Sticky Wicket

13/08/2009

The Cowboys Friendly Team travelled to Gloucester to take on DCI’s work mates last night and lost in the rain and the dark. This is literally what happened and this is not some existential statement about the state of the cricket team. Surrounded by a Travellers’ encampment and on a terribly stodgy wicket the Cowboys got off to a really slow start, the plan of opening with Angleo and the Webgimp backfired when Angelo was out in the first over. The Webgimp and Pudsey struggled to get the ball to the boundary, in fact no boundaries were scored until the 15th over when Alan hit a brisk 27 and made those who had already batted look like chumps. The result was 102 runs in our allotted 20 overs.

The council employees on the other hand got of to a very brisk start and looked like they might get the runs in about 12 overs. However, some dark clouds caused the batsmen to call for the red ball to be replaced with a white one and in the rain and gloom wickets began to fall, the run rate slowed to a trickle and the game became more of a contest. Angelo took two great catches behind the stumps, Andy took a stunning catch in front of the stumps and the Webgimp bowled one batsman but since the bails never came off he was not out. In the end they got the runs needed in the 18th over and we headed to the pub, where a pub quiz master asked us to estimate the total number of balls bowled by Ian Botham in his 110 test matches.