Foul Mouthed French Buffoon Goes Ape!

Sacre bleu! What a game at le weekend it was at Le Champ des Rêves. Les Millers entertained les innés de Calverton. In many ways it was a game to forget for le grand champignons de Keyworth as another defeat was inflicted with just cinq boules to spare. But the game shall be remembered for other reasons due to the bad temper and ill feeling shown between certain members of both sides.

The previous day’s rain and a heavy shower in the morning meant a delayed start. Calverton were happy with this as they had only 10 men and were keen to stay off the field for as long as possible. They actually all left the ground en mass to take in some of the day’s play up the road at Plumtree! They were back by 2pm to hear that the wicket had dried sufficiently to have a 2.30pm start with 36 overs a side. KCC’s French international skipper, Rocket Rendu unfortunately lost the toss and the home side were inserted.

The Millers welcomed back the bronze Adonis and housewives favourite that is Geoff Tindsley. The local crowd were also were very pleased to see Liam ‘Pampers’ Sanders make his first outing of the season, getting straight into the action opening up with Bomber Graham. IG looked well enough, but the 4.30am close to the previous day out at the Test match would soon catch up with him. He was spotted taking 40 winks on Gemma’s massage table after being caught for a duck in the second over.

With the Foul Mouthed Aussie no longer around to steady the ship, the honour was left to Liam. Father Ted and the returning Postman fell in quick succession, leaving the Millers in all sorts of bother on a testing wicket. 23-3 in 8 overs.

Worse was soon to come as Liam pulled up lame and required Tinno to come back on as a runner. This didn’t seem to slow his scoring rate however as Liam looked in fine fettle sending the opening bowlers to all parts of the ground. At the other end, Renders again found some form and composure that has been typical of his recent knocks. Liam was out caught for 35 clipping through mid wicket which saw the retuning Emma-Dale come and go within 3 balls for a duck (85-5 off 20). Alex Sheriston (28 on 32 balls) did a great job to stay with and outscore Rocket before going for one big shot too many. Shortly after this, Rendu was out for a classy 62 in 75 balls.

Rob Baker was batting like a coiled spring and would have been out 10 times over if he’d been playing Baseball with multiple ‘swing-and-a-miss’ before finally connecting to accumulate a valuable 22 off 23 balls.

The innings closed at 165 all out in the final over; perhaps 5-10 runs down on a par score, but a good performance considering the opening 10 overs.

Tea was a Hiller-sister family affair, with everyone surprised that the expected 22 Pot Noodles were nowhere in sight and instead there was a fantastic spread that ticked all the boxes and more! (Thanks Mrs Hiller!!). Fruit Kebabs and Shelley’s surprise birthday cake were the highlights. For Calverton it must have been like eating at Sat Bains compared to the dreadful offering dished up at their ground earlier in the season.

The Millers knew that 165 was a testing target, and some tight bowling in the right areas would certainly test the mettle of a depleted visiting side. The plan went out of the window almost immediately as handbags were drawn at 10 paces following a controversial moment in Andy Hiller-sister’s first over. Father Ted was fielding at silly mid on, (possibly blocking the batsman’s view of all of the on-side boundary!), and he took a simple catch as the opener (and captain) clearly squeezed the ball between bat and pad. The entire Keyworth 11 were up celebrating the early breakthrough only for the umpire not to raise his finger and the batsman to stand his ground. In disbelief, a few heated words were exchanged between the players, as the batsman maintained that he did not hit the ball, much like Arséne Wenger ‘did not see it’ when one of his players did anything wrong…

In the midst of all this, the non-striking batsman had told KCC’s intrepid leader to go forth and multiply, which brought out the best and worst of Mr Rendu as he fired back as only he can, telling him to go back north of the river with his mates before doing a monkey impression and bellowing “ooh-ooh-ooh!!”…

This mad 5 minutes spurred the opening batsman on to try to get the match over and done with, and saw 7 an over scored off the first 10 overs. Liam had been turning it square in the nets, so he was quickly brought on to try to bamboozle and bag a wicket. Unfortunately ‘Pamps’ had a minor meltdown, struggling with a pulled quad and not recovering from his two bounce first ball, seeing his 2 overs go for a costly 24.

The war of words was still going on in the middle, with Bobby now having his say just an over before he crucially dropped the now grinning opener. Rocket did the same a few overs later to the same bat. Some of the ground fielding was below par as well, with Andy Hiller sister looking about as lithe and supple as a Smash robot.

But the home side did make a breakthrough and then took 3 wickets in as many overs between the spin twins of Graham and Baker who were loving the turn and bounce much more that the batsmen. At 117-4 off 20 a seed of doubt was set in the Calverton batsmen’s mind, and those who had taken an early shower were starting to get their whites back on. More words were exchanged between their outgoing No4 batsmen and Le Rocket Man for no apparent reason as things were starting to get a bit nasty.

With runs only coming from one end and Calverton looking like rabbits in the headlights, an unlikely win was whispered amongst the Keyworth ranks as 2 more wickets fell. With 6 overs to go only 13 was needed for victory, but another two quick wickets meant that it would all go down to the last two overs with 5 required and 2 wickets in hand. It was not to be, as the winning runs were knocked off with 5 balls left, despite Bobby’s impressive 5-58. Unsportingly the opening two batsmen did not show up for the post match handshakes.

This defeat now leaves the firsts needing to win the majority of their remaining 4 matches to catch Balderton who they play in a couple of weeks time in Le Crunch match.