With our old friends Tadworth winning their Saturday League and celebrating up at The Oval, The Mogador Wanderers were forced to seek a new fixture through the Club Cricket Conference. Temporary fixture secretary Matthew Lewis, did well to ignore the claims of The Arsenal Back Four XI and Chessington Young Offenders CC as he confirmed a fixture against Ockham at their picturesque Hautboy Meadow ground and 11 Mogs, Humph and Umpire Davies eventually arrived on a glorious, warm Autumn afternoon.
Hewitt won the toss and elected to field first on a "sticky dog" of a wicket, which looked to be a bit of a Furner - very slow and a bowlers nightmare. Despite taking the field with just 9 fielders, Ockham were soon in trouble as a recently-married Mackenzie deceived Ockham's skipper with a slower, slower ball, which crept under his bat and gently kissed the stumps. At the other end Jo Lewis, accompanying each ball with a different porn-movie sound effect, also joined the action as he knocked back their No 3's off stump. Despite their being a lot of love in the air, the wickets stopped falling as Mackenzie blew a gasket, Lewis blew a smoke ring and Briggs blew a fuse and Ockham increased their score to 80-2 from their first 20 overs. After the drinks break, a refuelled Abbott joined the action with a bail-splitting straight one whilst leading wicket taker Matthew Lewis took over from a luckless Briggs Snr from the Bonfire-end but soon helped Ockham's run rate accelerate with a skilful offering of long-hops and full tosses. Jamie "Keown" Freeland took over from Abbo at The Hautboy end and despite generating real pace from a dead pitch, retired wicket-less from the attack. Hewitt replaced Lewis and was rewarded 4th ball as Winston gloved one to Wilfy who took a smart catch. Lewis then replaced Freeland and in the last 5 overs, 4 more wickets fell, including 2 run-outs as Ockham were restricted to 176-8 in their allotted time of 150 minutes.
After a brief tea, Mogs openers Furner and Abbott strolled to the crease with the good wishes of their teammates accompanying them all the way to the wicket. This Odd Couple could not be more different, either physically or from a cricketing perspective, and whilst Furner dropped anchor Abbott went aerial. The latter soon perished, as he strolled up the wicket and turned a lovely half-volley into an Akhtar-like yorker. A brooding Freeland entered at No 3 and despite never quite conquering the pace of the pitch, despatched a healthy number of balls to the boundary, before being well caught at mid-on, attempting to straight drive Ockham's persevering Ezra Mosely look-alike. Chairman Martin entered the battle and with 20 overs to go, the Mogs required a round 100 to win the game. David was later in the day caught muttering words like "retirement" and "last game", but again reminded The Mogs what a good batsman he is in a run chase as he drove and pulled like Eddie Irvine on a Saturday night. Even the bespectacled Little Master joined in the fun as, firstly he got one off the square, subsequently followed by some thumping drives, late cuts and even going aerial to the support and encouragement from his colleagues and supporters, many of whom were fuelled by Matthew's "Magic Porridge"-like supply of Stella Artois.
Just as it looked like David & Peter were going to bring us home, David succumbed to a Sally Gunnell (ugly runner) and Huge joined Yoda at the crease, requiring 28 off the last 7 overs. Thanks to three quick boundaries from Furns and some un-inspired fielding from Ockham, the Mogs romped home by 7 wickets with three overs to spare, although Hewitt got one last cheer from the crowd, as he appeared to try and run Furner out with the scores level.
To our great pleasure Ockham had lit a giant barbeque and an EU food mountain of hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken wings accompanied the post-game flagons of beer. Messrs Freeland, Lewis J and Mackenzie all competed for the impromptu Desperate Dan junk food-eating award and it was unsurprisingly won by Tim "More chins than a Hong Kong phone directory" Mackenzie who showed his young rivals what Fast Food is really all about. All in all it was a great day and we are delighted to have already been asked back by our genial hosts next year.
AH
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