Howzat For Openers

A record breaking day as the Stiffs cruised to a 10 wicket win over Cotgrave.

Cowlard was running late so Leggy took on the early captaincy duties. Fabio would have been impressed as The Boss keep the squad on tenterhooks delaying his final selection until five minutes before the toss. Liam had jotted down the side and found we had 12 men. The axe fell, voluntarily, on The Adonis, who anticipated a cold day of umpiring ahead. That was until Dimps turned up with a 15 tog duvet in his bag to ward off the arctic winds at a blustery Field of Dreams, feeling more like January than June.

Cowlard arrived in the nick of time to open the bowling and looked to set his usual 6-3 field. Trouble was we only had 10 men present. Cowlard looked at Leggy, Leggy looked at Liam, Liam looked blank. An admin error saw JB’s on/off day back on again. It was sod’s law that an edge should go through vacant 2nd slip off AC before JB could don his whites. Alan Lea on debut bowled with promise up the hill, and soon realised the Field of Dreams was not a bang-in short deck.

Ground fielding was patchy; Billy was worse than Robert Green at square leg, and Liam dropped a sitter at cover. Meanwhile Duncan Disorderly, Sam and Alan all vied for the Sticky Palmer fielding point with some sharp stops.

We bowled reasonably but didn’t get a breakthrough until the 20th over with 70 on the board. Liam was enjoying bowling up the hill with the wind, and a wild slog saw a leading edge spiral more than the Adidas Jabulani ball towards Drurs at mid off who took a safe catch.

Leggy bowled another miserly spell to keep the score in check, picking up 2 wickets for just 29 runs in his 12 overs, both caught by the Lays. Ernie took a sharp caught behind, while Paul dropped the ball three times before holding on at the fourth grab. Alan took a catch off Billy, and Cowlard returned to take two late wickets.

174-7 at tea was a good defensive performance, Liam 2-34, AC 2-41, and Billy 1-30 supporting The Boss.

Tea would have finally brought a smile to Fabio’s face as the Legge's laid on another Italian banquet. Alongside the staples of pasta al tonna and barbabietole all'arancia, the surprise highlights were the formaggio e prosciutto paninis and a juicy medley di frutta, the latter would have rivalled any of the hats seen at Royal Ascot during the week.

In reply records were about to be broken. With Leggy padded up at no.3, Drurs and Ern’ took a low risk approach steadily frustrating a decent opening attack. Legends and players alike had decided that the pavilion or lounge log fire were the best places to escape the attritional batting and biting wind.

Ernie soon found his range with some glorious pick-ups over mid-wicket, while The Chairman scored yet another 50 straight to the fielders. The veteran opening pair kept to Bobby’s maxim of reaching 100 in 30 overs, with Evergreen the first to reach his 50. Drurs scored his first 6 of the season to bring up his own half-century, only via 4 over-throws! We cruised home from then onwards reaching the winning line in the 40th over, Ernie unbeaten on 82, Drurs on 70.

More work for Barry as a glance at the archives showed this was the highest ever opening partnership for the Stiffs, the fifth best for any wicket in KCC history, and a very rare 10 wicket win.

Post match, Leggy' s efforts to convince Ernie of the merits of his Samit Patel diet fell on deaf ears, the ink still drying on a contract to be the body double for Daniel Craig.