IPH 117/3 (Thed 25*, Pavan 25*, D'Silva 25*, Holmes 2-28) beat Jags 116/6 (Muzzah 58*, Brett 19, Parrish 15) by 7 wickets.
MOTM - Muzzah
The scorebook is an absolute mess and ergo cannot be relied upon for the basics so this is a best efforts abbreviated match report.
England were playing the Democratic Republic of Congo in a World Cup knockout fixture and availability of the players was therefore somewhat limited. There is something about any nation that has a name like, "Democratic Republic" that suggests to me a chequered past or present, it's got a weird nominative affirmative quality to it, like the country is trying to scream to the world not-at-all-convincingly that it is absolutely definitely democratic and totally legit or something. Having said that, I know not an awful lot of about DR Congo (other than that they played some pretty good kickball against England by all accounts) and that the full name of our nation is the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" which in these times, you could really pick apart just as easily....
Anyway enough politics/random stuff that's in my head. This team are called IPH, but I think it's one of the many guises that the Old Monks go under, a team of travelling cricket afficionados who play well wherever they go and seem to have an endless rolodex of good cricketers. Owing to the football we had 8 players scraped together, and were pleased just to get a game on at the the lovely Queens. Matt was back from Chicago and fresh off a steroid injection was ready to skipper and bat again. Hoorah. I ended up opening with Brett mainly as I had some kit on around the start point, and lasted 4 balls - three prodigious away swingers were followed by a straight in swinger that pinned me absolutely plumb LBW. I'm no longer good at cricket, if I ever was, but I've also had the misfortune to face mostly good accurate at the stumps bowling in all the 50 odd balls I've faced this year - and as is often the case with cricket, the gods are for you or against you at any given point, and there is nothing you can do about it. Perhaps that is why this particular group use a religious theme; hoping to curate the favour of the cricket gods.
Holy Rollers?
Brett and Parrish got down to business, it was nice to see the skipper back and bits I recall where a cover drivey type shot and Brett hitting it high repeatedly using a combination of golf and cricket in equal measure. Having plundered 10 from an over, Brett continued to go hard and lofted one to the offside that was snaffled. Parrish kept going, with Dale, who I think was caught and Jake was then bowled, bringing Muzzah to the crease and lowly number 6, mainly as his dad had turned up without his kit so he had to bat lower down. Scoring picked up at this point, a late cut, lovely pull and some classic Parrish biffing got the game going. Parrish eventually fell caught high ish for 15, but it was nice to see him doing the business again in any form. Muzzah had to retire on 29* (to return later), and Dan was out for a bit before being bowled right arm around.
Speaking of which we had a lot of weird bowling here - left arm round, right arm round, and one guy who bowled left arm round and right arm round in the same over... Oz joined proceedings for a bit with his son, who got 50 and then Oz was bowled. The skipper of the opposition graciously allowed us to have one of more terrible batsmen come back in to give them a total to bat towards and Holmes followed up his 0 with 14. Muzzah cruised to 50, all class and no cabbage, and his 50 celebration coincided with Harry Kane scoring for England.
116/6 was never going to be enough on a spongey wicket against a team almost exclusively comprised of cricketers, and given we would have a very gappy field with 8, there would be runs scored with ease.
We started well with Brett and Dale doing really nice things and the batsmen playing and missing or defending mostly. Dale did his best Morgan Yaxley impression and Muzzah behind the stumps was absolute butter with the gloves, standing up and taking fast stuff easily. Jake did some bowling, there was some chat, Harry Kane scored to defeat an impoverished and war torn African nation in the kickball, and we just enjoyed basically riffing off each other and bantering in the a field on a Wednesday evening. Holmes with his pink hat, Matt chuntering away and ranking my chat between "Phillips" and "actually quite funny" depending what inane chatter I came up with lately. Wickets didn't fall and they took their time against a modest total, but we honestly couldn't care less.
Oz bowled, and owing to "excessive late spin" according to the umpire, he had a couple of wides given and gave the umpire a few pieces of his mind.
Then Barker arrived and things suddenly livened up. He was dressed in non-cricket attire having umpired or scored at some sort of professional game involved Essex Ladies, but somehow had his spikes to hand, and came on to bowl, getting a wicket first ball LBW. Holmes then got one, chipped high and caught in the ring by Mr Parrish (who honestly made it look like a worldy purely by massively misjudging it), and he got another skied to I think Barker himself - the effervescent Lassie turning up and make the game all fun and exciting all of a sudden. It might have been Parrish, who knows, I'm giving it to Barker for giving us a flourish of a finish.
Parrish finished off the bowling - a true sight to behold, and the umpire did not want to give the extras that his wayward bowling merited as that is a bad way to finish a game. I was briefly warmed up to have a bowl, but the skipper thought better of it - better not take the piss eh chaps.
In the end, they got there, but we didn't care. A makeshift 8/9 had played the full 40 overs, done some cricketing things, and definitively won the banter battle. The sensible finish time meant we retired to the Red Bull, had pizza and beer and Oz told me how he'd used to get drunk in my garden when the previous owners were then the current owners, and there had been a secret back gate that no longer exists. Different times.
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