Desert Storm

A last wicket partnership of 130 between The Adonis and Dimps failed to save the Stiffs away at Newstead. Sadly this was their combined age rather than runs! Guest reporter Boss Hogg fills in the details.............

On our longest travels so far this season the Stiffs eventually arrived in Newstead, Outer Mongolia, the strip doing a passable impersonation of the Gobi Desert. Seems the local council had turned the water mains off for three weeks during a heat wave and all that was missing were camels. They’d probably fallen down the large cracks on one end of the wicket. Boom and Drurs were doing National Service with the Firsts so we had a mixture of very young and very old.

A sight for sore eyes of the ten men visitors was the svelte figure on the boundary of Keyworth legend, Meeky. Fortunately he’d come to support for a couple of hours and was soon shoehorned into a spare of JB’s whites.

For once AC was glad to lose the toss as he was clueless as to what to choose. Newstead decided that the best thing for their out of form First XI batsman was to get him into the fray straightaway. When he picked up AC’s third delivery off middle and put it over the long leg boundary you could sense it might be one of those days. He continued to chance his arm to the best that Andy and Liam could throw at him and he soon got his half century. It looked as if our best way of stopping him was to leave him with no partners, Liam taking three wickets cheaply. One of which saw The Boss leap salmon like to take a two handed catch proving once and for all that pigs can indeed fly. The opener made it to 71 before falling to the full toss sucker punch trademark that is Boss Hogg’s principal wicket taking delivery, AC muttering he still doesn’t know after seven years how they keep working.

The rest of the innings saw the boundaries still flowing but we battled gamely and achieved maximum bowling points in the final over. All the bowlers chipped in but with a lightning fast outfield and short downhill boundary meant keeping the runs down was difficult. Only Boss Hogg managed to rein in the run rate (2-28 off 12 overs), greatly helped by a middle order batsman who whilst difficult to shift was also unable to get the ball away. Liam 4-60, AC 2-71 and potential AC son-in-law, Billy H, 2-29 off his 4 overs.

Tea was average at best, only saved from the dreaded thumbs down by a small plate of melon and strawberries.

In reply we needed someone to get a big score and AC was our man. Playing straight he went after the openers with gusto. The Notts Ladies bowler was soon taken off after giving up 28 off 4 overs. It was clear that the rest of us had to hang in and just support AC. Unfortunately Boss played on but Paul Lay did his part. At 15 overs drink break we were 91-1. But AC fell for his own sucker punch next delivery when top edging a rank long hop to finish on a highly entertaining 71.

The middle order all got into double figures but only Dimp(29), sporting a brand new bat, managed to push on. Helped by rising star of the future, Ben Healey(2), they put on 52 for the 8th wicket ensuring maximum batting points. A few late boundaries, including a head high beamer being dispatched one bounce to the rope by U13 Peter Hennesey, from the tail meant we finished with a very commendable 209.

8 points from a weakened side was a great effort in the circumstances and some valuable experience for the junior section