The Silence Of The Lambs

The Bish

Largo visited Arboretum on Saturday scrapping for their first division lives. However the hosts continued to show the form that has driven them onwards and upwards this season and showed no mercy to the promising, but ultimately too inexperienced visitors.

The Cross batted first on a bogeyish track (soft, green & a bit runny) that required application from the batsmen. Well, ordinary batsmen. Rintoul, opening the bowling from the North Pole end, chided Owais for not being able to reach a wide in a surreal attempt to draw the batsmen into a war of words. Mazher’s response was to let his back take the flak and his bat do the chat. Owais appears to play the game on a strip of his own blasting his way to 22 from 17 balls before mistiming one of his booming off-drives to mid off. A little appetiser before the main course on Sunday as it turned out.

Future Hall-of-Famer, Ellis Jr joined the entrenched KF, who continued in a sort of supporting role before being emptied by “probably the ball of the decade” (my words) in the 23^rd over with the score on 79 for an unattractive 20 from 64 balls. This brought the skipper into the middle.

CJE, already in his stride and ECS building steadily began to put a really solid platform in place. Whilst the young Largo bowlers lacked any real bite (plenty bark), Frohlich apart, they showed good control and excellent variation to keep our 3 & 4 honest. Over time, our patience was rewarded. 200 would’ve been nice, 220 probably more than enough and anything else a bonus.

As the Largo kids began to wilt, the skipper in particular punished any loose balls. Charles was next to fall as we moved up through the gears for 85. Shannon added 17 in no time, refusing to face a dot ball for most of it, giving Spickers three deliveries at the end to make 2 not out. The skipper meanwhile stayed right to the end, succumbing only to a suicidal run out off the last ball. His knock of 78 included 4 (four, yes FOUR) maximum’s, three of which received heckles from the non-striker that he only had one shot. The 4^th six dispelled such notions disappearing back over the bowlers head.

The innings came to rest at 238-5. This after passing 100 in the 32^nd over illustrates how well we built on a solid start. I was impressed with the crop of Largo youngsters who all bowled and fielded well.  I’m going to mention Ryan Brown (7-1-31-0) in particular, but that’s a little unfair on the rest. They’ll be a much tastier adversary in 3 or 4 years time as, I’m led to believe, they have plenty more youngsters throughout their 4 XI’s.

After another fine Tea by Eminem, Smith opted to open with Bimboridge at the South Pole End. He struck with his third ball getting Speering to ‘do a Ziggy’, raising arms to a jab-backer that clipped the off peg. If not a fatal blow to the reply, it sprang a proverbial leak at the waterline.

The other opener was soon removed by The Bimbo (10-1-30-4) before, in one fine spell, a trail of destruction was scorched through the Fifers middle order by our own Fifer, Gary T (10-2-23-4).

Bonfield (9-1-22-0) used his two spells to write another thrilling chapter in his 1,001 Ways To Avoid Taking A Wicket. It fell to third change chucker, auxiliary Bishop Lynch (5.3-0-11-2) to bounce out the last two little lambs, both pouched behind by the ever reliable voice mail interceptor, Si Hackering.

Dougie (3-0-12-0) was the only other chucker on the day. 100 all out and more points in the bank as we look for our best league finish in over a decade.