After a period of inactivity due to the fantastic English summer weather bestowed upon us, the Mogs returned to the road again to take on perennial rivals East Horsley. The hardened members including the returning Faceman sporting the very fashionable 'Jacket' met at the Duke of Welllington pub to be greeted with the news that there was no real ale...
This upset the captain greatly as he had only returned that morning from a 14 day family sortie to France where he had been living on copious amounts of cider and rose and 'had really been looking forward to that pint!' On top of this Alex then told us how the family Hewitt had arrived back to find another family had had a 14 day party in there parlour and these mice were not showing any signs of wanting their party to end even though the owners had returned!
At ten minutes to the hour of 2pm, the Major duly informed us that the start was 2pm and not 2.30pm as we had assumed so the last rights were given to the cider and the Mogs rushed up the road to the picturesque East Horsley Ground to find that Alex's day had not got any better and he had lost the toss and the Mogs would have to run around in the field.
Spurred on by the story of how 3 years prior Mogs were told at the toss how they were a team that never tried to win.... 'Pilau' Rice and 'Monica' Abbott fairly charged in to the Horsley top order and made good use of a slow low track. Pilau was duly rewarded with the first 4 wickets scattering the stumps to all corners, while the Abbott went down to fine leg at the end of each over to moan about his ill luck and the fact that Furner still has more wickets than he does this season....
Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals with the captain resurrecting his day with a couple of Murali masterpieces to completely bamboozle the middle order before taking a superb catch at slip to end the dangerous 'Drake' father and son last wicket partnership and leave East Horsley all out by 4pm with single Nelson to their name(111).
Tea was duly taken between and proved to be a short lived affair especially if you were a smoker as by the time the guys had finished their tobacco products 'OUTSIDE' the hosts had polished off the majority of the tea and what was left was scored a mere 5/10.
Alex decided that with the fact of the strong Mogs batting line up, Colonel Parker was to be invited to stride to the crease with the Little Magician Furner. Although he was helpless as Peter firstly turned down a bye (believing it to be a dead ball) and was then LBW before the Colonel had had a chance to take strike. Indeed it did not stop there as the track that had helped there bowlers showed no sign of now helping the batsmen and Mogs suddenly found themselves 17-5 and in serious danger of a good hiding!
Then Tharpy joined the Faceman and the two rode there luck with aplomb putting together a match winning 85 run partnership - indeed Faceman was extremely lucky as he was dropped twice and played on to his stumps only for the bails to stay firmly stuck on top whilst Tharpy also offered a couple of chances in the deep.
Tharpy fell to one big hit too many with the finish line in sight and it was left to Faceman and young Richard Jones from the Oriel College Croquet team to see the Mogs home. By the time the showers were completed Faceman was then told that he had in fact passed 50 and duly supplied a Jug of real ale to be enjoyed by all.
Onward to face the might of the Pilgrims.......report by Ben fairclough
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