Round 1 - 25th September 1999

Crusaders v. St George's at KCC
Result: Crusaders won by 89 runs

"Ben Binned"

We had a full strength side with Beefy, Don't Call Me Nicky and Hutch without Crutch playing. Rob Wilkins umpired the game. Crusaders won the toss and batted. Taz Devil smashed 73 and Bionic Brewbags with his new arm 48, with Lards chipping in 28, seeing us through to a total of 229.

The St George's captain opened the batting and objected to Rob and his guide dog standing as umpire, so we obliged and they sent out their own. Well, it was clear that the HKACUS umpire's course was aptly timed the previous week and also apparent that none of the St George's umpires had ever been near any semblance of an umpire's course - to their own detriment. Especially when a Beefy beamer was smashed from throat high to deep fine leg where Hyphen's twin brother caught the ball. Beefy took 4 wickets and Hutch 2 before breaking down due to nocturnal overtortional insertional thrusting of the superior gluteus maximus. We did challenge one LBW appeal (a yorker on the back foot hitting all three) and their umpire replied "Not out because you gave not out too" - ha, a new umpiring term. The visitors made 140 thanks to a left handed baseball player who hit most shots with the back of his bat.

The visitors elected not to share the chit and departed right after the game for the Lan Si Fat area of Shenzhen.

At KCC: Crusaders 229-9 in 33 Overs (D Green 73, R Brewster 48; T Dias 6-54, M Akhtar 3-49) beat St George's 140 (Zaffarullah 65; A Baker 4-43) by 89 runs

Tartars v. Gap Ramblers at MR
Result: Tartars won by 49 runs

Friday - 1.46pm - less than 24hours to go and an email arrives on my desk telling me between Papu (Tarts skip?) and David Arthur we have 5 men for tomorrows game. What do we do? !

I guess COC/cum x-skipper had to sort this out as usual - I guess that's why I'm there. Bit of arm-twisting, bit of fast recruiting and maybe a bit of false promises led to at least 10 men being there by mid-day Saturday. A brain wave resulted in Chandru Panjabi being called up (a mere coincidence he lived 2 minutes from Mission Road) and we had 11. Of course in getting 11 men, it also solved the whole seasons problem of scrapping a team together. Anyhow being also asked to skipper meant the season had to get off on the right foot and at least I won the toss and decided to bat since I had mostly an unknown quantity playing.

David Arthur and TR Kalywhateverishisname were asked to open and TR debuted with a fine 51. David supported him well giving him the strike until he was yorked for 10. "Jonty" Malhotra ("Scarface" last season) continued his impressive form scoring 46 and Lama as usual came and went with a whimper. Yours truly added a quick 30 before losing his bearings and going on walkabout to be run-out although the opposition keeper claimed a stumping - fine stumping standing back 15 yards or so. Shiraz Faizi came in and bludgeoned a quick 30 in 11 balls to leaves us at 228-7, with young 17 year old newcomer Dharmik Kumar scoring 2 huge sizes in his 17. Not a bad total for the first game up.

Gap Ramblers began their reply with one batsmen intent on blocking it out and the other walking to the off-side and twatting everything over mid-wicket - bit of a one shot Joe. He got 93 though with that shot. Faizi bowled tightly and South African Kevin McGill swung that ball appreciably. He's probably wondering what sins of his forefather he is atoning for being in the Tarts. Never mind Kevin - Afrikaans and Hindi are similar languages.

With no breakthrough in sight Lama replaced Kevin and Yours truly replaced Faizi and ol' blocker promptly skied one to Jonty for a safe catch. Thereafter it was just a slow painful crawl for Gap Ramblers to reach 177-5. Bowling was BG 2-36 and returning ex-Crusaders pro Sanjay Bhimsaria taking 2-17. Late recruit Chandru showed his prowess as a fielder saving a few boundaries on to a stiff body at the end. I promise you a bat next game.

One incident of note and perhaps a comment from the Chairman of Umpires might be warranted of a batsman coming in to bat with a runner. The batsmen hit the ball - a single was scored and the batsmen went walkabouts on completion of the run to be run-out immediately. No "dead ball" was called and it happened simultaneously as the run was completed. In my books he was out being out of the crease - but the opposition did not see it our way. C'est la Vie. Whadddayaasay Jim…

At MR: Tartars 228-7 (TR Kalyanaraman 51, J Malothora 46; Murphy 3-45) beat Gap Ramblers 179-5 (P Winchcomb 93) by 49 runs