Our regular pre-match breakfast meeting saw us set up game
plans, discuss match tactics and more importantly hand over the Wally of the Day
attire to yesterday’s deserving victor
Danny Tomlinson. A cool breeze and low cloud promised a slightly cooler day
with the threat of the odd shower.
Today’s opponents were Lester Vaughan School, regular
tormentors of Harvey cricket teams from previous tours. Words of warning given
by our drivers, about their strengths did nothing to help our team’s fragile
confidence as we arrived to see another flat, baked, mud track.
A small victory was taken as Josh Woodward won the toss and
elected to bat. He pumped the air on his way back from the middle keen to
celebrate any minor win. Meanwhile the staff were contemplating which beach to
go to should the Harvey boys get skittled out cheaply and the game finish
early!
Our opponents emerged from the changing rooms, and the
bowlers immediately started marking out their run ups – the standard 25 metre
sprints suggested that another day of ducking and weaving some traditional
Caribbean ‘chin music’ was on the cards. Hopes were raised a little when two 12
year olds joined the fielding team. One
walked straight up to Ronan and jokingly told him that although he was only 12
he was going to knock his off stump out of the ground before scoring a fifty by
hitting the ball into the road. He then proceeded to walk up to the umpiring Mr
Castle, and cheekily say -“morning Dickie Bird, that guy battings gonna be out
first ball”. He wasn’t far from being right as another dramatic first over
threatened to spoil all our best laid plans. Having safely seen off the first
ball of the innings (an immediate improvement from game1!), Simon Hulse saw the
top of his off stump get clipped the very next ball, breaking the bail in the
process! Luckily Mr Castle had already called no ball and our first runs were
on the board as the ball had ricocheted to the boundary for a thoroughly
deserved 5 runs! Ball three of our innings was equally action packed. Simon
Hulse pushed a classy forward defensive shot into the covers and stood admiring
the quality technique displayed. Ronan
set off for a single despite no call from Simon and the result was two of our
best batsman stranded at one end and a simple run out for our hosts. All that
could be heard was derisive laughter from the outfield and a chirpy 12 year
shouting “see Dickie Bird I told ye!”
Josh Woodward joined Ronan and the pair started making
amends against a somewhat erratic bowling attack, who helped by bowling plenty
of extras. Ronan unfortunately played on having scored a good 21, which brought
Harry Wren to the crease. Again Harry looked at ease against the fast bowlers
despite his young age, hitting some delightful boundaries in a quickfire 17. At
79-2 off 12 overs we were in a very good position. Unfortunately, in true
English style, a couple of average spinners came on and a batting collapse soon
followed. We eventually limped to 151 all out, with 9 of our 35 overs still to
bat (top scorer was extras, 49).
Simon Hulse bowled a tidy spell at the start of their
innings, but on a quick outfield and playing with the traditional big left
handed openers our opponents were never in real trouble scoring runs freely on
their way to a 6 wicket victory. Willem Bygrave eventually broke the opening
partnership and Harry Wren took a good catch off Jesse Mills to gain some pride
for the Brits. Skipper Josh Woodward was the pick of our bowlers taking 2-14. If only we could have batted our full allowance
of overs and added another 50 or so runs we may have been able to put some more
pressure on our hosts. The highlight of our fielding display was a diving stop
on the boundary by Simon Hulse. Such was his eagerness to stop the ball that he
carried on with his dive and fell down a bank and out of sight.Whilst the
fielders waited for Simon to re appear and throw the ball in, the batsman ran 5,
little did we know that Simon had gone down a 10 meter slope and couldn’t get
up!
Licking our wounds we headed back to apartments for a
well-earned dip in the pool. Sunday nights in Holetown are famous for the Karaoke that
takes place down one of its narrow streets. Most of our party ventured down to watch the spectacle as locals and
tourists alike entertain the crowds with average to very poor renditions of
anything from Bob Marley to Madonna! Despite much encouragement from the staff
it took most of the evening to get anyone to sing. Eventually Ben ‘Buble’
Norris stepped up and put his name on the lengthy waiting list. Having warmed
himself up by doing push ups on the pavement and then spending a good 20
minutes listening to his selected song on his mobile phone in eager
anticipation, Ben and few backing singers (Woodward, Wren, Mackay, Bygrave & Tomlinson) finally stormed the
stage. ‘Take that’ it wasn’t, in fact it was more ‘noise zone’ than ‘Boyzone’,
however our would be rock stars enjoyed their moment of glory headlining in
front a raucous crowd of ageing tourists and local down and outs!
Unfortunately the Rock Star lifestyle went to the boy’s
heads somewhat, with the 6 aforementioned individuals missing their curfew by
more than a “Bajan time” allowance!! A nice surprise might await the group in
the morning!!!
WALLY OF THE DAY:
Karaoke King Ben ‘Buble’ Norris – who was convinced to sing
by a young female local, on the promise of the pair performing a duet. Surprisingly
(to Ben but definitely not to the rest of us) on the stroke of performance time,
Ben’s Kylie Minogue was nowhere to be found, leaving our Jason Donovan to fly
solo!!!
