all thought it was the epitome of the perfect appeal (page 3 of the textbook) and we were all suitably impressed with his technique, commitment, and the no doubt countless hours he must have spent at home practicing in front of the mirror to ensure such rare perfection. The fact that the ball actually pitched 9 inches outside the off stump and” carried on with the arm” (a trademark Nicho delivery) did not deter him in the slightest from giving it all he had!!. Then to the absolute NO surprise to everyone at the venue except Nicho, the umpire quite rightly turned him down, and at that moment everyone held their breath as we all had a flashback as we cast our mind back to last season when he had a similar appeal turned down and the resultant reaction from Nicho caused the ICC to re-define the term dissent and use his reaction then as a practical reference for dissent that has been adopted throughout the entire cricketing world.

We all held our breath as we waited to see his reaction – and to our collective relief we could finally see that his ongoing anger management classes (which George Nevinson happily sponsors for him ) are finally starting to bear some rewards – he simply got up, turned away from the umpire, took a deep breath, and gave us all a spray (good natured – or at least we think it was) about lack of support and the fact he was tired of carrying us all!!

At that point, Dallas called for an unscheduled beer drinks break to celebrate Nicho’s arrival back from a very dark place.

Ducky also managed to create a new fielding position throughout the day but he only seems to implement it when a certain bowler (a term used very loosely) who was involved in “the incident” came on to bowl. In the space of a moment he shifted his role from that of “Boundary Rider” to that of “Boundary Chaperone” whereby he actively ensured that the ball would safely get over the boundary whenever he could! (A mental note to the rest of the team should you ever be unfortunate enough to run him out. When you apologize and he smiles and says it’s o.k. – It’s f**king well not o.k.!!!!, and then when he says it doesn’t matter – It f**king well does!!!!)

The other two highlights were the tandem bowling of Henno and Bernie at the end of the innings in what was a truly exhilarating and spectacular spell – It was very reminiscent of the days when Lillee and Thommo were in full flight – i.e. two arms, 2 legs and cricket whites!!

Henno tried to outdo Bernie with pace and aggression and on one delivery he somehow managed to defy all of the laws of physics and drop one so short that it actually landed between his own legs and still got to the batsman on the first bounce!!!

Bernie was much more calculating and methodical as he clinically set about removing the hapless No 11 with a withering over of well thought out pace bowling.

The first ball was a savage off-cutter beautifully disguised as a long hop. The second ball was a vicious leg-cutter beautifully disguised as a waist high full toss. The third was an in swinging yorker beautifully disguised as a shorter long hop than the first ball. The fourth was a huge outswinger beautifully disguised a long hop pitching 8 feet outside off stump. The fifth was a ferocious lifting delivery beautifully disguised as a knee high full toss. At this point Bernie was just toying with his opponent and decided to really up the Ante, and let fly with a searing bouncer disguised as a slow straight good length ball which completely deceived the batsman who spooned back the easiest of return catches to the fire breathing Bernie, whose reputation as a destructive bowler just continues to grow and it only re-enforces the credibility of his appropriate nick-name of WMD!!

The defence of our crown is underway.

In closing I would like to borrow a very famous quote that was allegedly uttered by the immortal Phil Star, who legend has it was twelve years old at the time, and was quietly having a bath after a hard day at cricket. When the effects of the 5 onion sandwiches he had had for lunch kicked in, this obviously created enormous turbulence in the water resulting in half of the bath water and his beloved rubber duck ending up on the floor. Being the gentle softie with the heart of gold that we know he has, he quietly picked the duck up off the floor, placed it back in the bath and said – “Sorry Ducky”

Ripley.

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