OUCCC vs Sandford St Martin

at Mansfield Road, July 16th 2000

We made 215, Sandford St Martin lost in boring fashion. Now the details.

Despite telling us that game started at 2pm, Skip realised it was probably a 2:30 start. This was at 1:30 when there was no sign of the opposition. He's quick, our captain. When the oppo did arrive, all 10 Manny Road players were involved in the best slips catching exhibition in recorded history.

After winning the toss and deciding to bat, Skip tried some McNally-style captaincy by opening with Eddie and Nigel. Fortunately, the bowling was nothing special and things were going fine, until Major Bielby fired Nigel. In an amazing display never before witnessed by this correspondent, Nigel then gave a list of reasons why he was out! We were disappointed to find out that the children in Sandford's side were only there to make up the numbers, since they didn't get a bowl. Almost everyone got a start against the grownups, but only Carlos went on with it - not in the least bit assisted by being dropped at least four times. With 150 looking at times out of the question, the big man cut loose after drinks and plundered the attack. Unfortunately he fell just short of a century, finishing on 99 not out. He consoled himself with the fact that he had run out two Antipodians. For future reference, this is generally not considered a good thing!

When we took to the field with only 10 men, the slips were not utilised. Not even when Stu Grieve's better half arrived and filled in. By the way, we now know that Raj fields WORSE than a girl. In Skip's defence:

only one ball went through the slip area at catchable height, and
having caught everything when it didn't matter, we certainly wouldn't have caught anything when it counted.

Stu Grieve enticed one of their openers to tonk one to Charles who was expertly placed on the boundary. Rob sneaked one through the defences of the other opener and we were into the kids. A fine edge removed one of them before Dave "The Child Molester" Frame was brought into the attack. He displayed his inability to dismiss anyone older than sixteen, but we didn't get to see if he molests young girls as well as he molests young boys. After that, the bowling was pretty much rotated but we didn't manage to dismiss all of them. Deciding to open the batting with Nigel turned out NOT to be Skip's worse decision of the day. Stu Grieve's better half displayed a similar ability to pitch the ball short, but looked better as she ran in.

I have no excuses for a lackadaisical keeping performance, apart from:

a lifeless pitch which resulted in many balls needing to be taken on the half-volley
a less-than-effective set of fingers on my right hand
the lack of a challenging bowler (e.g. Tony Mc) to keep to
no one in the slips to talk to and to keep me awake
my batting performance (bowled for 22 by a full toss from a spinner) which was met with at least two calls of "That's f*cked your average" from my teammates
years of emotional torment inflicted by the female population of the planet
the realisation that as I am no longer a student, having done no work for two weeks probably isn't good enough
the prospect of early beer disappearing as we failed to clean up the tail in timely fashion
disinterest in the game overflowing from all those not committing themselves to playing on Sundays or training during the week
concern that my emails may sometimes be taken more seriously than they are intended to be.

If you have any comments about these pages, please email Anthony O'Dea (odea@physchem.ox.ac.uk) or Paul Miyagawa (paul.miyagawa@somerville.oxford.ac.uk).