Tuesday 30 May 2023
Sloths vs Stella Select
Stoic. Immovable. An opening stand worthy of plaudit and before a ball had even been bowled. The car park security post just wouldn’t budge. A stream of Sloths blockaded into Bathampton and could’ve caused a village-wide incident. Porridge being such a Millennial couldn’t work out the first numbers of the Bath telephone area code and the post remained resolute. Leo sounded his horn impatiently at the hold up and later claimed innocence and he was flailing about while putting on his whites. Skipper arrived with knowledge of landlines, post removed and Sloths flooded in with the treat of freezing cold conditions but warm opposition in our fellow spirit-of-cricket connoisseurs Stella Select.
A toss occurred or didn’t, anyway, a decision was swiftly reached that Sloths would bat first. Nothing to do with the freezing conditions that fielding second would bring I’m sure but Stellas seemed very happy with this.
The Gas Man and Long Man strode out to open / were blown towards the wicket as Stellas cursed themselves for not bringing a second jumper. The opening bowling was tight on line and on a length and I was pretty sure they were miserly. But upon analysis of the scorebook it appears 23 runs were scored off the first four overs which is practically Bazball, including a Gas Man crunching four and a wristy six from Lodgey. Who then tried to repeat this feat and found the fielder on the boundary edge. But, controversy! Lodgey wagged a gloved finger and insisted the young, innocent fielder was over the boundary! Luckily, and surprisingly, the umpiring team had already spotted the intersecting boundaries of 3, yes 3, cricket pitches and so told Lodgey to get lost. The Gas Man, Laz and Darwin then followed suit in perfectly lofting shots into the gleeful hands of well placed fielders and some argued this was more tricky than getting the ball past them. HRP broke this routine by deciding to hit it over the fielders and then was brought back down to earth by being bowled by a full toss. But controversy! He refused to walk! Believing it was a no ball he stood his ground. Luckily, Lodgey was at square leg and has a penchant for the rules (except boundary lines) so sent Nick on his way. A hard-running, gap-finding, newly-bought-bat partnership from Maslin/Carlin accelerated Sloth scoring. Will retiring for the second time in his Sloth career and Jimmy running himself out as retirement was on the horizon. Nice to make Will feel special. George promised much but popped a catch to the bowler. Striding out in the last over Brent went with instructions to swing and swing, oh he did. A heaved catch straight to mid on and he strode back. Meanwhile no.11 Porridge had shed his pads in relief as the innings had ended, yes? Actually no, two balls remained. Pads thrown on, box forgotten, helmet a-skew and sledges received from all angles, Porridge arrived at the crease. With Leo looking reassured at the other end Porridge slammed into a cover drive but the ball shot down to point (one for the purists) and they ran 3. Leo then saw off the end of the innings and a whopping 137 scored!
Sloths enter the field feeling buoyant after setting a defendable total but also feeling rather laden with all the spare layers of clothing, including hats, found and applied. Porridge steams into bowl amid a slew of oat-based puns that the batters may have found hard to stomach. A thin edge is snaffled by a stunned Jimmy behind the stumps who shouts “I caught it I actually caught it!” and Porridge forgets to appeal in his state of joy. Brent opens up the hill with tweaky tricky tight bowling leaving the stumps trembling. Will bowls hoops and George throws down lasers, both spells remaining wicketless and cricket aficionados would unhelpfully say that they did too much with the ball. Stoic batting as Darwin’s theory of good bowling proves tricky to score off and Lodgey, aiming for an IPL 2024 contract, threatens to Mankad a child. All these dots prompt the batters to risk a single as Leo The Cat sweeps in and delivers a devasting throw down to Jimmy to whip off the bails and everyone to declare that “that was actually like real cricket”. HRP delivers down the hill and generates bounce (of course he does) and has a batter play-on looking to score. Nick is still not sure if playing on counts as his wicket but now it’s his second time in two games he is coming around to the idea. Lazurus glides in as the batters open their shoulders and start to find singles. Leo bowls his “unpredictable stuff” and induces a shot high into air where a smooth Laz calmly claims it’ll be his with the repertoire “mine, mine, mine… mine…. Mine”. But Stellas are never down! Stellas big hitters down the order truly free their arms to attempt to take it to the wire and find some ruthless death bowling by the skipper. Cleverly bowling last he mops up 3 wickets with some devastating stump to stump bowling and smartly placing a trembling Porridge at short extra cover just as Stellas are trying their best to clump it straight threw that area. Luckily Porridge has sticky hands and gobbled up a quick reaction catch that the Sloths immediately decided was good, but not as good as Leo’s run out. Cricket, it can give and take almost simultaneously.
Stellas fall short with 80 runs on the board but play with tremendous spirit and share the Sloth psyche that the tinnie afterwards is as glorious as the cricket before. We will meet them again with hopefully just the one jumper on each.