The 2's are one step away from promotion!!

The A’s show their ‘Nashers’ to close on promotion

A’s 81-0 (Hurrion 50*) bt Cobham Avorians 79 (Nash 6-17) by 10 wkts

Young tubster Charlie Nash was the star of the show as the A’s second string demolished Avorians (and the bar not long afterwards) on Saturday at Sandilands. This report may well actually last longer than the game!

So we arrived at the ground to blazing sunshine, which did cause us some concern about how DL (quite possibly the whitest person alive) would cope in such conditions. Luckily he had packed his factor 200. More concerning was the fact that by 12:45, only 7 opposition players were present. Skipper BL went out for the toss, and I guess not fancying chaser leather in the heat with so few players, Avorians decided to bat.

By the scheduled start time, I think Avorians had 10 players (clearly not affiliated members as they were introducing themselves to each other). Starnesy and Rambo took the new ball this week. Starnesy decided to open from the Lloyds park this week as clearly bowling from the pavilion end is the reason for his lack of wickets this season???!!!! It was very reassuring to hear one of the Avorians players who was scoring, shout out to the opening batsman and ask his name. Excellent stuff.

Clearly having watched too much IPL, the Avorians openers looked to hit every delivery to the ropes. In fairness, a blind man could have hit some of Starnes’ deliveries to the ropes. It came off for a while as the score rattled to 30 off the first 4 overs as the Delhi Daredevils looked set to post a total. Rambo, who was generating some decent pace and movement, finally got the breakthrough (and his first 2s wicket of the season…massive fine) and followed it up with another as their dangerous captain was removed.

From their on in, Nashley took over, as his array of doosra’s, zooter’s, slider’s, flipper’s proved non-existent and his regulation left-arm spin proved too much for Avorians’s IPL brigade. Encouraged to play their shots by the vocal slips cordon of Moncreiffe, Starnes and Noble, the Avorians batsmen couldn’t control their excitement at flighted deliveries and swung from the hip at every opportunity. It made some truly shocking batting at the wickets tumbled. It was liking watching Barry Dean all over again!

The innings was finally brought to an end by a stunning caught and bowled by GB (his only catch this decade) with the score on 79. Nashley returned unbelievable figures of 6-17 off his 10 overs that also contained 4 wicket maidens in a row. Boom!!

Avorians were dismantled by 2:30pm so obviously tea wasn’t ready (breakfast was probably more fitting given the time) and the A’s went straight out.

Noble and Hurrion opened up for the As against the new ball. Given we hadn’t had tea yet, obviously Avorians got confused and served up a buffet. The score rattled along as the target loomed. It was then that Hurrion decided to embark on his selfish streak and started farming the strike to get himself to a 50. Noble didn’t face a ball for 4 overs as Hurrion smashed a boundary to bring up a (non) deserved half century and victory for the A’s after 11 overs. The time was 3:45pm or as a I like to call it ‘beer o’clock’.

Apologies for those that came up the club expecting to see some cricket (hopefully we bat first next week). The win means we now need to win just 1 of the remaining 3 games to seal promotion so roll on next Saturday.

Cheers
GB