Vs. Bear Flat Dad’s at KES, 30th April 2024
How many John’s does it take to play a game of cricket? Turns out, 24.
14 SlothJohns and 10 Bear Flat Dad’s met at KES under threatening skies for a titanic battle. As Sloths drifted in, word got round that we were batting, nobody knew where this word had come from but BadJohn and LazurusJohn were keen to don the pads. Pads? Pads! The club bag was missing, caught in traffic (like many a Sloth claimed to be in) and so the batting line up was decided by who had their own pads. Playground rulez.
As with evening games in April, 20:20 can be a stretch and so to speed this game up it was decided the first 10 overs would be bowled from one end. Or was that 9? Are we doing 18 overs? “Wait, that over was 7 balls”, “oh yeah, I think we’re replaying no balls”, “but there was a wide too”, “oh I think we’re not replaying wides”, “right”. A scorer’s dream.
This unsettling unsettlement may have distracted the Sloths batters who collectively decided to “make it interesting” and crash to 22-5 (accuracy debatable, but you get the picture). LazarusJohn kept his new bat new by making sure he got clean bowled early, JimmyJohn aesthetically-pleasingly playing off the back foot to a full ball and bowled, StumpJohn in shorts out to a pie, off-field pads were being found and flung on at a rate of knots. JimmerJohn declared he “fancied it” and looked to be settling in nicely before the on-loan TooGoodNashJohn ran him out from square leg to gasps from all. JohnJohn and PorridgeJohn weighed anchor and repelled some of the short stuff from on-loan LazersJohn. GoodJohn launched 3 sixes in his 11 ball 25 and was seen afterwards on a lengthy call, rumours of a Kolkata Knight Riders contract are rife. The innings was steered expertly to a close with some fine strokes from KiwiJohn and SnakeJohn to set a competitive 112 off of 20 overs, or was that 18?
SlothJohns scurried onto the field, buoyed by the wagging tail to begin their defence. High-quality John-chat led by BadJohn from the lengthening shadows of the pavilion spurred the SlothJohns to reduce BFD to 32-5! KiwiJohn again bagging a wicket in his first over, JohnJohn despite protesting about having no warm-up bowled a wicket-maiden, JadejaJohn tweaked an edge behind to jubilant StumpJohn, RicJohn bowled marvellously again for no (tangible) reward and thus bringing TooGoodJohnNash to the crease. Alongside a dogged partner they rotated the strike and plundered boundaries. JimmyJohn nearly took a screamer diving at mid-on but SlothJohn control was regained with JimmerJohn’s tweakers stifling the runs and wickets from GoodJohn and StickyJohnPorridge. In the gloom LazersJohn and TooGoodNashJohn could’ve won it with some serious hitting but even the pink (ish) ball was too tricky to spot, with Captain Jonathan John Fresh bowling his “spin” (as fast as he could, with a run up).
Charity beers were drunk as the rain lashed in and the scorers went to find a small dark room to assume the foetal position.