Shocking 6-0-61-2

It seems we were mismatched, our captain reckoned that the 1st XI should have played this team and we should have had the their team which they soundly beat. We played Walthamstow and the final score was Walthamstow 272 for 2. The 2 wickets that were taken were both mine, a catch at short extra cover from Wayne our captain off a full toss and a stumping by Chris Buckley. But Christ look how bad my figures are. We were bowled out for 86, but there's a whole list of excuses apart from the fact that we were mismatched. So here we go with the excuses -


1. We started out with a man short in the field and what with the outfield being like concrete anyone hitting the ball was guaranteed a 4 if it got past the fielders and their batsmen were pretty handy. No-one was inclined to dive for the ball apart from Rees and Wayne otherwise you were looking to suffer from broken elbows/wrists if you did. I've got an excuse not only have I got medial epicondylitis which I now think is impact inflicted (From diving) but my dislocated finger isn't fixed yet.
2. The team we fielded included 1 bloke over 50 'Bootsie' maybe more and this is him below leaving the field after umpiring and yes that is a walking stick.Me, I'm 49 and I'm carrying injuries and didn't feel that clever today and played this morning with the Basildon Under 11's. Buckers who's 43 and played yesterday. Roy who's got to be around about 40, who played yesterday, did a shift at work this morning came straight to the game and is just coming back from an injury as well and Ricko who is probably 40 + as well.
3. Their lot had an average age of around about 30 I reckon with only 1 under 16 player, whereas we had 3 under 16's.
4. Oh yeah and we had a part time wicket keeper. I reckon that if you looked at our players and had to make a choice about how many of us were 'Of the age and stature to be athletes' we had Danny and Jay! No it's not Australia it's the green and pleasent land of England!

Jay leaves the pitch having not made the impact that he and us had hoped for.

Danny Groves makes his way out to replace Jay as our other 'Athlete'.

What I can't believe from a personal point of view is how knackered I felt. As I mentioned I'd played in a match with my sons this morning at B&PCC and found it hard to chase down balls in thier game - almost pulling up every time I chased a ball. I suppose if I think about it loads of things have conspired against me recently meaning I'm out of form and generally unfit. It looks like I'm going to have to do some kind of fitness training for the last handful of games and see if I that creates an improvement? I just didn't have any legs today it seems, they were just constantly aching. I hope it's not the first glimmers of proper age-ing!!!!

One thing I was very impressed with today was the Geezer J Mariani who was bowling some weird looking spin with a very unorthodox action, (Chinaman) but he was really spinning the ball and I actually witnessed for myself someone who spins the ball so viciously that the ball 'Fizzes' as it flies through the air, very impressive.