Happy Sundays beat Hampton Hill Comprehensively

Hampton Hill were the visitors on Sunday 10th May, with Hills looking to lead his side to another victory following their early season form. HHCC won the toss and elected to bat on a day where the sun finally came out to play. Buckell and Foreman Sr. opened up economically, although in only the third over of the day there was a scare as a delivery went quickly to gully off the shoulder of the bat and Sam Kumar didn’t quite get there in time, hitting him just above the eye. Despite a little bit of panic, Sam was taken to the hospital where they stitched him up and luckily, no real serious damage was done. A trooper, Sam made it back later on in the day to sup on his favourite whisky and reassure everyone of his health.

Buckell found the edge once more, and that edge found Aman at second slip. Hampton Hill started well but slowed down after regular middle-order wickets saw them 142/5. Having just celebrated his 3967th birthday, Simon “Gandalf” Hussey was unsure if he’d be able to bowl, but after an early creek he finished with figures of 5-1-27-0. Following Hussey’s bowl was the less-than-inspired decision to bring on Baker, who returned sloppy figures of 3-1-24-1, although he did remove the top-scoring Pankaj Malav for 41. Other bowlers were the canny and cool Chulana (8-1-21-2), who really carries off the wearing-glasses-whilst-bowling look far better than Ashley Giles ever did. He was partnered by another glasses-wearer-whilst-he-bowls bowler in the shape of Bruce Magill, although he is far closer to the Stevie Wonder look than Slash, although importantly he gained figures of 8-0-29-1.

Enter the dragon! Graham Hills has a woman’s, I mean, a captain’s instinct, and knew the time he was required to strike. Having loosened up with some cannon balls last seen on HMS Victory, Hillsy struck with a smart stumping from “Popeye” Dan Fenton. His first would be his penultimate over, and in his final over he struck with two identical looping sky-balls to Sambo at mid-wicket. Hills had figures of 2-0-17-3, a true mixed bag but a short, sweet spell for the Sunday purists to savour. A master at work!

The Hampton Hill innings came to a somewhat bizarre close, when it appeared that, for the first time in the history of cricket, a fielding captain declared a batting side’s innings closed, stating “come on, you’ve had enough” and leading HHCC and the Happy Sundays off the field. HHCC totalled 166/8 from 42 overs and one can only think that, like me, the skipper was hungry, considering the game started late and there had been considerable delay with Sam’s injury.

Tea came and went, not without recognition though – as all-comers were pleasantly thrilled with the presence of a cheese selection and an array of rolls, pastas, quiches and sweets.

Dan Fenton and Amandeep went in to open the batting and frankly, were never troubled. Dan comparatively plodded along for 64* off 57 balls while Aman hit 98* off 73, making light work of HHCC’s bowling reserves. Vandals finished up 168/0 from 22.3 overs to be home and dry in good time.

SB