The Mogador Wanderers game against Chipstead & Coulsdon was brought forward in the calendar to try & guarantee better weather and we were rewarded with a scorching Summer's day, as hot as a mutton phal, whilst wearing your Winter woollies. England's World Cup game against Germany meant a 12.30 start and the Mogs won the toss and had no hesitation in batting first. Furner & Tharp opened up and soon had the scoreboard whizzing around with Tharp in particular driving his way to a spectacularly quick-fire 54. Furner went for 10 (up the track inside 10 overs - whatever next?) but Hewitt & Freeland saw the Mogs progress to 103 before Hewitt was caught & bowled by home skipper Mark Ennis. Phil Staverley & Jamie continued to accumulate with Stavros playing the attacking roll and Freeland settling in like a pensioner watching Countdown in his comfiest armchair. Wickets continued to fall with Johnson, Lewis & Hornsey all perishing in the pursuit of quick runs and it was Coxon (12*) and William "Red Ink" Parker who saw the Mogs to 202 for 8 off the amount of time available to us (38 overs) before the World Cup match started in Chipstead's splendid new pavilion.
The Mogs settled in front of the 50" flatscreen, as excited as WAG's with a new credit card and a Victoria's Secrets sale, only to be greeted by the most gutless, half-hearted, spineless, insipid, lazy and skill-less display ever put on by 11 footballers who dared to wear the three lions on their breast. Determined not to let our national team's demise totally spoil our day, we vowed to put Chipstead to the sword and, through the 3 basic elements needed for effective team sport (so lacking in England's display) - skill, endeavour & working as a unit, we duly delivered.
Coxon (1-21) & Lewis opened the bowling and took out the top 3 with a mixture of the very ordinary and the quite extraordinary. Tharp & Freeland both took good catches in the office to remove the openers before Joseph (2-15) produced the ball of the day to remove their best batsmen Postlethwaite, bowled offstump for 0, although the bowler was uncertain as to how we had produced such a "jaffer". Tharpy and The Hornet came on 1st & 2nd change with Tom (1-27) removing Dombrandt courtesy of a good catch by Freeland. Gujral & Sterling took Chipstead to 102-4 at the half way break and the game was pretty even, but shortly after the drinks break, Hewitt produced a howitzer of a throw from the deep cover boundary to remove Gujral for 47 and with that went Chipstead's chances. Freeland cleaned up the tale, taking 4-21 in an excellent spell (including an excellent catch by "Magic" Johnson at mid off, reminiscent of Mike Gatting's catch to remove Dennis Lillee off Bob Willis at Headingley in 1981) and we retired to the pavilion to be entertained by our excellent hosts who had lit the BBQ and put on another barrel of Sussex. In summary, the Mogs are better at Sunday cricket than England are at international football.
PS I am pleased to report that Humph came up to watch us for a couple of hours with David Herring. He was in good spirit, has good days & bad days and is looking forward to the operation on July 12th
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