Indoor Ups and Downs

Tuesday evening saw our first tentative steps into the world of indoor cricket.

We played our first friendly match and somehow won by a score of about 140-20.

The format is eight a side, 16 overs a side, batting in pairs for 4 overs each, in a big indoor net, where runs are scored for hitting the sides, ends, ceiling, and runs lost for dismissals. The under 12's are used to this kind of thing, but I'm not sure we were, given the frantic attempts to learn the rules in the 5 minutes before the game.

XX Dale and XXXX Dougie opened up and simply tried to wallop every ball through the back net. A very respectable 50 odd after 4 overs.

Boss Hogg and Chris See-Soar started slowly but added another 30 with Chris playing the shot of the night - a cross bat smash for 7 (a six plus a run single).

Skipper Tinno and Drurs soon realised that text book straight drives weren't the order of the day, and improvised a further 30.

Finally Bails and new boy Jay rounded things off with another 30 odd partnership.

In reply our fielding was electric and bowling erratic. We found catching rebounds off the wall was like grasping for the soap in the shower, but took a few beauties; Drurs a one handed dive off his own bowling, Tinno a cracker behind the stumps and Jay a scorcher at silly mid off. We had plenty of run outs, Dougie showing a howitzer-like arm, and in the end won comfortably.

The only downside was that Tinno dislocated his shoulder again, doing not very much. Get well soon mate!