Wombats Spanked by Supun

by Adam Cronin

T’was a fine day in May, when the Wombats took on Max at Sano 1, though alas for our stout marsupials, the fine weather belied the carnage to take place at their expense.

All started well in the field, with plenty of chanter and fiery spirit from the Wombats – met fairly by some fine batting from the opposition. The batting team soon made their intent clear however, smashing boundaries from anything loose (and sometimes not) in the early overs. The fielding side fought back with some sharp bowling from Solaiman, who removed the openers with some help from a superb catch from Richie at slip. The total at that point looking good for the Wombats at 18 for 2.

Enter Supun.

The Max number three proceeded to demolish any hopes the fielding side may have had of keeping Max to a low total, running our furry, stunted heroes off their feet in the field with a barrage of boundaries. The Wombats spent much of the next few hours shuffling among the bushes in a fair imitation of their pouched namesakes, retrieving balls belted through or over the field, one shot even finding its way straight through Raqib’s hands on the boundary before clearing the rope. Max were soon scoring freely at 8+ an over and looking comfortable.

Then, a ray of hope: Supun caught behind.

Joy soon turned to lament however, as although the nick rang out clearly throughout the ground, disturbed coffee drinkers at the Starbucks in Ueno, and generated a notable tick on the earthquake sensors at RIKEN in Tsukuba, it did not reach the ears of the umpire.

Not out.

Disbelief.

Supun stood firm, either equally depauperate in the hearing department or simply not giving a shit. Adding salt to the wound, he continued to taunt the fielding side with his display of religious fiddling before each delivery, a behaviour which would somehow earn the field side a reprimand from the umpires for taking too long to get through their overs. The ongoing display of penitent masturbation eventually got to keeper Patmore who, having rightly had enough of this, invited the current bowler Deano to meet the next display pace. This he duly did, generating a little surprise from the batsman, a great deal of pleasure for the fielders, but no lasting effects whatsoever.

Soon after Taniyama was given caught behind off a leg-side ball from Raqib, which seemed to all but the umpire (and perhaps a slightly overzealous Raqib) to have only nicked the pad. Empowered with sporting gusto despite the desperate and depressing conditions, Patmore was having none of this, and in one of the few moments of inspiring cricketyness from the Wombats on the day, overturned the umpire’s decision and called the batsman back to the crease.

The Wombats continued to be on the receiving end of Marquis de Sade’s wildest fantasies for the next 156 runs when, finally, the next wicket fell. Patmore was seemingly awestruck to find himself holding the ball next to the stumps with the batsman well out of his crease. He proceeded to take off the bails with uncharacteristic sloth-quickness which made up in effect for what it lacked in speed. 3 for 174.

Another 110-run stand saw the 4th wicket, this time a great catch by Luke off the bowling of Himan, who with this signalled the beginning of a superb 6-fa in the face of what was otherwise a raw display of mass buggery. Wickets fell with regularity following this, though there was plenty of wag in the Max tail with a further 51 runs being added before Max finished their comprehensive decimation of the Wombats bowling attack with nine out.

The Wombats began their chase of 355 with Mike and an underpowered Patmore (courtesy of lingering gastro) striding to the crease. The pair looked solid in the opening overs and piled on a respectable 31 before Mike fell to a great catch by Khan.

The cascade of wickets then began.

Richie entered at first drop, announcing his arrival with a fine pull shot for four early on, though was not to last beyond the next over when he sent a high one straight to Hagihara in the deep.

Himan provided an entertaining cameo at number 6: with wickets tumbling and plenty of overs to come, the new bowling star saw it fit to smash his first delivery for 4. Perhaps then frustrated by a dot on the second, he struck a beautiful reverse sweep on the third, marred only by the fact that it was grabbed by Inagawa in a great one-handed catch.

A stoic team-best 19 by Luke did little to steady the heavily-waterlogged-and-soon-to-plummet-to-the-sea-floor ship, and he eventually fell to some well-pitched spin. This left only the demise of Soli and Ken for the addition of 5 runs, the Wombats finishing with a paltry 88 off 23 overs.

All in all, the day was a resounding thrashing for the Wommies.

If anything positive is to be garnered from the day let us not forget the admirable tenacity displayed in the field despite the fusillade of boundaries, and the respect of the sporting code displayed by the captain in the face of questionable umpiring and some unnecessary shenanigans from the opposition.

Catches

• Richie’s diving catch at slip – very well taken.
• Himan’s caught and bowled – very fast one at chest height.
• Luke’s running catch from long-off boundary to mid-off.

Dropped Catches

• Raqi on the boundary – but he was probably assessing the boundary line as it went for 6.

Quotes

• “Richie needs to be our Spoon today” – Ken to Himan as we needed Richie to score big as we were scoring.
• “I’ve only played slip once in my life and dropped two catches back to back” – “noted” Patmore to Himan
• “Are you guys sharing hotel rooms?” – After Luke and Richie discussing porn channels on Japanese hotel rooms
• Lets knife out the spoon (Supun) said the Kracist, followed by “Lets get the cutlery out boys” by Patmore.

Great Moments in Sport

• Patmore’s stumping.
• Alex reversing umpire decision of LBW to respect the spirit of game.
• Suleman: 2 wickets at the start, one in each over (1st and 2nd)
• High energy in the field, despite being smashed by “Spoon”
• Raqib’s first spell.
• Patmore asks Deano to just bowl one at Supun’s head, while Supun took hours to get ready to face each ball with a f**king prayer, duly collected by Patmore who yells…”Lets get quickly-fucking-ready eh!”
• Himan’s bowling figures – the first-ever 6-fa by a Wombat in a 40-over match

Dummy Spits

• Ken being hungover and missing the team transport – as ex captain Gav was in town the night before…..
• Alex’s ultra slo-mo stumping. Seems like he wanted to check with the leg-umpire first before taking the bails off.

Golden Thong Nominations

• Luke’s bare-arse flash to Richie after going for a swim in the Sano river.