Keefy goes nuts as Isambard win season's opener
Walthamstow Horizontals 167-6 (35 overs) (A.Robinson 2-34). Isambard 171-7 (28.3 overs) (R.Collins 51, X.Davis 33, R.Gardiner 25). Isambard won by three wickets (35-over game).
Another year, another clean slate, another season just waiting to filled to bursting with dropped catches, golden ducks and self-inflicted injuries. One week into Isambard's season and 2008 has yet to disappoint.
In typical Isambard fashion, Sunny "Captain Car Crash" Munn missed the 1226 from Kings Cross, leaving the responsibility of losing the toss to Keith Williams. After a brief rain delay, debutant Paul Danbury took the new ball with Xavier "X-Man" Davis, both of whom bowled accurately and with pace. It wasn't long until Danbury knocked over one of the Horizontals' openers with just 10 on the board.
Sniffing blood, "Captain Fantastic" Munn brought on Alex Robinson - another debutant - whose trump card was to bamboozle the opposition with yorkers, short ones and roughly two dozen wides. But it was Gavin Kallmann, the big South African, whose left-arm inswing won him an LBW decision, and was unlucky not to get a few more, who kept it tight. His figures of 1-23 from seven overs were economical and accurate. [Kallmann wishes to editorialise at this point and note that the non-striker remarked: "He's swinging it like Wasim Akram." Kallmann only swings once a year, so to speak.]
Needing a lift, the Horizontals introduced a hyperactive, possibly coked-up reject from the Indian Premier League, who swung wildly at everything and ran between wickets like Russell Brand after a busload of schoolgirls. Predictably, he got himself caught behind, but not without providing some entertainment for the fielding side.
On the topic of fielding entertainment, Williams provided us with a masterclass on the delicate skill of scrotal fielding. Standing at short fine leg, the club stalwart showed that the best way to stop a leg glance was to kneel in front of the ball and allow it to smash into one's testicles. Can it be mere coincidence that Williams himself negotiated Isambard's current sponsorship deal with nuts4chic?
Sources have confirmed that Williams' extraordinary talent comes from years of tackle manipulation and practicing the ancient Australian art of genital origami. According to Mrs Williams, her husband's genitals are so malleable that his scrotum resembles a baseball catcher's mitt, allowing him to safely envelope any approaching cricket balls with remarkable dexterity. His prospects of enlarging his family, however, may have been permanently damaged by his habit, and it has pushed his voice an octave higher.
Speaking of testicles, the bowling of Ray Collins, the cracker of Ric Firth's nuts, was held off until the closing stages of Horizontals' innings. Again, he did not disappoint. So accurate was Collins that six fielders were employed behind the wicket. It was a pity that none of them could catch to save themselves - both Robinson and Sir Rich Gardiner grassed sitters.
Collins finally got his man - a corpulent batsman who boasted of never getting out to an Aussie in his 38 years. Collins put paid to that by knocking over his leg peg. In his rage, the portly Pom proceeded to send the prostate stump cartwheeling towards the keeper. Isambard's bowlers restricted Horizontals to a meagre 167, with debutant Paul Brannan unlucky not to pick up a few sticks, and Robinson returning the best figures of 2-34.
After a good tea, Mark Wembridge and Collins opened the batting confidently, with Collins smacking his first ball to the mid-on boundary. In spite of losing wickets at regular intervals, Isambard kept the scoreboard ticking over briskly. Collins in particular appeared to be having more fun than Max Mosley in a room full of lederhosen-clad hookers, before he was bowled for a superb 51.
During Sir Rich's rapid-fire 25, Horizontals' corpulent fielder complained that someone had called him "a fat South African c**t". Quick as a Paul Bailey bouncer, Sir Rich quipped back: "Mate, no one called you South African." Surprisingly, no bloodshed followed.
Davis - who was still recovering from alcohol and female inflicted wounds from the night before - curried favour with the umpires by ferrying a fresh pint out at the beginning of his innings. The foam had not settled by the time Captain Munn, thankfully minus his "Mugabe is a c**t" T-shit, joined Davis at the wicket with 28 needed to win. Hobbling from his run-in with a Cameroonian mini-cap driver, pulling up his sagging trousers, and still managing to commentate/sledge at the same time, Munn's cheeky reverse sweep off the opposing skipper deservedly won the game for Isambard.
Well done to all for starting the season so well, with the exception of Sam Barr, who forgot to turn up.
Kim-Meg Breward
