As I sit here at home in Coates Towers most of the
tour party will still be safely tucked up in
 bed
and some will be at the Norbreck HoteL, who knows what happened
overnight. During the day however there was the small matter of a
match at St Annes Cricket Club. Dave tells me that I need not
mention the details of the game, they will apparently appear on the
same page for those who are vaguely interested. The weather forecast
was for heavy showers, about as accurate as some of our bowling, way
off the mark. We played the match in glorious sunshine.
When we eventually got the often badly
spelt Matthew Corbett look-alike Andy Ivill out of bed we were able
to set off. Andy had tunneled his way back into Colditz Castle at
7.00 a.m. from a poor night at the casino. He
managed to recoup his money by selling a bat to Macca who went on to
predict he would score a fifty with it . He was so confident that he
wagered a tenner on himself to do so. There were two takers. Graham
Dobson had celebrated his 100th jesters appearance the night before,
but looked pretty chipper as he cycled to the middle in tandem with
debutante Stuart Smith. Dobby should have reached his milestone on
the previous day but the postcode lottery that is today Jesters
preferred selection process had prevented this. After a display by a
formula one grass-cutter the crowd were treated to some elegant
shots by the openers and
 some
very impressive fielding by our hosts. Stuart reached his fifty and
chose to mark it, not with the traditional raising of the bat, but
with a rather jolly and cheery wave to the crowd of bemused
onlookers. Macca came in and duly scored his fifty with a display of
belligerent hitting and fine timing. Someone else must have scored a
few runs as we ended with about 190 ( see above for full details )
The skipper had been under a great deal of
pressure from the players regarding the batting order and even
selection. Fortunately some players made valiant gestures to miss
games and move down the batting order, a big thank you to them. It
would have been very easy to bring back our opening bowlers but Dave
resisted and made sure every body had a bowl, playing
the game in the friendly spirit that Jesters cricket should be
played. The Jesters fielding varied from the brilliant to the
mediocre and with nine wickets down, byes
 brought
the winning runs for the home team. We clapped off Andy Ivill for
his fifty behind the sticks, at times he had looked like he had
Sooty on one hand and Sweep on the other, but there was a lightning
stumping off the skipper, so he will definitely do the job again. We
would have clapped off Andy Grey for a splendid bowling performance
but he had gone to see what Carl and Dave had won at the pleasure
beach. Thanks to St Annes for a great game that embodied all that
friendly cricket is about and we hope that we will all be back next
year. I also hope that all the tourists will want to tour again,
even Stuart Smith who got back to the hotel only to find Scotties
old friend Mr Le Fevre in his room, but it all got sorted. Just like
the cricket.
Post tour catching competition update:-
D.Bell=4, RL=5, The Hills=2, Ives=3, Scottie=0
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