TMG v The Headliners @ Coleman’s Hatch

Sunday, 20^th August 2023

Match Reporter this week – Bananaman.

(Bananaman is a parody of traditional superheroes, a schoolboy who is transformed into a muscled, caped adult man when he eats a banana. In early iterations his alter ego was diminutive Australian, Derek Fardel*, but is now portrayed as wimpish dodderer, Ian Sewell)

*See hilarious joke in last week’s match report v CCWCC.

Match Synopsis

A 35-over match played in lovely sunny conditions. The Greys recovered well from The Headliners’ opening onslaught with the bat, but the target of 280+ proved to be beyond the reach of this week’s merely mortal batsmen. TMG batted out their overs and finished on 156 for 9. The match was played in the best spirit of Sunday cricket and we were cordially invited back next season.

Innings of the Headliners

The Headliners attacked our openers, Robbie and Diamond, ferociously and Robbie in particular suffered. Not until Dan removed one openers’ stumps, 77-1 in 9^th over and, sometime later, Bananaman had cartoon baddie, Dilshan, caught at mid-on did things calm down. Well, that’s how it felt but the scorebook shows that Headliners scored at 8 an over throughout their innings.

A good batting pitch and short boundaries help to explain the high-scoring. Good balls were attacked and often middled into the pre-Cambrian ferns over an inadequate boundary rabbit-fence. Incredibly the match ball kept being quickly found and returned. We fielded well and took two great skiers (Jordy and Diamond), and conceded zero byes and only two extras, (Joe W behind the stumps). Alex took a nice catch away to his favoured left side at point. Another mention for Dan patrolling the downhill boundary who had to deal with the ball spinning and swerving viciously with each bounce.

Chiefy bowled well, 7-0-57, with no luck, as did Terry, but the stand-out bowler was Dan with a miserly economy rate of 4.4, while everyone else was upwards of 8.

Comedy moments included Chiefy’s brave, attempted, one-handed flying catch which ricocheted from his hand on to his bonce. The Party Seven Moment occurred when Bananaman prepared to commence his crucial, face-saving spell of loopy swing. Having secretly consumed his super-power bestowing banana during the previous couple of overs, Bananaman gave the umpire his hat and walked back towards his marker. As he did he became uncomfortably aware of a not-unfamiliar, squidgy, bulging presence in his trousers – the bnanana skin was mulching in his pocket as he moved. There was no time now to run to the boundary and dispose of it, that might also attract disparaging comments as well as waste vital bananna-power on a hot, energy-sapping afternoon. There was no choice but to discreetly drop the offending article on the ground and deal with it at the end of the over. Oh no!, the actual banaana skin had now become, much worse, a potential bbanana skin so thinking quickly he deftly booted it further away from his run-up.

Nobody had noticed and off he went to bowl a lovely first ball, dropping and shaping away, which unfortunately was whipped back over his head for six. This set the tone for the rest of the innings. Dilshan came and went, scoring 50, minded his P’s and Q’s and was the very model of a fine young man.

Tea was copious and traditional.

Innings of the Greys

The Greys started well enough, Jerry driving some boundaries and Jordy biffing some sixes. Robor batted watchfully to make sure he got himself properly in. Joe looked comfortable until a fine slip catch did for him. But wickets fell fairly regularly.  Jerry was caught in the covers, Jordy was yorked, Robor walked. Neither Alex nor Ben could get going which brought in stubborn, old misanthrope, Terry for another morale-boosting stay at the crease.

The opposition were enjoying themselves in a good-natured way as the game was theirs, but could the Greys tail goad them enough to spoil their afternoon?

Terry was vocally unhappy with one bowler tossing the ball up and out of the sun which was directly behind the bowler’s arm. It was not obvious that the bowler knew any other way of bowling.  Terry completely walked away from one delivery, “Unheard of!” I hear you say, that bounced over the stumps. Robor at umpire decided firmly that he would have to give the batsman out if a subsequent ball did hit the stumps as he knew of no rule otherwise. However the offending tosser was withdrawn as another Headliner was invited to turn over his arm. They used ten bowlers in all.

Dan H was getting annoyed by what he considered unnecessary faffing between overs but it was more to do with the fact he hates getting beaten. Then he was blinded by a ball straight out of the sun. In came Bananaman but by now his super-powers were used up and none of the bowlers were to his wafty liking. However four or five overs were used up in meaningless dallying.

Bananaman went LBW and in came Chiefy who banged a tasty 27? in short order. The highlight of his innings was his masterful “No!” to send Terry scampering back to the non-striker’s end from whence he had come halfway down the wicket. “Unheard of!” I hear you say. This was the true PSM.

Chiefy departed leaving Robbie H three balls of the final over, from which I think he managed a boundary. A decent return.

Conclusion.

A highly enjoyable day possibly viewed through Harveys-tinted spectacles by some of the team, however having a proper lunch and half a gallon of fine ale has a lot to recommend it. Is it not the fact that Sunday cricket evolved to fill the chasm between 2pm and 6pm when, you won’t believe this, kids, all pubs were closed? Both Chiefy and myself felt the benefit of suppressed anxiety, the absence of over-thinking and that beautifully gentle, carbo-hydrate rush as one jogs over the rope. Not to mention the team bonding associated with frivolous drinking. And who would forgo the hilarious yet embarrassing frisson felt as Roborbob tried to recalculate the bill for lunch hunched over his phone calculator, while the whole courtyard watched and waited to use the card machine*. The current trend towards earlier start times and “gaying straight there” is not to be condoned as it shears off a vital part of the day which in my view should be securely book-ended by pub sessions.

*The upshot of this was we had three halves of Harveys added to our bill.

Bananaman would like to apologise for last week’s self-pitying diatribe of a match report which found no place for the magnificent exploits of Double D and Bumboy who scored an imposing 93 and 100+ respectively. They gave the Greys a healthy 200+ target to defend which through no fault of their own turned out not to be enough. And so for the first of two weeks in a row the Greys where simply out-batted by aggressive openers who sometimes rode their luck and didn’t walk.