Vice Cap Matt's otherwise quiet Sunday morning was rudely disrupted by a call from the club captain's wife reporting that the unfortunate Hewitt had been confined to the outside toilet for the day after a 'dodgy curry' incident. Tharpey was duly dragged from the dining table just as the roast pots were being dished out, David whisked through customs direct from Tuscany and after some wonderful last minute juggling from the Colonel (now drafted in as the Skipper's curry taster) a full Mog 11 turn up at the wonderful little pavillion in leafy South Nutfield.
Mog tosser for the day, Darrell 'Felix Sanchez' Abbot steps in to toss with the oppo skipper and brilliantly wins on a greenish, hard one. Without without further ado south nutfield are plucked from in front of the nailbiting final test (South Africa 24-1) and put in.
Displaying a refreshing, democratic attitude to captaincy, "who wants to bowl" was the enquiry to a rapidly dressing changing room of Mogs, and in reply a little voice said me! So Jamie takes first ball, steams up the hill, bends his back and yes please! For his 2nd ball the field is changed to 2 slips, 2 gullys a 3rd man and a backward cover point. If he could keep his line and length this was going to be fun...
Keith meanwhile comes on from the other end and is immediately probing away at the batsman's off stick like a bursting doberman in a one-tree field. After a few nicks through the slips, and a couple of sweet drives South Nutfield race onto 20 without loss in 3 overs. Unfortunately this was the sum total of their fun for the day!
Keith zero's in on off stump and its 20-1, and Jamie is happy to take the scalp of the skipper (who took 12 off his last over) bowling him with a leg stump corker - 30-2. Keith being a man of experience suggests Big bad Darrell comes on from his end to double up the pace, but with a few cylinders failing to fire first time, the dark bull of the Mogs has to rely on his command of seam and swing to take it past the outside edge.
Freeland then has a batsmen fending off his chest to a diving Will Parker, (33-3) and the innings goes from bad to worse to mayhem as the wickets continue to tumble. Darrell gets into the act and engages full throttle to bowl the next fella 40-4. Freeland then really slips himself and bounces various catches and edges off the 5 close catchers - excepet Will with the gloves on - to add to another catch behind to an LBW and that's 42-6.
Darrell gets another one caught behind (Will has now gloved 4 victims!) and 44-7 becomes 50-9 at the end of the next Freeland over (contained a caught and bowled and a bowled off the pads), and its nearly 'all over red rover'.
Tharpey's very visible warming up inspires another Abbot yorker and that's it - 56 all out - Darrell 3-15 and Freeland finishing with a magnificent 6-23 (and Matt taking credit for some inspired captaincy!)
Its far too early for tea so its straight back out there after a few cold Stellas (again thanks to Matt) and there go Pete Furner and Stu Jackson - go get em guys! Unforutnately the Mogs slip to 5-1 as Pete Furner, after 'characteristically' hooking his first ball for four, has his first failure of the season to a very good catch at 2nd slip. Could this be one of those days? Could it hell. Stylish Ricardo Moss joins Stu, and with dogged determination, smart running and a smattering of pearly drives they battle their way to 50-1. South Nutfield then cunningly changes the bowling, and after 3 consecutive wides it's game over and the mogs win by a handsome 9 wickets.
Just in time for tea!
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