GT LEADS BOWLERS’ CHARGE THRU EMBASSY GATES

by Ian Gason

First up, I just wish to apologise for not getting the post-game beers cold enough. No excuses, I simply forgot to top the ice up at the combini. A serious deriliction of duties which is further proof that my days in the F&B industry are done and dusted. I thought running out of JD the other night was bad enough, but this was personal. If ever there was a day where the cricket was a secondary consideration, yesterday was it.

Wombats simply steam-rolled their way through Embassy for a ten wicket win, with less than 40 overs needed to comlete the whole match. Embassy’s struggle for numbers goes on, a plight with which we sympathise, and the side they out out was no match for us. Having dodged the Sharks’ plasticine bullet last week, we were fired up to play some good hard cricket and showed no mercy to our opponents.

GT lost the toss, and Wombats were asked to field. Our warm up catches and throwing probably gave Embassy hope, but the imposition of the skipper at the front of the attack smashed those hopes in the first over. 1-1 after 3 balls via a soft c&b was not enough for GT, who then out bowled his opposite number Brent before foreclosing on his castle in the 3rd over. 2-3 in the 3rd.

Restored as an opener, Dutchman Big Gay Al Koolhof further eroded Embassy’s cause with a ball that was pure serendipity, swinging in to send Wickramaratana’s middle stump tumbling. Mr Dexterious finished with 1-7 from 4, and GT 2-7 from 5. His crashing through the top order set the tone for the day, and won him the Hardys Man of The Match.

Kyal and myself were the first changers, and continued the wrecking. A crap ball was met by a crapper shot to get my first, and Kyal’s persistence as awarded in his 3rd with the veteran Chris Thompson’s wicket.

Dhanuka (36*) was the only one pissing in our milkshake, playing sensibly and solidly as wickets tumbled all around him.

GT’s clued-in bowling changes worked again as “Robert” Kumar was the 3rd of 4 Wombats to get a wicket with their first over. BG Al, whose catching is generally far better than his famous fielding, had bleated about wanting to field in the in-field, and didn’t let his skipper down when he wrapped his armpit around a drive at mid-on.

Punch and Mura-ken came and went without the scorer’s pencil sharpener’s seeing the light of the day. Jarrad Shearer claims his shy at the bowler’s end with no-one within cooee of backing up was all part of The Big Plan to get Dhanuka off strike, so Robert Kumar could get the number 10 caught at slip.

A Keystone Wombats moment at the square leg boundary wrapped up the innings. Despite the long grass, I wasn’t sure of super athlete Kasun’s chance of cutting the ball off, so at my urging he dived- even though he was over the ball. Perhaps this is why the batsmen tried for a second. I wasn’t expecting Kasum to lob the ball up to me, but he did and the team-work paid off with some classic, Yes-No-Wait-Sorry running and a run-out.

90 or 91 was no target to defend, even with a slow outfield.

Dhanuka did bowl with good pace and accuracy, causing a few concerns for stalwarts Shearer and Beath. The peanut gallery busied itself winding up the new number 3, BG Al Koolhof, describing in exaggarated tones the pace, bounce, swing, movement. Every beating of the bat, every wrapping on the pad had GT’s thanking him for going in ahead. When Japan’s leggie Mura-ken was introduced, poor Al was reminded of that dipping, drifting, fizzing ball that spat out of the rough to remove Rhino in last year’s Ashes. “Just slog” was the only advice we could possibly offer him.

Meanwhile in the middle, Dino and Jesse made light work of the task. Beathy belted 19 off one Brent Kinnimont over, and 14 was taken from Mura-ken’s second. We passed the half way mark in the 6th, and the only danger seemed to be BECC running out of balls. Beath lofted one onto the far bank of the river, and put another one somewhere in the jungle. An upper cut over point for 6 was probably the shot of the day.

The scorers hadn’t yet accurately established just how many Embassy had scored, but the debate, and all possible dangers to Big Al’s well-being, was ended by a booming Jarrad Shearer (25*) six to take us to 93 and strand Beath on 48* .

With the quick finish, some opted for a frollick in the polluted river, while the sensible among us who couldnt be arsed moving sat around and shot the shit. While a hard fought game would’ve been nice, a leisurely few hours on lounging around on the grass ain’t a bad thing. And if you can give a shoulder massage to the young lass doing the scoring on Fuji I, well that’s even better.

Driving home in bright day-light didn’t encourage the revelry. Not a lot to highlight, and not a Jones in sight made for a lack-lustre opening. The only solution was for us to descend head first into the gutter. Highlights and low-lights of our international and domestic experience provided a van-load of laughs and vital team-bonding. He of the 7-wicket haul seemed to think we over-do the smut, and kept trying to rig Adam’s bat-phone up the the audio gizmo so we could listen to Pommie commentators have jolly themselves over some tail-end slogging.

Wombats enter the finals again undefeated, and although maths ain’t my strong point, I think we should finish top with 4 wins and a draw. Keep an eye out for a profanity-laced email from Rowdy Grant Turner about trainings, and tell those Swedish nympho-twins that you are busy the first and last weekends of September. And if you don’t like smut then think of something else 11 boozed up blokes in a van can talk about. Neo-classical Greek sculpture?