Hawkley vs Wield, Sunday 19th August
Weather - Hot Hot Hot
Match summary – A Wield win against all the odds (ie no players!!)
Well, if slaving away over a hot stove all week preparing teas for a goddam cricket match wasn’t enough, they then go and ask you to write a stoooooopid match report on the whole sorry affair afterwards....... I’m really not in the mood for this....
The trouble with 40 over games, is that it rules out the possibility of a draw, which then rules in the ugly and stark possibility and probably probability of being beaten twice in one weekend (if you are lucky enough to be able to play God’s great game twice a week), which I always find, gets the following week off to a poor start. If being beaten regularly is really your thing, then can I suggest that the flagellation could and probably should be done behind closed doors, in the privacy of your own home and not in public for everyone to snigger at. Timed matches, on the other hand, can be deviously manipulated by holding back your experienced Barry Blocker batsman until later in the innings, where, once the other younger and inexperienced batsmen have screwed it all up, Barry Blocker can go in, do his stuff and hold out for a face and esteem saving draw. Give me a win and a draw or a loss and a draw all season long. Forget the unlikely event of a win and a win and hedge your bets to avoid being beaten twice in one weekend. So.... where to start then...?
I was miles in – despite all the moaning and whinging I was not run out. Umpires do not make mistakes, no matter how blind, deaf or ugly they are – Umpires are never wrong - final, ok? I quite like Umpires actually. And thank God too that I had the worst keeper in Hampshire (the world’s largest cricket league) standing behind me, otherwise my dreadful 2012 season would have been even worse. I poked and prodded around for a 30, young Jack Robson – Wield’s young Hampshire prodigy – faced some chin music whilst being wound up by the Umpire for not saying ‘please’ and ‘Umpire, sir’ every time he asked a question, which took the opposition’s mind off things for a bit. Jack top scored but that’s really all I can tell you about Wield’s innings, as, after I was caught out by some bloke wearing a Radley shirt, I departed to the fine kitchen at Hawkley (winner of the HCL’s 2011 award for ‘most improved ground’) to prepare teas for everyone, which involved trying to figure out how to turn the oven on and hiding all the goodies from the kids to stop them from nicking all the sausage rolls and brownies.
Hard to tell with the Hawkley batsmen because they all came and went so quickly......the first one was walking back after only the second ball – a beauty – where did that one come from, eh? The bloke wearing the Radley shirt did ok for a while I suppose, he ended up with a 50 odd, which I’m pleased for him........I have fond, fading memories of when I used to knock out 50’s on what seemed to be quite a regular occurrence, but anyway, that’s besides the point. Shortly after Hawkley successfully set about the Wield opening bowlers, the Wield skipper took off the youth and opted for a bit of experience instead, where upon, a classic grenade fight kicked off. Now, if you thought that the Geddes P (legendary Wield player) grenade was scary, I’m telling you – it’s nothing compared to the Wickson P grenade. Drafted in from the Hampshire seniors, the Wickson P grenade makes the Geddes P grenade look like it should be flogged off to a developing South American dictatorship or towed out into the Channel and used as target practice by the Royal Navy. A Wickson P grenade is the new, sexy, American version, straight out of the top knicker drawer – laser guided and launched from an un-manned drone by a mental CIA pilot in Langley. Hawkley had no chance. Grenade after sick grenade rained down on the poor, terrified, unsuspecting Hawkley batsmen, untrained and ill-equipped to deal with them accurately landing on a deadly line and length, blowing the Hawkley players apart in all directions. It was horrific. There were bits of blown up Hawkley cricketers strewn all over the outfield, bits of batsman in the hedges and in the tree. Some Hawkley players were seen crying and blubbing as they trudged back to the pavilion as a river of Hawkley blood ran down the hill from their new club house. The Weld youth players jumped in and out of the puddles of blood, trying to splash each other as it flooded the wicket. All in all it was a bit dull and not very exciting actually – I’m not into flogging dead horses, so instead, I’ll leave you with something to savour, which I think you may approve of, because, every last morsel of the tea I made for everyone had been devoured utterly, leaving nothing but a few crumbs and a sorry looking bit of old crust, all in all, the best part of the day I thought.
Toby’s brownies:
Ingredients: 185g unsalted butter 200g
bar of good dark chocolate
85g plain flour
40g drinking chocolate powder
200g bar of good white chocolate, each chunk cut into quarters
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar
Fill a large pan with hot water and heat on stove. In the pan, place a bowl and in the bowl, put the butter and dark chocolate in to melt down to a liquid. Careful not to get any water mixed in with the chocolate and butter. Put it to one side when it is all melted and liquid. Turn the oven on to 180°C / fan 160°C / gas 4. Coat a baking tray with a thin layer of butter to stop the mixture from sticking to it. Sieve the flour and drinking chocolate powder into a bowl. Add the 3 eggs and the sugar. Whisk it all up, which you should do for quite some time, until thick and airy. Fold in the melted chocolate and butter to this and then add the white chocolate chunks. Pour it in to the baking tray and pop the lot into the oven for about 25 mins. Once cooked, resist the temptation to get stuck in straight away and allow the brownies to cool. Cut them into squares and hide them away from everyone else in a large biscuit tin.
Oh! Wield won by the way, by about 50 odd runs.
Toby Flack
