Scorecard

Ickleford v Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 2nd XI on Sat 24 Jul 2010 at 1:00pm
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Lost by 9 wickets

Match report This was a bad, bad gig for TMs, man...

It was never going to happen for us this week. I think someone must have spiked the brown M&Ms or something.

It started badly when our most devout and heavily-bearded Muslim playaz, Haris Ali Soomro and Shakeel Durrani, arrived at the ground just as the home team’s powerful dressing room stereo blasted out the chorus to Sex On Fire by The Kings of Leon: ‘YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOO, THIS SEX IS ON FIYAH!’

It was loud enough to be heard in Mecca – well, Mecca Bingo Hall on Ickleford High Street, at least. Anyway, it was most certainly a bad omen.

Having won the toss, The Rizla decided to bat and gave strict instructions to make nothing less than 200. Ohw.

The track was a bit Dusty as the game began, but Crutchlow (8) looked in fine form, caressing the ball like Velvet Snow for two boundaries in the first over. And like Velvet Snow, it didn’t last.

Three overs in and their umpire’s finger went off like A Pistol of Fire for a debatable LBW decision that saw Crutchlow depart a rather angry man. ‘If that was out, I’m a Trani’, squealed the livid opener, as he roughly disentangled the Velcro of his thigh pad from the silk camisole he was wearing underneath his whites.

Having started the game Happy Alone in the scorebox, Joe ‘Trashcan’ Askham was soon firing on his pads as Soft dismissal followed Soft dismissal, each wicket being tossed in The Bucket marked ‘Where Nobody Knows’. These were those wickets: Aleem (0), Haris (0), Shakeel (6), Prakash (2).

Joe was looking more than comfortable astride the crease; a real King of The Rodeo, refusing to be thrown by their spinner’s pastry bombs, likewise their skipper’s pop and crisp-bowling. But then, all of a sudden, goodness only knows what was going through Joe’s Head as the Genius chipped a gentle catch back to the wily old slow bowler.

That wicket was goodnight for us, really. That’s the problem with Youth and Young Manhood: when one needs someone to Milk the old tweaker, everybody wants to Be Somebody. No sense of responsibility. In fact, the last seven of our wickets were caught, which says it all really (or at least something).

The only man who could hold his head up after our dismal innings was Hassan ‘Nice One, Nice One’ Ali. NONO made a wonderfully unorthodox 50, including one six that was so big it probably landed in Molly’s Chambers (Ickleford's premier Gentlemen’s Club). That umpire off the telly who looks like a sex pest (Billy Bowlegs? Ed.) would have had a field day trying to signal it. Up and up and up and up and up and so forth...

A LOVELY ASIDE: their strapping opening bowler, who was back in England for his wedding and would play this – and only this – game for Ickleford, took our first five wickets for 30 runs off just eight overs. How frigging lovely for him. Grrrr.

TEA: We had tea and it was nice. There were lots of different cakes – a selection of about 17. Aleem had one of each type of cake and two cups of tea.

Like I said, the omens were bad from the start.

The Rizla charged in to bowl the first ball of their innings, and the opening bat chopped down hard on the delivery, resulting in the ball pinging into his stumps (twice). Sadly, it did not dislodge the bails. We should have just gone home there and then.

Anyway, we didn’t. Instead we fetched a lot of ball as their two aggressive openers made hay while the sun shone. It seemed we were heading down the Spiral Staircase to defeat and we didn't help ourselves by dropping our statutory couple of chances.

Defeat it was to be too. They knocked them off with one wicket down and the victory saw Ickleford engage in much Revelry – including the singing of a sea shanty.

For us, whole game was but Wasted Time.

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 2nd XI Batting
129 for 10
Player Name RunsCatchesStumpingsRun outs
Waleed Khan Bowled  11
Matt Crutchlow Lbw  8
Aleem Hussain Bowled  0
Haris Ali Soomro Caught  0
Shakeel Durrani Caught  6
Prakash Kannan Caught  2
Hassan Ali Caught  50
Joseph Askham Caught  12
Sarfraz Ahmed Caught  2
Rizwan Siddiqui Caught  19
Rahul Bhatnagar Not Out  1

Ickleford Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Ickleford Batting
132 for 1
Player name Runs
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 2nd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Rizwan Siddiqui3.001800.006.00
Aleem Hussain3.002300.007.67
Sarfraz Ahmed2.011000.005.00
Shakeel Durrani3.002000.006.67
Rahul Bhatnagar7.003900.005.57
Haris Ali Soomro4.3119119.004.22

  • Umpire :
    Ali Kazmi
  • Scorer :