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Denham Sunday XI v Bhatt Invitational XI

August 9th 2009

Oh my God, they killed...

The late cancellation of Denham’s fixture against Harrow Wayfarers, due to the opposition’s two-timing nature, did not prevent the usual bad-cricket and buffoonery from taking place at Cheapside Lane on Sunday. Seemingly deprived of an opposition, and therefore deprived of cricket, the Denham faithful had skipper Harish Bhatt to thank as he masterminded a superb plan to bring in some of the keenest cricketers of the Wembley area, so that a game of some description could be played.

It had to be admitted that this game - a 30-overs-each affair, between an almost-normal Denham Sunday XI (but including Club Chairman Bill Nicholas, sans tank-top), and a Bhatt Invitational XI (with Hashim Zaheer keeping wicket) – would be of a sub-village standard. In fact, to be brutally honest, if applying the settlement size guide to levels of cricket, it would probably not even be hamlet standard. Perhaps even, this would be the first ever occasion of a game played below the level of isolated dwelling. But whatever the level of cricket, the players agreed that it would surely be better to be playing rather than watching England lose the test match.

So the players descended on the clubhouse at around 13:30, with the obvious exception of the regular retard Harish Bhatt, even though he had organised the game. But this week he had an excuse. On his way to collect Hemen Mehta for the game, he received a call from the police informing him that Hemen had apparently been murdered. The exact details of his death were unclear and whilst the police had no doubt of foul-play, they decided not to investigate any further on utilitarian grounds - for the pleasure had by the murderer far outweighed any pain caused to Mehta or those that might miss him. In any case, Mehta was irreversibly dead and unable to play, and Bhatt was fuming when he realised that he had wasted 10 minutes driving in the direction of Hemen’s house to take him to the game.

Naturally, the players were also quite disappointed when the news broke at Cheapside Lane shortly after 14:00, as they now had to take to the field with just 10 men per side, condemning the match to middle-of-nowhere level at the very most. Eventually it was agreed that Mehta’s inconvenient death was not his own fault, but James Nicholas’s proposal of a minute’s silence before the game to remember Hemen’s contribution to Denham cricket club was rejected by the players because he probably hadn’t done enough for this to be achieved. A second proposal was made to reduce the minute to just 10 seconds, but was rejected for the same reason.

By this point, at 14:30, the players were positively aching to get the game underway, but Bhatt had still not yet arrived. It was decided therefore to abandon the toss and make Bhatt’s side field by default - eventually the game would begin when Harish arrived. Photographic evidence proves this was at around 15:40.

And who can argue with this evidence?

The Denham Sunday X’s innings finally got underway shortly after Bhatt’s arrival and the patient Denham fans were treated to these two superb shots from by Alan Coulson (20) and Bitchie Raithwaite (16):

There was also some bizarre play by Club Chairman Bill Nicholas (0):

...And Collingwood

After their 30 overs, the Denham Sunday X had scored 237 and needless to say, James Nicholas had scabbed 63 of these, but none of his shots were entertaining enough to demonstrate here.

Little else happened during the innings, although Tamur Sadiq bowled Bowry with a ruppy, and Andy “The Vortex” Kirby produced batting that brought the standard of cricket down a further notch to uninhabited desert-island level. The players then left the field to eat an excellent tea produced by Sheila Nicholas, who had charmingly added pink wafers to the selection of sandwiches, sausage rolls and (Jeffrey) goujons. Perhaps only some Ferrero Rocher, built into a two-foot-tall pyramid, could have improved it.

The Bhatt Invitational X got their innings off to the worst possible start by losing 2 good players, Giten Parmar and Tamur Sadiq, when the score was just 11, to a Marman third-tracker (© Colin Tobin MMIX) and a “Vortex” full-toss. This confirmed that the game had now descended even further down the settlement-scale to a-place-that-never-existed-where-no-one-has-ever-lived-before level.

But it wasn’t long before the adjudicators had to change their minds again with regard to the cricket on display as two players, one on each side, began to excel themselves. Kevin Parmar’s superb innings of 24 included several beautiful boundaries and Jamie Firminger, the youngest player on the pitch, bowled some well-flighted off-spin, creating parabolas of the and variety, which earned him 5 wickets. However, these were the only 2 players playing good cricket so the bar was only raised slightly to someone-once-sat-down-here-for-ten-miutes-but-no-one-else-has-since level.

After these two contributions, the Denham fans were treated to some extraordinary events: Harish Bhatt being given first-ball’s-grace after treading on his stumps; Club Chairman Bill Nicholas attempting to bowl; and finally, an elaborate collaboration between batsmen Zaheer and bowler Bowry, to enable fielder Rai to retrieve the ball from behind the square-leg boundary, allowing him to investigate the quality of two pieces of local tna provocatively lying there.

The Bhatt Invitational X, meanwhile, were all out for 125 after just 21 overs. Based on all this information, the game finished at the standard of somewhere-that-can-never-exist, or be imagined, by anyone, where-no-one-can-ever-live, or-conceive-of-life, in any shape or form, yet-somehow-where-most-of-Denham’s-cricketers-come-from.

And if anyone doubts the validity of this rather severe comment then they only have to look at the photo at the end of this report to confirm it. Of course, having said this, all the players enjoyed the game tremendously, but to draw any firm conclusions from this fact would be an error, for what makes people happy is a complete mystery and thousands of years of evolution and human endeavour have not revealed its secrets.

A picture that defies words.

Next week Uxbridge 2nds (Home).

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