Week one saw a very enjoyable morning, with much hilarity had by all, with the possible exception of the two times the umpire was a dick to the man of the hour.
We essentially forced the opposition to bat first so we could open the bowling with Luke Skywalker, Unsurprisingly, he had the ball on a string, but sadly didn’t get the wicket. A quick change into the keeping gear had him do a tidy couple of overs behind the stumps to Marty and Gus, not the slowest attack we’ve had this season. First dick umpire moment was denying Jimbo a spectacular caught behind off something that sounded pretty woody. Anyway.
Malabar were pretty aggressive early on, and got a few away too, but eventually the pressure told and the first of many skiers went up, and was taken. The odd boundary kept them in it, but wickets fell relatively regularly, no doubt with the batsmen feeling under pressure with Skywalker all up in their grill under a lid. While they had 110 on the scorebook by drinks, they were also 6 down, with veteran Gladdies Binya and AJ Snr doing the business. The Ladies Auxiliary also did the business at drinks, with gin and tonics all round, added to with a magnificent spread put on by Jamie.
Lach, Jamie and Marty again knocked off the 4 wickets required after drinks, with Skywalker taking yet another skier at square leg the obvious highlight. 159 was the damage, but more importantly, the Kid from Tatooine would have his chance to open. He looked magnificent, but after only 2 runs the umpire pulled dick move 2, giving the first and only lbw of the day, to a ball that was looking pretty high and down leg for most. Shithouse. The rest of the innings wasn’t that great either, with a lightning 20 from Marty the only highlight as we finished on 4/50. So only 109 to go, but only 6 wickets in hand, with Dan and Jimmy D opening up next week.
A very solid partnership between Dan and Binya wrapped up first innings points for the Gladdies week 2, before all hell broke loose in junk time. We scored 109 in the 25 overs to drinks, then another 80 afterwards, followed by a cool 160 from Malabar. 6s and dropped catches were the order of the day as everyone lived the backyard cricket dreams with essentially nothing to play for but good times. Good times. Except for those who dropped catches, obviously.
Jimbo successfully got married that afternoon (Congrats again buddeh!) and many Gladdies represented at the reception, so again, good times. Bad Sundays.