LA is one of the spiritual homes of music in the good ole US of A so it was maybe fitting that a few hours before the Mighty Greys alighted in the UK version we spent an evening playing tribute to the greats of rock n roll at Alex’s 60^th birthday bash karaoke extravaganza. 

For the purposes of this match report players will be known by the names of those entertainment luminaries that they parodied. 

The Greys, led by Lou Reed in his distinctive shades, found themselves in the field. The bowling to be opened by Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones, Tom unfortunately pulling his groin in the first over which I lead to believe is not unusual. Our Shirl performed tigerishly and nipped one back to take the top of the openers off stump. Replacing the Welsh shlong-meister a clarion horn section Babababa baaa babaa welcomed Kevin Rowland into the fray to a chorus of “wo-ow EEE-oooo” he bowled tight lines which given he was in over-sized dungarees was a fairly impressive feat. 

Despite a good effort from the opening bowlers LA were only one down with a very promising young no 3 joining the remaining opener. This pair batted aggressively putting on 77, before new bowler Hattrick (didn’t sing) had the no 3 well caught by Kevin Rowland in the gully. A couple of overs later Lou Reed took the scalp of the opener with an athletic diving catch taken by Tim Laing at mid on. Elvis came on but left the building wicket-less. 

At the end of this slightly confusing shambles, LA had amassed 175 in their 30 overs. 

Despite a bright start Biff & Hat, openers for TMG’s, were both back in the hutch with 27 on the board.  

Dom at 3 didn’t hang around and 4 runs later Tim was joined at the crease by the English Elvis (and birthday boy). Unfortunately there was to be no present today and Costello was dispatched for a duck to be replaced by Elton John.  

Anyone who witnessed his performance on Friday night was probably not expecting very much, but hang on a first ball 4 – this boy appears to play by intuition. What followed was a partnership of 97 and featured a lovely six smashed by the bespectacled septuagenarian (psm).  

Tim at the other end was keeping pace and posted his maiden fifty for the Greys. Tim was still standing when Reg finally dollied one back up the wicket into the grateful hands of the young bowler.  

The remaining Greys batting line up of Lou Reed, Shirley Bassey, Kevin Rowland, The King, and Tom Jones could have been expected to see the ship home with only 20 odd required but it was not to be. Tim posted his high score for the Greys (73) out top edging one to be fantastically caught and bowled – the young bowler making 20 odd yards of ground to dive full length and take a one handed catch.  

The Mighty Greys were left 3 short with Tom and Elvis together again at the crease, if you squinted it could have been 70’s Vegas, but it wasn’t it was 2023 LA and the Greys fled back to Brighton and the scene of Friday night’s pop-tastic exploits to lick their collective wounds and hum their favourite refrain from an epic weekend.  

Mic-drop. 

Key to Greysmen – Artists 

Lou Reed – QB 

Shirley Bassey – Diamond 

Tom Jones – DD 

Kevin Rowland – EO 

Elvis Costello – Johnny Fixtures 

Elvis Presley – Shadow 

Elton John – Stato 

Well that’s cleared that up… 

Key to Places 

LA – Los Angeles or Littlehampton (you decide) 

We only have one innings from the scorebook.

Statistics
End of Season Stats…boohoo
Well that’s all folks, I’m not sure how much I should include here I’ll just be stealing my own thunder from my AGM speech. Suffice it to say Dom and Diamond will be picking up trophies this year and there’ll be a 3 way punch up for the catching trophy. A couple of season’s high scores from Sunday, Tim goes from strength to strength with another new top score (73) and ME reinventing myself as a middle order tonker (43).
For all the other life-time sexiness you’ll have to come to the AGM…ooo what a tease.
Stato x