Doing all the hard work and then chucking it all away. It’s a familiar tale for those of us with a little extra meat in the lunchbox, if you know what I mean, love. Now, don’t go calling me a sexist or bigoted or stuck in an age time forgot. It’s not forgotten, my little petal, because I just remembered it! How often it is that we blokes bugger ourselves doing the hard yakka only to fail stupidly before the end? Like spending 30 years of your life building a massive gas pipeline with just your bare hands and scraps of metal recovered solely from clapped out Hillman Hunters, only to celebrate with one fateful cigarette. Or spending weeks coming up with a series of elaborate lies about how you have to work late on a particular night so you can meet that saucy minx Sandra down at the pub only to succumb to a cheeky chilli and garlic kebab on the way home. Not some of my finest moments, but hey, don’t blame me...blame my primal programming! You see, my little honeypot, man has been screwing things up like this since he first crawled out of the cave his ancestors had dug out using sticks just as a herd of starving velociraptors charged past. I mean, what those starving dinosaurs wouldn’t have given for a doner!
Third is a place that, in former times, belonged solely to Kilmington and Stourton. In more recent years, the step to second and promotion has been firmly made. Leading into this weekend, KSCC were a game and a half ahead of third and creeping right up the big hitting backsides of Middlezoy in the race for the Division 2 title. This game provided a chance to keep the pressure on and eliminate one of the challengers for the promotion places when KSCC travelled to 4th place North Newton. The weather was fair with some sun and some cloud about and the wicket looked green. Unfortunately, El Capitan lost the toss and North Newton had no hesitation in sending us in to bat.
And 2 balls later, he was back in the hutch having been caught at first slip from a bouncy delivery. Only facing 5 balls in 2 innings might be OK for Sehwag but it’s not to KSCC standard, so it was for the second week in a row that Rayzzo strode out in the first over. He and Ballistic Tomlinson staged a recovery with contrasting games. Rayzzo chancing his arm going over the field while Ballistic waited for the chance to unleash the pull on what was an unusually bouncy wicket for SCL Div 2. In fact, it appeared to have been conjured from a different continent as the ball zipped through with bounce. Tomlinson became the first of 7 unexpected Mason victims, as likely a venomous serial killer with the ball as a teddy bear. The next 6 batsmen came and went in limp fashion with a clutch of similar looking soft dismissals. Whether a soft dab to a fielder, a mistimed pull or a scooped drive each man found a way to get themselves out without troubling the ‘teens. Rayzzo continued to provide resistance as his partners came and went, but he was also out chipping one into the deep. Tom Barton and Spencer Churchill provided some small fight at the end of the innings but by the point Snooky decided to embrace his individuality by getting bowled instead of caught, KSCC had rolled over inside 38 overs. The meagre total of 136 meant that a monumental effort would be required in the second innings.
Things were tight early. Tommy B was unplayable off a short length as the ball just fired through and womped into Rays gloves ball after ball. Snooky was working away patiently from the other end, getting a bit of swing going. The first wicket and the first lift came early with a run out, but the runs started to come as the ball flew through gaps from good deliveries as Snooky searched for a wicket. Livewire Benny made the next breakthrough, claiming the threatening number 3 by finding the top of leg stump. The next man came in to play aggressively but he lost his partner, the patient opener and captain, when Snooky swung a cracker of a Yorker through his defences. Your Brave Leader also fired a yorker through the batsman but, on the way, inside and outside edges from both ends were flying to the boundary and creeping the total required ever closer. The Golden Boy found two important wickets but they came at the cost of some equally precious runs while The Destroyer played a containing role. Tommy B and El Capitan returned in the roles of closers with 4 wickets remaining and not many runs to protect. However, while Tommy B continued to pound in dots his captain leaked runs in two relatively expensive overs. The game was eventually sealed with an edged 4 off Tommy B, that single shot representing a third of the runs to be taken from his 9 and a half overs.
In the end, another 30-40 runs could have made a very tight and interesting game. However, KSCC were made to pay for another patchy batting effort. In previous weeks, 2 or 3 batsman stood up to provide runs but this week we could only find 1.
With that loss, KSCC fell off the tail of first place Middlezoy and fell back into a nasty scrap for second with Castle Cary, with North Newton hanging further back should both teams slip up.
Batting:
R Rose 53
M Tomlinson 15
T Barton 15
Bowling: o m r w
F Barton 3 0 17 2
B Chant 4 1 20 1
C Hansen 6 0 30 1
S Snook 9 1 32 1
T Barton 9.3 4 12 0 (listed as 1 in the records but it was a run out!)
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