Early Cup Exit For Tarts

By Adam Hilless - July 7 2010
Early Cup Exit For Tarts
An optimistic Tart unit travelled to Woodlands for their cup encounter against Big Guns Camra. Read Adam's report here............

Yet another trip to Castor was on the cards for Baston on Thursday night as they faced division 1 real-ale louts CAMRA in the first round of the cup. Being the stubborn man he is, Tim yet again called tails at the toss, and yet again lost. Baston were put into the field.

New recruit Jeff “one-trip” Northwood shared the tatty and misshapen new ball with resident spray-gun Adam Hilless. Despite a couple of lusty blows from the opening bats, Jeff and (amazingly) Adam kept it tight in the opening overs, limiting CAMRA to around 5 runs per over.

Doug Russell and Spalding 1st XI superstar Jim Clarke replaced the openers and kept things tidy, aided by some able fielding from the super-enthusiastic Jon Howard and super-agile Simon Lem. Despite pulling a groin and being barely able to move after his first ball, Doug was made to bowl a second over by the ever sympathetic Dyer.

After a couple of CAMRA batsman had reached 35 and retired, captain Dyer replaced the hobbling Russell and didn’t take long to smash moderately inconvenience the middle stump of the bewildered batsman. Unfortunately for Tim, this brought to the crease a man who took offence to his bowling, and proceeded to smash it back over his head every ball.

The damage could have been less had Felix decided to use his hands rather than his gut to try and take one of his four failed attempts at catching the batter out at long-on.

Ben came on for the bowled-out Clarkey and did eventually bowl a decent ball in his 2 overs, after feeling the wrath of a cheesed-off Dyer. Felix was entrusted with the final over and made up for his woeful attempts at catching by bowling a cracking over, deservedly earning himself a wicket, snaffled at square leg by Bert look-alike Ben. A solid fielding display had limited CAMRA to 131 off their 20 overs, despite taking just the two wickets.

The less attractive Cunningham brother Guy went out to open with Clarkey and tucked into a generous first over, hitting old man Jex for 16. The rest of the team wish he hadn’t, as this brought two rather more rapid bowlers to the crease, who had Clarkey jumping and dancing and calling for new bats straight away. “Dotty” was welcomed on to bowl by Tim with not so subtle Dot Cotton quotes from the boundary, including the classic “ooooooh Nick!!”

Clarkey was cleaned up for not many, which brought Bert to the crease, sent in as an aggressive “pinch-hitter.” Ben pinch-hit his way to a duck off about 10 balls in a perfect display of how not to bat aggressively.

After batting superbly for his 32, Guy gave his wicket away trying to hoik a new albino bowler first ball. Lemmy didn’t fare much better, slapping the same bowler to mid-on next ball, giving the bowler two wickets with his first two balls. Captain Dyer came to the crease to face the hat-trick ball, and somehow dug it out, after a small delay. Dyer asked for the sight-screen to be moved out of the way as he wasn’t able to see the camouflaged albino pace man as he ran to the crease.

 The wickets continued to tumble, Jon run-out by his captain jogging a single, Tim getting bowled, and Felix slapping a long hop to square leg. Banksie lasted a seasons-best 3 balls before being castled, and Jeff was caught, leaving Adam not out with the injured Doug unable to bat.

Baston had slumped to a miserable 50 ball out from 35-0, albeit against a very strong bowling attack. Next up for the pigs is a trip to Spalding 3rds on Saturday, where they will hope to stay in the middle a bit longer to avoid listening to Clarkey tell them what a good bunch of lads they are.