Canes beaten

Here’s the report. Sully’s on holiday this week and hasn’t seen it yet. I doubt if he’ll ever speak to me again?

GLENWOOD REPORT

It’s been a pretty grim last few weeks for poor old Sully - what with the Brexit vote crushing his dreams of living in blissful harmony with our European neighbours for evermore, and on top of that the problems being experienced by his hero Jeremy Corbyn. He was therefore a man in dire need of something to lift his spirits - and so a chance to give rein to his unique cricketing skills against our old rivals Glenwood seemed like a perfect opportunity to put the world to rights.

It all started off so well too with Griff and Satish opening the batting and putting on an excellent opening stand of 45 before Satish was eventually bowled by Josh - which brought Sully to the middle. Sadly he was soon trudging his way back to the boundary after being trapped leg before by that crafty old campaigner Mr Dobson. It was so plumb, with Sully retreating in alarm to within inches of the stumps at the prospect of the approaching missile, that Simon’s finger was in the air before the ball had even struck the pad.

Despite that tragic blow the score continued to mount at a healthy rate with Griff retiring after reaching 35, plus good contributions from Clive (27) and Andy (19) with the Canes putting together a healthy total of 125 for 6 off 18 overs. Surely enough for victory over the old enemy given the power and quality of the Canes’ pace bowling armoury.

Now over the years Griff has seen off all the doubters and proved time after time that he’s an undoubted tactical genius, and there’s not a man in the Canes team would doubt him for a moment (Imran wasn't playing). Even so I don’t think mine were the only eyebrows raised when, with the big hitting Ewings opening the batting for Glenwood, he chose to open the bowling with Super Sully. Now on his day of course Sully is an absolute wizard with a cricket ball and can be almost unplayable - but sadly this wasn’t one of those days - or even close to it.

How can I best describe it? Utter c**p - yes, that about sums it up. Suffice to say that after Sully’s 2 overs Ewings had retired and Glenwood were over half way to the victory target. You know I think I’m beginning to understand why Sully so admires Jeremy Corbyn - they’re got more in common than I’d realised. They’re both a liability to their own side and most of their team want them moved to the back benches/boundary where they can do less harm?

Even so Glenwood didn’t have it all their own way and wickets started to fall with Jimmy returning impressive figures of 2 wickets for just 1 run off his 2 overs. Simon took an excellent catch on the boundary - and if Griff’s reputation had taken a knock with the Sully decision, he soon redeemed himself with a truly astonishing piece of captaincy.

When he noticed a gap in the field at mid on he decided to move Satish there from where he’d been fielding at point - and the very next ball this brought a wicket thanks to an outstanding diving catch by Satish. OK - so that’s quite an impressive piece of captaincy you might think - but why do I use the word ‘outstanding’. Well I’ll tell you why. He did it without saying a word or even making a gesture. That’s right - he did by the sheer power of his mind - by telepathy. One minute Satish was at point - and the next he was sprinting to mid on to make that catch. There’s only one word to describe it - genius. Sadly it wasn’t enough though with Mr Dobson seeing Glenwood home in the last over for the loss of 6 wickets. There was one piece of good news to report though - at least Andy had someone to go to the pub with this week?

Man of the Match

Terrific bowling from Jimmy, and excellent efforts with the bat from Griff and Andy - but my vote goes to Satish for top batting - but especially ‘that’ catch (on all right, I’ll come clean - I suspect that it was his own quick thinking to change positions rather than Griff suddenly acquiring superpowers).