Quokkas Cricket Club

Leigh CC 252 all out (Prof 3-11, Faggie 3-44) beat Quokkas CC 131 all out (Prof 29 n/o, Fruiti 22)

I’m just catching up on this year’s contenders for the Darwin awards. Who the hell approaches a wild bear to get a selfie? I know it’s completely heartless, but for the sake of humanity, I can’t help but think we might better off without Mr Bhatara. The narrator of the film Idiocracy put it best:

“As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favoured the noblest traits of man, now began to favour different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilised and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.”

Reality appears to be mirroring fiction. I am Private Joe Bauers waking up from a five hundred year hibernation to find that society is so dumbed down that I am easily the most intelligent person alive. Common sense is no longer common and the ability to repeat `person, woman, man, camera, TV’  is seemingly enough to grant you access to the codes for the US nuclear deterrent. Jeez. Where do I sign up for Who Wants To Be A Zillionaire?

OK, so maybe I’m not the most intelligent bloke in the world, but put me in a room with the dinkles running things on both sides of the pond at the moment and I’d probably be `in the top one’ as one rather famous Yorkshireman once said (Ed: vote Seagull). As they say, you can always tell a Yorkshireman, but you can’t tell him much. Actually, I might be as tight as a Scotsman with the generosity squeezed out of him, but I’m not a Yorkie. My Mum refused to be driven 250 miles north whilst nine months pregnant to ensure that I could play cricket for the white rose county. Despite this, I am definitely of Yorkshire stock as partakers of my Yorkshire puddings will testify. I’m not much of a ferret-legger, but there is plenty of nous and common sense. The latter certainly came in handy on Sunday when choosing to ignore my satnav’s instructions that would have taken me 250 miles north to `Leigh’. As someone that lives a Conan Smash from the Solent, I regard pretty much everywhere as `up norf’, but we were after the tranquil Surrey countryside, not the only place appearing twice in the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu’s `It’s Grim Up North’ .

Unlike most of Greater Manchester, there is nothing grim about Leigh Cricket Club. Unfortunately, we missed out on retrieving countless boundaries from their thorn bushes last year due to a lack of numbers, but thanks to the ever growing Birmingham branch of the Quokkas, and Binman finding a backbone as well as his leathers, we pulled a half decent team together this year. Kanna even turned up to score for the day and boy did he do well to fit all of Radio’s dots into the scorebook. With Skip scouring the country for tour destinations, I took the helm again, and made a host of schoolboy errors, starting with putting them in, allowing them to take full advantage of a road, and then not providing a counter offer to their Skippers’ “40 overs, alright?” which meant we had an extra-long look at that road, with the blazing sun for company.

With no change to our casual approach to timekeeping, we took to the field with nine players, who became well versed at finding balls in the bracken, as the Leigh batsman seemed to hit every other delivery for six. Debutant Ali, who looked like an actual cricketer, bowled their opening batsman and beat the bat numerous times. Faggie, looking more like a man that pretends to own a waterfront flat for a living, tended to find the middle of the bat, but added three more excellent wickets to the season’s haul, somehow.

Runs continued to flow throughout the Leigh innings, mostly from Uwei, who decided not to play for us this year. He raced to his fifty before mercilessly getting himself out attempting a reverse sweep to a Fruiti straight one as a century beckoned. That provided some much needed respite, but when Arunav lost his rhythm, something about a broken hand, another swashbuckling batsman hiding down the order smashed a rapid half century including many more of those pesky sixes. “Just a bit deeper Radio, yep that’s it, behind the pavilion”. With discretion the better part of valour, I kept my bowling in reserve for another day.

The Yak and Scott didn’t have that luxury, and to their credit they bowled one or two sublime deliveries, but also a few that required the use of a thesaurus. I think I will settle on `ghastly’. (ED: I am sure that will come in handy for that `other day’ you mentioned) To be fair, anything short, full, wide or on any kind of length headed for the hills. I brought Ali back on to stem the flow, along with the Professor, who claimed three wickets from three ugly deliveries. He surrounded those with many dot balls, helping him attain some excellent figures. The percentage of Quokkas wickets taken from half trackers now sits at 75% for the season. The innings ended with a swooping catch by Seagull, but a score of 252 looked sizeable.

With COVID completely ruining the best part of the game, it was fortunate that we had our very own Deliveroo rider to hunt and gather suitable refreshments. During tea, we discussed whether a full Saints kit with `Ings’ emblazoned on the back is a suitable birthday present for your nephew when you brother in law is a die-hard Forrest fan (it was) and what Kiwis do when they are not drinking. Fascinating stuff, but we have ten wickets to give away, so let’s get on with it shall we?

Radio and The Irish Driver got us off to a tremendous start, seeing out four maidens. With the required run rate growing exponentially, The Driver tried to push things along, which brought his downfall. I’m not certain, but I think Radio was trying to communicate to the boundary by way of Morse code. DotDotDot DotDotDotDot DotDot Dash DotDotDot. Too much curry perhaps? Shortly after, he was bowled, thus preventing any potential accident.

Scott and Faggie picked up the pace, but both were soon out, with Faggie confirming that he is a true Australian, by refusing to walk when bowled. To be fair…(Ed: there really is no need Seagull). Ali and Binman continued the `run chase’, hitting a number of fine boundaries, before eventually both being caught going for one too many extravagant shots. At eighty odd for seven, it looked an uphill battle, but Prof and Fruiti demonstrated patience and a range of shots to see us home. When, I say home, I mean well beyond a hundred so as to look respectable.

Fruiti was eventually out, and with 130 needed common sense should have prevailed, but Arunav decided to do his best Malcom Marshall impression by batting one handed. He looked far more comfortable in the middle than the rest of us and has set a high bar for this years’ bravery award me thinks (Ed: see you at the Annual Dinner Arunav). A one handed ramp shot may have been the wrong shot selection though, and this brought his and our valiant, if limited innings to a close.

As we shared a beer after the game with a modicum of social distancing, I was pleased to find that it’s not just Yorkshireman and their descendants that speak good sense. Maybe we need a few more cricketers showing us the way? For some reason Freddie Flintoff’s pedalo escapade has suddenly come to mind, so on second thoughts maybe not. However, if you will allow this particular `cricketer’ to share one final pearl of wisdom, it would be a recommendation to watch the Australian Dream.  With a few more like Adam Goodes, the future will be that little bit brighter.

See you in Coldharbour.

Seagull