Game two of the glorious British cricketing summer saw us away to Ide Hill. An absent Stumpy and Rossington’s dodgy arm injury resulted in an appeal for a wicket keeper. Step forward Gracie who had prepared for this eventuality by buying a ton of WK gear during the winter. However a lack of inner gloves saw a dash to purchase some in Chislehurst, after which a bout of in-car waffling and traffic-related stress saw us heading to Ashford and then somehow SURREY. Good job he bought a faster car.
Rocking up at Ide Hill five minutes before the start we found Stone had been put in to bat, the skipper stepping up to open clearly fancying himself to get a barrel load of runs in their tiny arena. This was not to be as after a signature four through the slips he was gone for just 5. Chungy followed up last week’s big knock with a quickfire 12, after which our middle order did its usual trick of rapidly collapsing. While all around him fell for single figures, Vice was busy smashing a ton of boundaries including four big sixes on his way to an excellent 73. Gracie’s sat-nav shenanigans clearly didn’t affect him as he joined Vice at 84/7 for a 50 partnership, eventually clubbing 37 not out to help the score up to a half decent looking 169/8 by the close of our innings.
Details of the Ide Hill innings remain sketchy as injury corner sponsored by Birra Moretti wasn’t paying much attention. However, Candyman eventually made the breakthrough with the oppo on 121 to cries of “cor blimey at last” from the travelling support, followed by two more shortly afterwards as he greedily nabbed all the wickets to give him figures of 3-23. This brief flicker of hope didn’t last too long as Ide Hill quickly wrapped the game up inside 30 overs to condemn us to a loss by 7 wickets.
Awards: I am assuming Vice took the player of the day award for his 73, while Shitbag had a few nominees including Ryan for attempting to have a car boot sale in the middle of the game. However Paul was awarded the poo trophy for beautifully shadow batting at least three shots while a panicking Gracie was calling him through for a single.
Stay tuned for part three of Stone 2021, if it ever stops raining…