Far From The MCC

~ Est. in 1998 ~

“Mad Easily Beat OU Offices

Except For Eight Over Spell

In Second Innings”

Sunday 30^th May 2004
Result: Lost by 2 Wkts
Venue: Cutteslowe Park
35 overs
FFTMCCC	152 ao
I. Howarth 38, S. Dobner 34
Oxford University Offices	153 - 8
A. Mann 4 - 28, J. Hoskins 2 - 18

Playing University Offices at Cuttleslowe Park today, Far From The Madding Crowd CC extended their run of Sunday wins to eight consecutive games apart from a short stretch in the second innings which actually saw them lose to their new opponents by two wickets. Said team captain J. Hoskins after the game, ‘All credit to the lads, it was a fantastic win apart from the fact that ultimately we lost. Everyone looked sharp and focused, we were all up for it except for ten of the eleven players, who seemed to go to sleep en masse at about 5.00 pm and only wake up an hour later. The eleventh player wasn’t there, so we don’t know whether he was asleep or not. But credit must go to us for the way that we wrapped up the match in plenty of time, although in the final analysis we came up just short.’

Just another day in the park.

With hair almost long enough now to pass as a 60s and not 70s pop star, J. Hotson turned up to the game not so much late or early as exactly on time, yet again fuelling current theories that he is some species of Time Lord whose grasp of the temporal realities is so complete he can contrive to be exactly where he wants to be when he wants to be. Either that or he has an accurate watch. In his now traditional role opening the batting with I. Howarth, the pair put on a respectable 34 to which Howarth and extras were the main contributors before Hotson realised he had an appointment with the stackable chairs beyond the boundary rope and departed clean bowled for 3. M. Westmoreland (4) was the next to bid adieu, caught plum in front of first slip half way down the pitch by a full toss which clipped him on the shoulder before pitching in the rough. ‘Oh my frocking Jesus Christ Lord and blucking Saviour he’s danged well gone and flunting given it!’ came the cry from the bleachers as the umpire’s hooked finger was raised and Westmoreland for the second time in two games had cause to rue the unregulated use of hooked fingers at this level at the very least.

I. Howarth was the next to fall, to the very large hands attached to the fielder at gully, his 38 being not as many as he scored last week or the week before but as more often than not, more than anyone else in the side thank god for that and thanks in general buddy. H. Jones (3) had the poor luck to smash his own stumps down possibly imagining for a moment that he was bowling, at which juncture S. Dobner was joined at the wicket by J. Hoskins, the pair of whom set about the Offices attack with a superb and untrammeled lustiness which took the score to 137 before Hoskins (18) lost his middle peg. S. Dobner (34) was next to go, having carefully constructed his highest score for the Mad and guided them into a defendable position, after which G. Bridges (5), S. Hebbes (0) and D. Jones (0) fell in consecutive balls to Ali Abbas (4-19) which made him look pretty good and gave him what is otherwise known as a hat trick. And which left A. Mann (2) not out and watching from the other end with what might have been amusement had it been at all fenking funny.

A. Mann is captured during his epic knock of 2 not out.

During what began as a calm and amiable tea interval, several of the Mad team exclaimed that they had felt a sudden disturbance in the force, and one or two others saw a large and menacing spectral shape ease its incorporeal shadow across the pitch and squat there hunched and brooding for several minutes before moving on down to the miniature railway, plucking a small child from the carriages and casting it shrieking into the Limitless & Eternal Void. With such indecipherable portents hanging over them, the Mad team took the field uneasy and watchful, yet it was not long before they had been lulled into a false sense of security.

Bowling with a new cherry and the wind to port, A. Mann took a wicket with his sixth ball, another with his eighth, a third with his tenth and then a fourth with his twelfth, conceding a mere single and leaving the Offices reeling on 3 for 4. Sadly, his fourteenth, sixteenth and eighteenth were all clattered to the boundary with what looked disturbing ease by the new Offices pair, who proceeded to treat everything with disdain but especially the bowling. At about the same time, Legolas fielding at the Pass of Caradhras was heard to exclaim, ‘There is a fell voice on the wind!’ and it soon became clear that nothing but deviltry could explain the strange malaise of drowsiness which overtook the entire Mad outfield, except for Legolas who being an elf and dwelling in any case in a kind of twilight world had no need of sleep in the way that menfolk do. By the time the Mad awoke, A. Mann (4-28) and D. Jones (0-35) had been thrashed off their length and out of the attack, a catch or two had been dropped, and the Mad advantage had gone. S. Hebbes (1-25) brought the home team back into it with a fine delivery dismissing the Offices skipper Darley for a brutal 19, and indeed the Mad were still in there until the end with first H. Jones (1-17) striking and then J. Hoskins (2-18) finding himself only a wicket short of his own hat trick and leaving the Offices looking shaky on 123-8. Ultimately, however, Abbas added an unbeaten 108 to his bowling heroics to see the Offices home as an unfortunate I. Howarth (0-27) was brought on to be neatly plundered hither and thither. And the Mad could rue the chances missed.

Kudos, however, to J. Hotson for an instructive piece of self-fielding, and to S. Dobner for a near faultless display standing in for the injured M. Bullock behind the stumps.

Oh, and cheer up lads.

‘Blocker’

*

Statto's Scorecard

MOTM: S. Dobner’s 34 and fine stint as keeper

Champagne Moment: A. Mann (3-1 in 2^nd over)

Buffet Award: D. Jones’ tasty corn on the cob

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