Indoor Cricket Report

On Tuesday the Cowboys rode forth to battle the worthy foes Twyford house (this Olde English style would have worked better if I was talking about slaying the Winterbourne Dragons so I’ll drop it).

We bowled first for the 4th consecutive match. Tom had fallen ill so Matt Noodles stepped in to give us the full complement of 8 and Justin took the gloves. It was, by his account, a painful experience (in more than one way unfortunately).

I won’t go into the gory details but suffice it to say we bowled poorly. With the exception of Iggy, we bowled far too many extras (51 I think in total). Their batsmen ran well and consistently hit the back wall. Seeing his troops needed a moral boost Rob Tinkler valiantly hurled himself, testicle first, at a ball to give us all a chuckle. Bonus comedy points for the knee pads he has sported every game this year which did precisely fuck all to hinder the ball’s path to his nether regions. Another highlight was Tim getting a finger to a straight drive and running out the backing up batsmen before he had faced a ball (after some research I can confirm this is either a diamond or a platinum duck).

We had been set 141 to win in 12 overs. One of the umpires advised a couple of our batsmen that we’d have to hit 25 quickly and hope someone else does too… so at least we had a plan.

Dave Toole and Justin were the opening pair had a steady start until Justin was out in the second over. RT2, who had been quietly (ok maybe not so quietly) sulking about the bowling performance went in next. For the next 5 overs something strange happened, everything went to plan. First RT2, then Dave and then Iggy hit 25 and retired (with Iggy hitting 3 consecutive 6s at one point) leaving us on 90 after 7 overs. At one point a fielder a point responded to a wide with the incredibly encouraging statement “well it’s better than a six” RT2 gleefully hit a 6 two balls later. We now only required 10 an over and we had 7 wickets in hand but this is the cowboys, you know what happens next.

4 overs, 6 for 40. At first the wickets falling looked like a genius plan to get the retired batsmen back in which was all fine and good until the retiring batsmen went totally off script and started getting out themselves (Iggy on 30-odd and RT2 on 41). It was down to the last over, 11 required, one wicket and Dave, the last remaining hero, on strike. First ball. Wide! 8 required off 6! Second ball. Runout…. Oh balls…