2nds not their usual selves

Ziggy has had his computer adapted which prevents him from ranting between midnight and 7am on Saturday nights.

So as not to disappoint ffs, I shall attempt to give a flavour of the 2nds game.

We simply failed to live up to our usual ineptitude. We went into the game expecting to lose, waded into a fine tea expecting to lose. So where did it all go wrong?

Well Smudger listened to the views of others and decided to bat - how crass was that? While Stirling arrived so early that they managed two laps of the field, lengthy catching practice and a team talk, our pre-match preparation consisted of a few leisurely cigarettes, musing on the number of players who injure themselves in warm-ups - Pistols Legget of Watsonians the latest victim.

Nippun and pvb kindly gave their opponents the start they expected, but then the rather accurate bowling forced Jon and Keith to apply themselves.

The odd dropped chance helped and the odd loose ball was dealt with skilfully, enabling them to score 75 and 35 respectively; we then tried to get Stirling back in the game with 2 lbws and it was time for Holy Cross to revert to type with collapso cricket par excellence; only Usama and Gerry sabotaged the attempt with glorious strokes (Gerry's scoring rate was 266%). 143 all out

I was out on a limb predicting a win at tea with plenty of catches at deep mid off or thereabouts.

After tea it was very unsporting of Usama and Vikram not to serve up the usual pies to our opponents to make them feel at home. Then Stirling's top batsman (515 runs) obviously thought that first change Smudger was a doddle as he tried to put him into Ferry Road but instead nearly put the ball into orbit. Even here, why two fielders did not converge and make a complete horlicks of it is a real mystery; Nippun looked confident, his name rang out and he pouched a fine catch. More excellent catches by Ziggy(2), Josie(2) and Brian, plus Josie's throw straight to Keith's gloves for a runout were just not Crosslike. Smudger took 4-13 before two slogs made it 4-21; Gerry was just as tight, and lots of boundaries were prevented by outfielders. Smudger even devised the most cunning way to get the tailender on strike by offering an overthrow. Jon then nipped in to take out 3 of the tail and be man of the match/ season/ decade.

It was surreal. Stirling sportingly congratulated Jon and said the better team won. Gerry had to pinch himself to make sure it wasn't a dream that we had won two on the run, and jugs flowed for all sorts of reasons or no reason at all.

Will normal service be resumed next week?