25 Highway Hurricanes 11 Aug 08

The pitch felt sticky underfoot and with the pitch only going to get worse muff decided to bat having won the toss. But, as i'm a gentleman and they still didnt have a full compliment, in the interests of getting a game in i allowed them to bat first, 18 overs a side.
Scott was entrusted with the opening over with Darren from the pavillion end, and from the off the oppo decided to get after the bowling, the 1 opener inparticular(jaffa, in the score book!) playing across the line to good effect but it was only a matter of time before he missed one and Scott finally got his man(for 35) in his 3rd and last over, bowled.

At the other end Darren was 'mixing it up' but to no reward. The Cazh fielding was extremely good all-round considering we had to hide 3 of us, me, kim and smitty all being less than mobile,but James and Rog inparticular were saving alot of runs. It comes to something when Shakey is one of your more athletic fielders, bounding around like a fat bambi.
Rog and Kim took over the bowling with Rog unlucky again only picking up the 1 wicket(smartly taken by smitty at short cover) with the ball dropping between fielders and just going out of reach(and if we had had a better keeper a caught behind)
Kim was having a little trouble with his line so was replaced by Nadeem's doppleganer, Shakey.
A lovely 3 over spell brought him 1 wicket bowled and could have had a couple more with the ball missing the stumps on 2 occasions by a wisker.
James took over from the pavillion end and was his usaul mixed bag of good and um.... not so good but made the batsmen think every ball and deserved better than nothing.

Darren came back for his 3rd and bowled a tight over and the innings was finished off by Kim, picking up 2 wickets bowled including 1 off the last ball. Good effort all-round and the oppo on a competative total of 95 for 5 off their 18.

Scott 3-0-12-1
Darren 3-0-15-0
Rog 3-0-11-1
Kim 3-0-24-2
Shakey 3-0-10-1
James 3-0-16-0

The Cazh innings opened up with Ash and Shakes with Mr. Stephens reaching the milestone of 300 caps for the casuals.

A slow start with straight bowling to contend with on a low wicket and the dab not coming off for the councillor ended in Shakes going for 9 caught bringing the smooth featured Richie to the crease who unfortuanatly didnt hang around for long again being caught for 2.

This meant the Smitts came to the crease and the tempo increased as Ash got going and outscored smitty untill a classic yes,no,bugger run-out with Ash departing for 19.(i will leave it to the protaganists to explain who's call it was as i was too busy laughing to remember who the guilty party was, suffice to say the chuckle brothers had 'differing' opinions!)
This brought a recently high scoring Scooby out with the task to get a move on as the run-rate had crept up to about 7 an over, alas it was not to be, Scoobs bowled 2nd ball.

Your author then joined Smitty and even in crippled form the pair got stuck in and with smitty starting to see the ball in the gloom and the running speeding up the asking rate fell to 5 an over until muff called Smitty through for a quick one that if fit he would have made but was run-out just short for a solid 21.
The game was there to be won with 22 needed off 24 balls and Kim joining Muff in the middle did what was needed with some sweet shots untill given out l.b.w(!!!!!!) for a quick 13 (Ed - given out supposedly for mentioning his average too much during the game...).

James came in with 4 needed off 2 overs and soon dispatched a lovely 4 through mid-on to seal the game with an over to spare, the Cazh finishing on 96 for 6 Muff not-out 13, James not-out 4, Darren,Shandy and Rog dnb.

Excellent run chase in the dark on a slow,low pitch and a very good all-round effort by all.
We then decamped to the pub where the talk turned to beer theivery and Dans affliction with bulimia.(at least we think thats what all the vomiting was all about. by the way Dan, how was the blind date?)

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