Story Three Lions on the Shirt? - Match Day: Northamptonshire fight back!!!

[Gary123]

Nice update Tom. And I'm pretty sure you're gonna eat up all the deliveries and score no runs.

 

[Highlander999]

"EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!"


"WHAZ ALL THE-NOISE?"


Wow, being woken up by a bit of Bob Sinclar at 7 in the morning is not my ideal way to be woken up. Whilst I fumbled for the alarm clock missed, sent the lamp flying, went for a second attempt, missed AGAIN and took a cup of tea down (almost like my first time at something else, with all these mishaps ) I finally managed to get it switched off. I did not look pretty with hair to make Amy Winehouse shudder and eyes so red I could have been on a night out.

I managed to wake up over porridge and by the time I was onto the scrambled eggs I actually was beginning to fully function. With the gf getting me another cup of tea (got her well trained ) I was finally in the mood for cricket. I was soon dressed in my tracksuits, got a quick peck on the way out the door and was soon at the club.

I was one of the first there (miracles can happen apparently, let's see if WC might actually get laid next!!!! ) and was soon changed into my kit and reclining on one of the seats on the pavillion. The Durham lads were already here (it must have been an early start for them ) and I could hear them laughing in their changing room. Richard Grant turned up with the Durham XI, and reading through it I began to feel a bit ill

Durham XI

1. P. Mustard (wk)
2. M. Di Venuto
3. W. Smith (C)
4. S. Chanderpaul
5. P. Collingwood
6. I. Blackwell
7. K. Coetzer
8. L. Plunkett
9. S. Harmison
10. W. Gidman
11. G. Breese​

Wow, this wasn't good. Mustard, Chanderpaul, Collingwood, Blackwell, Coetzer, Plunkett and Harmison all had international experience. We meanwhile had a 19 year old wannabe Flintoff and an ex-England spinner who was a part-time sheep shagger


"Well Rich. As the guiness advert says. Good things come to those who wait. I suggest we wait a few weeks and see if things have changed, cause right now I think we are royally buggered. This could be a trousers down job and bend right over!!!!"


"Cheer up Tom, think of the experience :laugh"


"Yeah, nothing like being royally bummed on a Sunday afternoon"


I went out and had a quick look at the pitch. It was pretty good. It looked relatively flat, but a few green patches, meant that there would be something in it for the seamers. The rain of the past few days had made the outfield quite slow, and the overcast and mild conditions meant that the new ball would be pretty tricky to deal with. Coming in at 3 I would have to hope the openers could build me a solid platform.

A short distance away, Mark, Will Smith and the match referee were doing the toss. A quick shake of hands and they went their seperate ways. Mark came over and put an arm around my shoulder.


"We're gonna have a bat first Tom, so get those pads on and lets have a nice big score from you today."


Frankly I felt my chances of scoring would have been higher with Jessica Alba :sarcasm

Back in the changing room, Matty and Rees were all padded up and in their respective corners in pensive silence. I went over to my kit bag and started sorting my stuff out.

By the time I had my pads on, it was time for Matty and Rees to head out. We all wished them luck (they would need it) as they headed out and the rest of the team went up to the pavillion balcony to see how they did. I had my pads on, but had left my gloves and helmet downstairs, hoping in some desperate way that it would mean that I would not have to get them for a while.

That managed to last 2 overs :sarcasm

I had barely got comfortable in my seat, Matty had hit one boundary and a few runs had been scored, when Harmison in his second over, managed to lure Reesy into a loose drive where he spooned it straight to the Durham bowler, Gidman, at cover.


"Ah crap, why can't we be a team who has century opening stands?"

"Cause we like to make life difficult for ourselves?"

"You can say that again, Crofty"


I slowly went downstairs, got my gloves and helmet and walked out....

As I walked past Reesy on his way back to the pavillion, he gave me a grimace. This was gonna be bloody difficult. A new ball attack of Steve Harmison and Liam Plunkett. This was going to be my biggest challenge yet! As I slowly walked out to the square, the Durham boys got out of their huddle and all looked at me. I felt like a choir boy in a brothel, about as comfortable as a ballet dancer on a cargo ship, I just wanted to run away. Never the less, I took my guard on middle and leg and waited for Harmison to bowl the first delivery.

Ouch time......

He came charging in and released the ball so quickly. I just had time to see it was a bouncer, didn't even react and felt like someone had just hit me over the head with a hammer. "YES!!!" called Matty at the other end as the ball flew over the slips down to third man. I wobbled down to the other end with a very sore head. You really do see stars. Harmison was grinning at me and I glanced at the scoreboard to see that last ball get clocked at 93mph. Well he was certainly pumped up, I reckoned I might stay at this end.

Things didn't get much better for us though as in the very same over where Harmison decided to try and do Madame Guillotine on me, except with a cricket ball, Matty had a rush of blood to the head and tried to put Harmison over cow corner and ended up with his off-stump doing cart-wheels instead Wow, 2 wickets in the second over and were now 9/2. This was a really bad start. Me and Mike needed to have a big 3rd wicket partnership now and play sensible cricket. The loss of Matty Hayden was a huge blow for us

Mike slowly made his way out, you could tell from his body language, he didn't want to be there..


"Hey Mike. Long time no see Fancy making a record partnership today?"

"Sounds like a plan, Tommy boy."

"Let's just take it cool, ey. Focus on survival for the next few overs and then take it from there "


Famous last words by me :sarcasm I managed to get a single off the first ball by Plunkett and my first runs. He tried to cramp me for space on my ribs and I just tucked him away, rather nicely if I must say so myself Mike then blocked the next 4 balls out, however, on the final ball of the over, disaster struck.

That's right, we had now lost Mike.

Plunkett had got Mike coming forward by pitching it right up with the 4 balls he had faced. He then dropped the final ball short and it surprised Mike. He went for a pull shot more out of reflex then any actual control. It got a huge top edge and at one stage I thought it might go all the way for six. However, a strong wind was blowing from down at fine leg and it held the ball up. Coetzer positioned himself under the ball and nearly ended up mis-judging it, but managed to cling onto the ball running backwards. We were now 3 down for just 10 runs :doh

This was a disaster

It was now the start of the 4th over and we had already lost 3 wickets. This was a really big hole we had dug ourselves into. I had to now set myself mentally into 4 day cricket mode, which meant block and defend. Luckily Jamie who was now at the other end was an experienced guy and hopefully I could count on him to hang around as long as was required. Still, I didn't like all this pressure being put on me. It was time for my bat to become a wand and me to change my name to Harry Potter. It did look like magic would be the only thing which could save us now.....

 

[Pakistani Army]

Woah! Glamorgan in deep trouble and yourself and ex England lad Dalrymple have to take control and build a slow, steady but overall productive partnership. The key to this is to leave the deliveries outside off-stump and occasionally hit the full/short ball away to the fence.

Hope this advice sinks into the "thick block" of yours

Great presentation man. The write-up is the feature I personally enjoy the most. :banana2

 

[Cricketdude]

With the gf getting me another cup of tea (got her well trained )

You have to train girls in Scotland how to make tea? lol

Good update Tom, but nextime can you make sure you try to score with the other batsman, i'm sick of you being the hero.

 

[Highlander999]

I can't help it. The stats the Glamorgan batsmen have are really low

 

[OffCutters]

^ Yeah Sure...*giggles*

 

[Cricketdude]

Matty Hayden? oh well he never does any good in England. Reading this story is like watching a twilight movie...

 

[OffCutters]

Matty Hayden? oh well he never does any good in England. Reading this story is like watching a twilight movie...

So wheres the hot teenage girls?

 

[Cricketdude]

So wheres the hot teenage girls?

Well back in 2005, broad was a teenager?

 

[OffCutters]

I said hot.

 

[Cricketdude]

I said hot.

I don't see what your implying...

 

[Cricketdude]

Can the next update include some christmas related sledging or something? it would work.

 

[Highlander999]

Time to Rebuild

So there we were. Myself and Jamie, right up against a Durham bowling attack who were fired up as they could be. Plunkett was getting a hell of a lot of movement around and Harmison was bowling with express pace and getting the ball to jag into the body which was causing all sorts of problems.


"Oy Baker. Your batting is so bad it makes me laugh, HO HO HO, just watching you pretend to know what you're doing!" (that was for CDM )


"Yeah, well at least I ain't going bald, Blackwell"


Things were a bit touch and go at a few stages during the next few overs. I edged a ball between Mustard and Chanderpaul in the slips and then Jamie had a huge LBW against him, which I thought was plumb, but he just managed to get an inside edge according to snicko. Slowly but surely we begun to put a partnership together and as our confidence grew, Plunkett and Harmison began to lag, which gave us more scoring oppurtunities. I must say that I did hit a rather nice cover drive of Plunkett, Ian Bell couldn't have made it look any better

At this stage for some reason Jamie began to cramp up He had barely faced any balls so it was rather strange. He was really limping around and we had to be a lot more careful on our running. However, it didn't affect his batting and we both were moving along at a steady rate after the poor start Glamorgan had.

Eventually we managed to notch up the 50 partnership :happy

"This is really good Tom, mate. We've really got the momentum back with us. We just need to keep doing more of the same for the next 30 overs Sounds pretty easy, aye?"


"Oh totally. I mean this is such a walk in the park, even an Indian could do it "


"Well let's not exagerate, we know that anything longer then 20/20 and they struggle "


Sorry India, couldn't resist

We finished off the final powerplay overs and drinks were brought out (seemed rather pointless, I hadn't even worked up a sweat) The message from the skip, was more of the same please. Well that was stating the bloody obvious!

Harmison had been the pick of the bowlers for Durham, keeping it tight and picking up two wickets. He had been backed up well by Plunkett and Blackwell, we just now had to hope that we could score easily off the rest. Jamie and my strike-rates were pretty good considering the situation we were in. It wasn't going to be a Chris Gayle like innings from either of us, but we weren't there going at too slow a rate, we had it pretty much on the nail.

 

[Dutch]

Nice story! Forgive my ignorance but is this Cricket 2005?? Why 2005? Is the gameplay and depth good? Sorry for being a bit off topic but am curious.

 

[OffCutters]

Wait, you made runs!?