Dance Commanders sweep to victory

It's a strategy game... there are no Orcs...

A worrying absence of opposition players greeted Waverley when they arrived for a first ever game with Wood Street; however it was merely a mix-up with the start time as the opposition arrived in due course and Ian Verrinder (“IV”) arrived on his World War Two motorcycle. Joining him in the Waverley XI were James Wright (“Jim Jam”), Andy Minshaw (“the Mincer”), Russ Golding (“Raoul”), Simon Brewer (“Nina”), Adrian Day (“Mog”), Jamie Harris (“DJ Teabag”), Matt Du Gay (“Doogs”), Peter Brewer (“Mr B”), Adam Carmichael (“AC”) and Laura Brewer (“Loz”).

Waverley batted first in this 40 over match and kindly lent Teabag to Wood Street for the first few overs, who were awaiting the arrival of their eleventh player. Waverley’s initial charge was hampered by the loss of Jim Jam and the Mincer early on. IV and Raoul put together a useful partnership before IV was well caught at point. The coming together of Raoul and Nina saw Waverley kick on, with Raoul in particular putting the bowling to the sword as he notched up his second Waverley 50. There was then another flurry of wickets as Nina (who contributed a valuable 19 runs), Raoul and Mog trooped back to the pavilion. Teabag kept the scoreboard ticking over with 30 runs and Waverley’s tail (a big bushy one, according to Mr B) wagged, as Doogs, AC and Mr B himself contributed useful runs to take Waverley past the 200 mark to finish with a total of 205-8 from their 40 overs.

After tea, speed merchants Doogs and Teabag stifled the run rate and made early inroads, Doogs grabbing a wicket when the batsman chopped on and Teabag seeing a full toss gloved behind to the Mincer. With Doogs and Teabag bowled out it was the turn of Mr B and AC to see what damage they could do to the home side’s batting order. The former was the most destructive as he claimed a five wicket haul, castling two batsmen, trapping two others LBW and seeing AC pull out the Weetabix dive to pouch his fifth wicket. In addition to inspiring a 1970s-style dance routine AC was able to wrap the game up with three wickets, two castled and the last man caught at mid-on by Teabag to ensure a comfortable win for the visitors.

Although run close by Raoul (for his score of 57), Mr B got the Man of the Match Hat for his five wickets. He also picked up the Supporter’s Egyptian Hieroglyph Pink T-shirt award for babbling incoherently. The *Anchor Hat was awarded to Jim Jam for his non-stop talking in the field and the Pink T-shirt went to Doogs, who made the fatal mistake of saying “ouch” within earshot of the skipper when in the field.

For the second week running Jim Jam is the start of the final paragraph, as we present Professor Jim Jam’s Good Grammar Guide. Jim displayed his mastery of the English language in the bar after the game, with such standards as “I’ve batted more inningses than you” and “there’s no I in team, but there is in me.” However, everyone’s favourite appeared to be Jim Jam’s claim that he was “decapitated” by illness during his GCSE year. Good work, Jim...