2's Finally Gain Promotion!

A’s second string finally gain elusive promotion

A’s 81-1 (Hurrion 31*, Moncrieffe 34*) bt Warlingham 79 (B.Lineker 5-15) by 9 wkts

After years of being the ‘bridesmaids’, the A’s second string finally got to be the ‘bride’ and sealed promotion after a 15-year wait at Sandilands on Saturday.

With visitors Warlingham already marooned at the bottom of the table, and winless in 2 years, the A’s were optimistic that promotion would be sealed, however the dark grey skies were giving some ‘brown pants’ moments. Around 15 minutes before the start, Warlingham had a scattering of players at the ground (I’m not exactly sure how many). When I asked their skipper where the rest of his team was, he told me that one of the players had 3 others with him. Around a minute later, whilst frantically trying to locate the player, he was told they had been involved in a car crash and the car was written-off. When the skipper told one of the other players this story, he told him he had seen the player driving (on his own) about 5 minutes earlier with a fully intact car. So basically, the captain had been sold down the river. This club was already starting to make Sinjuns look as efficient as a North Korean military parade.

So with this, the A’s claimed the toss (their skipper had already said he would bat first and rack up 450) and inserted Warlingham (however many they were eventually going to turn up with). Starnes opened up, following his heartbreak during the week where he had been stood up by some hound, had drowned his sorrows on the Friday night and was clearly still struggling to come to terms with the situation. As usual, he looked as penetrating as Emile Heskey playing as a lone striker, and was dispatched for a few boundaries. Marcus ‘Big Shot Coming’ Stanislaus opened up the other end and bowled with some good ‘heat’ mixed with a good line and length. He eventually induced an edge that was taken by Les Ferdinand (Ben Moncrieffe) behind the sticks.

GB and Nashley entered the attack, and while GB was keeping the scoring rate to a minimum, their skipper took a liking to Nashley (not in that way) and hit a flurry of boundaries. BL therefore decided it was time for him to get his ‘cardboard cut-out’ wickets and entered the fray. As soon as BL snared their skipper, the rest of the batting line up collapsed like a deck chair under Rik Waller’s weight (fast and not a pretty sight).

One of their guys looked like he had rinsed Sports Direct that very morning, one of the batsmen had blue (suede) shoes and the final bat (number 8) who had only turned up to drop his son off, came in sporting a beige jumper, blue three quarter length shorts, black socks, brown trainers and a helmet clearly borrowed off his son. To sum up Starnes’ season, he couldn’t even get this chap out (in fact I think he was charged by him!!).

Warlingham were shot out for 78, with skipper BL once again leading the way with 5-15 to take his season’s haul to 40. Given the time was 2:30, we had to skip tea for the second week running and go straight out.

Hurrion and Noble opened up and looked to rattle the score on straight away. Noble (6) then received a decent delivery and was sent on his way (with a send-off from the bowler too). This only brought Les Ferdinand to the wicket, who quickly showed that scoring goals is not all he can do. Both Ferdinand and Hurrion produced an array of dazzling strokes to take us over the finishing line in the 8th over and a ridiculous finishing time of 3:10pm.

So promotion was sealed, albeit in a slightly non-eventful manner. However the hard work had been done mid-season and this has been a tremendous team effort this year with almost the whole of the team contributing at some stage. It also cannot be understated of the backing from all other captains and the chairman in helping the team achieve this promotion (to their own team’s detriment).

With 2 games to go, the title is not a realistic possibility. It would however be nice to enjoy tea ‘during’ the game and not after as we have the past 2 weeks.

On a final note, that number 8 for Warlingham in fact turned out to be Addiscombe’s very own Bill Stoneman, who reluctantly played at short notice. What a legend!!

Cheers
GB