Scorecard

St Margaretsbury v Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 1st XI on Sat 19 Jun 2010 at 12:30pm
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Won by 2 wickets

Match report Gary ‘The Piece’ Wilson unloads his six-shooter in St Margaretsbury...

“Ev’body knows thur ain’t no lawman in the whole uv Herts tough enough to tell Gary ‘The Piece’ Wilson what to do. Nor when to do it. ‘The Piece’ takes his own sweet time about his bidness.” – Sheriff Shaun O’Brien

First up, it was good to see that Sheriff Shaun’s ass whuppin’ following last week’s drubbing had had some effect on the TMs posse. Ergo, all but one of them arrived early (or at least on time, which is early for TMs), allowing us to welcome faces old and new: Chris ‘Yul Brynner’ Mason, was over from Oz on business and had managed to find time to squeeze a game in, whilst Imran ‘The Man Who’ Khan was gaining his spurs on 1st XI dayboo.

This unprecedented outbreak of punctuality meant there was plenty o’ time for Sheriff Shaun to regale us with tales from the previous evening, when he’d treated some lucky cowgal to a generous helping of pork and beans at his Finchley ranch. We also had plenty o’ time for a good ol’ warm-up and so we done had one. Yeehaw!

Warm-up completed, we took to the field – or rather, we didn’t take to the field. We didn’t take to it one bit.

In fact, over the course of the St Margaretsbury innings, we leaked around 30 runs through sloppy long-barriers, abysmal throwing and the occasional piece of accidental breakdancing. (Thankfully, the main practitioner of this has now been relocated to the 2nd XI, where he will, no doubt, suddenly resemble Derek Randall in his pomp.)

St Margaretsbury began their innings very slowly indeed and Asif ‘Lefty’ Sutaria once again bowled with pace, fluidity and guile. On quite a few occasions, he was simply too goddamn good for their top order. His pardner, Hassan ‘The Weather Rules’ Mahmood, also bowled a tight line and length, restricting the scoring nicely, and with rain threatening we felt confident that any lost overs would be a further boon for our RUN AVOIDANCE tictacs. How wrong we were (more on this later).

But hang on a minute; we’ve only got 10 men on the field. Where’s the outlaw Gary Wilson?

We all assumed ‘The Piece’ would have been out a-rootin’ and a-tootin’ and a-shootin’ up the Surrey saloons ‘til all hours on Friday night and would be, at that very moment, munching breakfast grits off some showgirl’s ass ‘n’ drinking sarsperilla from one of her thigh-length boots. (As it happens, the rather more prosaic reason for Gary’s tardiness was some heavy traffic on the M25.)

Eventually though, ‘The Piece’ swaggered onto the pitch and a hush fell upon the St Margaretsbury ground. Their senior opener, one S. Tilbury, took one look at the six-shooter bulging in Gary’s pants and the blood drained from his face. Stifling a shriek, he deliberately left the next ball (a straight one) in a desperate effort to get off the field. He succeeded, trapped LBW by ‘Lefty’ Suteria for 3. That’s the impact ‘The Piece’ can have on a game.

This wicket brought their number three, Sonny ‘The Colt’ Spencer, to the crease. Immediately, the baby-faced sharp-shooter began rifling straight drives to the boundary. He was also quick to punish anything short, pulling powerfully to the leg-side when bowlers adjusted their length to counter his driving. ‘The Colt’ played very well for his 45 but was very, very fortunate to survive at least three nailed-on, stone-cold, cast-iron, kiss-me-quick-do-me-real-slow, LBW shouts.

I won’t bore you with too much detail about the hoo-haa with the rain and the umpires, but I will say that their reluctance to consult the league handbook meant St Margaretsbury had four bonus overs to bat, which they duly did. And how.

Brian Blessed’s cousin, Mungo*, strode purposefully to the wicket, and began smashing it miles. “Sorry bowler,” he boomed theatrically, after belting a six high over midwicket. “I’m afraid this is going to be ugly.”

How right Mungo was. His innings was good for them, bad for us and, for any fans of ‘proper batting', very ugly. Ignore the cricket bat in his hand and he could easily have been throwing the hammer in the Highland Games. But he was very, very effective and I believe the last four overs which, as I say, they should not have had, cost us nearly 50 runs and made for a much stiffer chase than we had hoped for.

‘Lefty’ Sutaria (8-5-6-1) was the pick of the TMs bowlers and maybe deserved a second spell, whilst ‘The Man Who’ Khan (16.0-4-58-2) also performed very well indeed on dayboo.

And so to tea: gobble, slurp, parp, nudge, swear, wink, burp (all this from the tea ladies, not us). And then to our innings, where things did not go entirely to plan.

Justin ‘Da Dook’ Le Fort was ambushed for just two, their opening bowler doing him for (lack of) pace, and when Overseas Pro, ‘Murdo’, fell under the stagecoach wheels for just 15 we were rocking an' a' reeling, with no Barbara Anne in sight. So it was left to Marshal O’Brien and the outlaw Gary Wilson to grab the reins and steer us safely through Injun Country.

For a time, they both batted fluidly, moving the score on smoothly before Sheriff Shaun was bowled by an almost static delivery from Steve ‘Slowhand’ Ansell (no relation to Eric Clapton – although both shot the sheriff) for 22. Enter Chris ‘Yul Brynner’ Mason who, after undergoing cutting-edge surgery to remove any evidence that he ever had any knees, was looking to stand and deliver the goods for TMs. Sadly, his top-spin forehand was far from lethal and he was out, caught and bowled, to ‘Slowhand’ Ansell for just 5.

Aleem ‘Shoulders’ Hussain, ‘Lefty’ Suteria, ‘The Man Who’ Khan and Matt ‘The Man With No Runs’ Crutchlow all chipped in with around 10 runs each but, ultimately, there was only one man with enough firepower for this task – Gary ‘The Piece’ Wilson.

‘The Piece’ was closing in on a fine century but the number of balls remaining to reach the target of 209 was becoming a bit of a problem. So High Noon (8pm GMT): 12 balls to come and 24 runs needed as ‘The Piece’ eyeballed Steve ‘Slowhand’ Ansell from 22 yards. The spinner shuffled in nervously for the showdown.

BOOM. Ain’t no one backs himself more ‘n ‘The Piece’ and Gary emptied chamber one of his six-shooter into the gut of ‘Slowhand’. Whilst St Margaretsbury rounded up a posse to hunt down the ball in the wilderness beyond the boundary, ‘Slowhand’ was patched up to continue his over.

‘The Piece’ spat, flexed his guns, and then returned to the famous ‘leaning into the wind’ Surrey Stance that has served him so well in previous showdowns.

BOOM. ‘Slowhand’ sank to his knees as ‘The Piece’ loosed off chamber number two. The ladies looked away and children buried their frit faces in their mothers’ skirts as ‘The Piece’ finished off the shell-shocked ‘Slowhandl’. “Roping this dogie was like licking butter off a knife”, I thought I heard Gary mutter under his breathe. I could easily be wrong though; his cowboy accent is rubbish.

The unflappable Wilson then set his sights on Dwight ‘Pocket Rocket’ Shenley, who seemed confident of halting Gary’s progress in the last over of the game. It was a doggone shame for good ol' Dwight cuz ‘The Piece’ ain’t done ridden clear ‘cross two counties to go down now.

BOOM. ‘Pocket Rocket’ got barrel number three right between the eyes and went up the flume, as a pale boundary rider at long-on tried in vain to prevent another maximum. ‘The Piece’ then moseyed a pair of deuces before smashing a four from the last ball of the game, cool as you like. I have a feeling, Stewart 'The Pickernick' Wernham fancied hitting the winning runs but, having come so far, 'The Piece' was not to be denied his moment.

To say that Wilson played well for his magnificent 111 n.o. would be a huge understatement – and his cold-blooded finishing shows exactly why he is wanted by teams across four counties. I’ve got a feeling 'The Piece' will remain unforgiven in St Margaretsbury for some time yet.

* Apologies J. Sturgeon, if you’re reading this. You don’t look anything like Mungo from Blazing Saddles but you did project marvellously well. I wonder, have you ever appeared in Gilbert and Sullivan?

St Margaretsbury Batting
208 for 5
Player name Runs
G.Tillary Bowled  I.Khan 24
S.Tilbury Lbw  A.Sutaria 3
S.Spencer Caught  S.O'Brien 45
B.Wallis Caught  C.Mason 24
J.Scarborough Not Out  41
M.Brown Bowled  I.Khan 37
J.Sturgeon Not Out  24
N.Anstead  
D.Shenley  
S.Ansell  
K.Wallis  

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Asif Sutaria8.05616.000.75
Hassan Mahmood6.022100.003.50
Stephen Murdoch3.001300.004.33
Shaun O'Brien6.0435135.005.83
Imran Khan16.0458229.003.63
Chris Mason13.0165165.005.00

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 1st XI Batting
212 for 8
Player Name RunsCatchesStumpingsRun outs
Justin Le Fort Caught  M.Brown 2
Stephen Murdoch Caught  K.Wallis 15
Shaun O'Brien Bowled  S.Ansell 22
Gary Wilson Not Out  111
Chris Mason Caught  S.Ansell 5 1
Aleem Hussain Caught  M.Brown 15
Matt Crutchlow Lbw  S.Ansell 12
Imran Khan Stumped  D.Shenley 9
Asif Sutaria Bowled  D.Shenley 12
Hassan Mahmood Not Out  0
Stewart Wernham   1

St Margaretsbury Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
K.Wallis8.0327127.003.38
M.Brown17.0365165.003.82
S.Ansell14.0179326.335.64
D.Shenley5.0033216.506.60

  • Umpire :
    Panel
  • Scorer :
    tbc