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Denham Sunday XI v Woodley

July 26th 2009

Oh my God, they killed...

After last Sunday's imaginary encounter, it was back to reality for the Denham players as they once again had to put out the ropes and flags around the boundary before the game. And even though Club Chairman Bill Nicholas promised that Vanessa Feltz was coming along to act as a human sightscreen (running half-way-round the ground between overs to help her lose weight), the players opted against the idea and laboured for about 15 minutes putting the sightscreen slats into place.

Nicholas did not admit defeat however. So determined was he that Sundays at Cheapside Lane should be as great as the one fantasised about last week, that once the ground was ready for play, he announced that he was expecting a very special umpire for this all-important encounter against Woodley. "Definitely," he told the players, "the quickest umpire on the planet." But before the players could guess who on earth Nicholas had arranged to umpire, he received a phone call. It was bad news. The tea-lady had swine flu and couldn't do the tea!

Nicholas became very angry, even angrier than your mum's tits. He then received another phone call. This time it was the mystery umpire asking if he could get a lift from the train station as he didn't want to injure himself walking to the ground. Bloody hell, thought Nicholas, he's got three Olympic gold-medals and he can't even afford a taxi! So Club Chairman Bill Nicholas drove off to the train station and was not seen again for about three hours…

Fortunately, the players didn't believe that Nicholas had got a celebrity in to do the umpiring, so didn't wait for him to return. Instead, the captains tossed and Woodley, on winning it, decided to bat first. Now the average age of the Woodley side was about 15 years old, and one began to wonder at their inexperience as they lost four wickets in just the first six overs.

Alex "The Marmanator" Marman bowled well, taking 3-23, but it seemed that Woodley were attempting to make up for the lack of a tea-lady by serving up their wickets on a platter. However, their generosity ended when R.Sharma came to the crease.

The left-hander used his years of experience to build two substantial partnerships. Firstly with Painter, who contributed 17 in their stand of 73, and then secondly with Riaz, who twatted 33 out of their combined contribution of 61. Sharma continued to bat sensibly until the end of the innings but he got little support from the Woodley tail, which mainly fell to the elbow-spin* of Hemen Mehta (4-34).

[*elbow-spin © Sir Stuart Payne MMIX]

Sharma ended up with a superb 94 not out, and Woodley scored 204 for 9 from their 40 overs, but would the score have been less if The Marmanator had been asked to bowl his remaining four overs?

One doubts it, but he would surely have bowled better than the filth of Mahmood, Rai and Bhatt. (And Bowry).

Anyway, the players left the field in a ravenous state and then sat idly in the clubhouse, hoping that Bill Nicholas had come up with a rescue-plan for the tea. The Club Chairman however had not been seen for nearly three hours, very strange given that he was only supposed to be collecting the special guest umpire from Denham train station - a mere five minutes away.

But just as the players were about to call the game-off due to under-nourishment, Nicholas re-appeared in a very flustered state. The first thing the players noticed was that there was no special guest umpire with him, not really much of a surprise. But the more observant saw that Nicholas's tank-top had changed colour to a very strange shade of red. Some would even have said that it was blood red. Nicholas then produced a large pot from behind his back which he told the players contained the world's finest curry.

It seemed the game had been saved! The teams then began consuming the curry but to some it tasted a bit weird - a bit like chicken but not quite… Others enjoyed the taste, saying that it definitely had a Carribean flavour to it. Eventually, someone plucked up the courage to ask Nicholas what he called his delicious dish.

"Oh," began Bill, "It's a…" he paused, "It's a…" he paused again, "It's called a… Usain Bolti!"

And it was then that the players realised what had happened. Nicholas laughed hysterically to himself as the players finally understood what a sick and deranged Chairman they had. Everybody stopped eating, and a collective subconscious decision was made to deny what had just taken place.

The cannibals quickly returned to the field, hoping that the cricket would distract them enough not to remember. Luckily a distraction occurred straight away, as the Denham innings suffered a minor setback when Hemen Mehta lost both his wicket and his life in just the third over. A beautiful quick delivery from Ali bowled Mehta off stump, and unfortunately one of the bails flew up at an incredible speed through his eye and into his brain, causing death instantly.

The Denham players were quite phlegmatic about the incident, realising that no-one was to blame. Furthermore, they still had 9 wickets to play with and every chance of victory. Therefore Mehta's corpse was quickly lifted off the pitch by the Denham players before being deposited in a skip on Cheapside Lane, and the game continued.

Mahmood (22) and Bowry (19) then built something of a platform for the innings but both lacked the patience to face the task in front of them. The same cannot be said about Bobby Rai and Bitchie Raithwaite.

The two BR's shared a fantastic fourth wicket partnership of 105 runs before Rai was superbly caught by Tamang for 61. And at this moment the game was brought to life as Alan Wiggett came to the crease. Having not played a game since 1971, one can only guess at how astonishingly old Wiggett is, but his age was no barrier as he hit one humungous four over midwicket that received a standing ovation from the Denham fans. They were soon disappointed when Wiggett's cameo of eight ended, but each of his runs was worth at least a hundred of Bobby Rai's.

So with the score on 193-5, and Bitchie Raithwaite still at the crease, the game seemed to be heading for an unexciting conclusion.

Then just as the Denham fans were leaving Bitchie played one of the greatest shots of all-time, and there is no word of a lie about it!

Struggling to clip the bowler away through a heavily guarded midwicket field, Raithwaite switched his grip and played a delightful reverse-swipe over cover point's head for the single that brought up his fifty! Sadly Bitchie was bowled next ball in an attempt to repeat the shot of the century and this meant that the two Bhatt's, Harish and Kerval, were left to score the winning runs.

But by this point everyone had stopped watching, as they were too busy worshipping Bitchie Raithwaite in the changing rooms.

At the end of the day it seemed that events on the cricket pitch had been sufficiently exciting to avoid remembering the dreadful events at tea-time, and Denham fully appreciated the efforts of Woodley's youngsters, who deserved to win the game. If it hadn't been for Man-of-the-Match Bitchie Raithwaite, they would have done so easily. Well done Woodley.

Next week Penn Street (Away).

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