Scorecard

Fine session

Greenies 1 put up a brave fight but eventually went down to ByRite at JPO yesterday. The day didn't start well with no sign of Frankie by the toss of the coin. Turned out he had to work but it wasn't the end of the world as a like for like replacement in Matty Jeffers agreed to play at the last minute. I lost the toss & we were sent in to face the music of Conroy & Tulloch. After a very quiet start where Rotsey & Ledge dug in against some pretty decent fast bowling, Ledge decided that he had seen enough Conroy bouncers whizz past his nose & decided to have a crack at one. Much the same as Ricky Ponting, Ledge is not quite picking them up like he used to. Rocking on to the back foot, he swung ferociously at a short ball but was about 3 seconds to late, the ball crashing into his grill. This was not a glancing blow, it him straight on with enough force to dent his grill in, the grill & ball smashing into his nose. Blood everywhere & a rattled Ledge had to retire hurt & went off to hospital for an x-ray where a broken nose was confirmed.

Things went from bad to worse. Shortly after Josh was adjudged to have edged a ball from Conroy that he clearly missed. A couple of overs later, I left a ball just outside off that should have bounced past me at chest height. To my horror, it skidded along the pitch & cannoned into the side of my knee just missing the pad. To add insult to injury, Sam decided that it was going on to hit the stumps. Just when Randall & Jonty started to consolidate, Randall hit a ball through the covers for an easy 2. When turning for the second, Jonty let out a blood-curdling bellow & went down like he had been shot in the back. The discs in his back are playing up & he was in a huge amount of pain. We managed to get him off the pitch in the golf buggy but such was his pain that we need to get an ambulance to stretcher him out of the dressing room. Hospital trip # 2 in the space of an hour. I hope you get well soon mate.

Randall & Hoggy dug in & put together an important partnership with Randall collecting 41 & Hoggy 21. Redsie & Jeffers then combined to collect some valuable runs at the end. Redsie out for 16 & Jeffers 9. A final score of 145 gave us a fighting chance & I'm very proud of the way the middle & lower order fought to get us to that total. At one stage I think we were 30-3 but effectively 30-5 with 2 men in hospital.

We needed early wickets. Josh in his last match for the club bowled as quickly as I have seen him. He got Benji LBW in a similar fashion to my dismissal & was too good for Jaylon & Adrian Wright to the extent that they couldn't even hit the ball. In one over I think he beat the outside edge of Wright almost every ball. Hector bowled well too but we couldn't get the wickets that we needed with the new ball. One of those days where balls just don't go near fielders. Jaylon & Wright both got about 30 & the match was essentially gone. We managed a few more wickets. The most memorable being a direct hit run out by Dave Raj.

In summary, we were always going to struggle after effectively being 5 men down after 15 overs. It was a tremendous effort to make 145 given that, of the top 6, there was no Frankie, 2 batsman retired hurt, one was given out caught behind when he missed the ball & another was duped by the pitch. We needed early wickets to be in with a chance & when this didn't happen, we were always in trouble.

MOM - Randall 41 batted really well.
POTD - Straight drive 4 by Rotsey from Tulloch in the 5th over. He hit it, held his pose & didn't bother running. Fortunately for him the ball trickled over the boundary otherwise it would have been a solid nomination for COTD.
COTD. The votes were tied between Redsie & myself. Redsie turning up heavily intoxicated & proceeded to give us a ball by ball commentary for the first 20 overs. He was blowing so hard after batting that he couldn't bowl. However, I managed to pip him for not actually contacting Frankie during the week.

Special mentions

Josh - Last game for Greenies. Been a pleasure playing with you over 4 years. You have easily been our best player in that time & you're going to be a big loss. Congratulations for being selected to play fly-half for the Cayman National Rugby Team against Bermuda next Sunday. This comes only weeks after Coach Cuffy asked him to play for Cayman in their upcoming tour to Bermuda in May.

Matty Jeffers - Agreed to play at the last minute. Thanks so much for saving us.
Dave Raj & Steve Smith - thanks for fielding for Ledge & Jonty.

J Michael - Would have been won by Ledge for coming back from hospital in a horrible West Bay style, yellow fish net singlet. He left before the fine session so it went to Jeffers for wearing undies that had a big hole in the back.

Spectator of the Day - Matty No Dreads who delivered water onto the field with a beer in hand & no shoes & was consequently waved off by the umpires.