New season and same old story!

Sads batted first on the basis Pelicans had more players ready to go and we started brightly with Mr Noble tucking in to the early season offering of Pelican pies. Mr Nairne was looking solid but then lost his wicket to in his own words something he should have played forward to (he should have spanked it for a boundary)!
Nr Noble then got out for 27 just a few balls short of retiring but was well caught trying to push the score along. At this point the run rate did slow as Jones, Tucker, Roffers and Paggers took turns at the crease with only one boundary between them. Longy provided a few boundaries before being well bowled while trying to slog the ball to cow corner. Chennells, last years man of the match hat trick hero against Pelicans, marched to the crease intent on causing carnage but unfortunately didn’t last long. Paggers was asked to retire to give Mr Diprose, Temras and WG a chance to add some runs but found himself returning to the fray with wickets tumbling. Paggers swagger on potentially having an early season “not out” disappeared on his first ball and Sads finished 113 all out.

A small target to defend and an even smaller boundary to one side of the batting square meant it was going to be a difficult game to win but the opening bowlers WG, Chennells, Diprose, Tembras and Roffers did a grand job of only conceding 29 off their combined 10 overs. During these overs we managed a run out and noteable as being one of the four occasions Paggers actually caught the ball! Speaking of catches we saw a rare occurrence of Mr Jan “safe hands” Diprose dropping a catch! It was well gathered in the air with a lovely hanging dive to his right, he smiled for the cameras as he hung before landing and spilling the ball on impact. A top edge a few balls later gave Paggers (Teflon) a chance to take an easy catch but his legs took him away from the ball and the gloves grasped thin air.
Enter Mr Jones who provided his usual eventful bowling taking two wickets one of which was a stumping (Paggers caught/deflected the ball back on to the stumps) and an LBW with both batsmen defeated by the flight (lost sight of it in the stratosphere). Wickets don’t come cheap though for Mr J and 19 precious runs were also conceded. Mr Nairne went for 10 runs and took a great wicket removing the batsman’s off stump bail with surgical skill. Longy conceded 12 runs and we got another couple of run outs taking Paggers to his 4 contributions with the gloves and the match was in the balance - 33 needed off 24 balls. Did I mention the short leg side boundary? Sadly our wickets had brought one of their bigger hitters to the crease and he got stuck into Mr Tucker and Mr Noble with a couple of sixes and a couple of fours which left us losing the game in the final over just short of what would have been a magnificent opening game victory.

In truth it was a good overall performance from all involved and an absolute pleasure to be back playing cricket at Clarence Park in the sunshine. Chips and beer in the bar and the usual schadenfreude banter between team mates capped a great if losing start to the season.