vs The Offsiders @ KES Playing Fields, Bathampton, 5th May 2026

The Sloths returned to Fortress Bathampton for the beginning of the 2026 season in sprightly fashion. A plethora of Sloths arrived on time, vastly outnumbering The Offsiders, and thus it was wisely declared that the Sloths take the field. Lazarus readily gloved up and The Colonel ran a fielding drill, which (don’t worry reader) quickly descended into him berating the Sloths for their lack of discipline within said drill. Once the Sloths finally got into the rhythm of the tricky “it’s just logical really” drill, enough Offsiders had turned up for them to field, and so for some unknown reason Fresh then decided the Sloths would have a bat, poor Lazurus having to de-glove. The old switcheroo ay Johnny, that’ll keep ‘em guessing!

There was a contrast of styles opening the batting as The Doc stroked the ball through point and balletically lifted over the covers, while Ish swung hard and, often, missed the ball. Bad Will got a rare good pill that clattered his middle stump, while Gorgeous mopped up the short stuff to the exceptionally short leg-side boundary. However, a lush outfield on the off-side agonisingly held the ball up repeatedly on the rope and resulted in much frowned-upon running between the wickets. One can only imagine the jealousy of already-out Bad Will at this point, who hadn’t gone for a run in at least half an hour and was starting to get twitchy. To make himself feel better, as umpire he gave Fresh run out even though he was standing basically next to him. Porridge and Laz scuttled some quick runs, with Porridge going for broke off the last ball of the innings and chipping a catch to mid-wicket. Only to then find out there were two more deliveries left.

Sloths entered the field buoyant, setting a healthy target of who-knows-what off 18 overs, and skipping into their fielding positions as the church bells rang across the field. Oh what a sound! How gallant! How… long do you think they’ll go on for? Oh wow they really aren’t stopping. Wait, can anyone else still hear those bells or is it just me?

To this incessant soundtrack Sloths bowled beautifully, with Ish sending down a cracker to hit top of off and Bad Will, atoning somewhat for his golden duck, by taking a wicket with his very first ball. Just don’t mention how well The Colonel bowled for no wickets whatsoever, nobody mention it, ok. Porridge actually took a wicket maiden on his first time bowling in a few years so probably don’t mention that to him either. The Offsiders’ reply didn’t really get going, with the main reason being that wherever they hit the ball, there was Brent to deliver a fielding masterclass. A slog down to long on? There was Brent thundering in from the boundary. A cut to point? A diving Brent to stop the run. Surely he’s not at square leg too? You bet your chilly bin he is! At the end of the night, it became customary for everyone to sign off with “well played Brent” before heading home. Ant bowled the 14th over and the 18th over, as Captain Fresh appeared to forget him immediately after he bowled his first over of tweakers. Lazarus was liquid behind the stumps, receiving many plaudits, and calls of “where has this guy been?!”, “it’s nice to have a keeper who can actually catch”, before then missing a dolly of a run out chance. Ah cricket, the great leveller!

Ending in a dominant victory, the giddy Sloths then chinned lukewarm cans of varying sizes (yet all charged at the same price) and gushed at the joys of the cricket seasons’ return.

The talented Rick revealed he has created some kind of autonomous AI bot that will churn the Sloth batting and bowling figures from the scorebook and create a stats-database for all and sundry to delve into, all a Sloth had to do was take a photo of the scorebook for the process to work…