Quokkas CC 135-10 (Saad 39, Haider 28, Haider Jr 15) beat Wantage & Grove CC115 all out (Jatin 4-10, Haider Jr 2-12, Seagull 1-10)
I love the game up at Wantage. The sun always seems to shine, the Oxfordshire countryside provides a lovely backdrop to my drive north and invariably it’s a great game of cricket. We were fortunate to have Steve the Pirate in attendance this year, and he pointed out that Tweaky’s fabled pink cowboy hat had been framed and mounted on the clubhouse wall for posterity. It made me consider what the Quokkas would have on the clubhouse wall should we have a clubhouse. The last surviving Quokkas sweatband, Skip’s 1970s bucket hat, Mantis’ leather tie, any one of many dreadful Birmingham City away shirts, a deflated skippy with Evil Dave’s knife through its heart?
We had 12, so I volunteered not to bat. No loss there. It might have been 13, but Niall was too busy perving Raducanu at Queens. Seagull elected to bat for the second game running. Haider got us off to a decent start, but we lost Umair and Rashid relatively early. With hand now repaired, Saad, stepped up and played a lovely innings, although the scorer seemed happy to give his runs to every other Quokka. They needed them as runs proved very tough to get, not helped by the regular loss of wickets. Badar, Yak, Egg, Jatin and Evil Dave, all were out for single digits. Haider Jr faired a little better, but our total of 135 was certainly gettable.
At the break we discussed the England cricket team’s match preparation, which seems to emulate Quokkas on tour. Talking of imbibing, there was no vodka jelly this year, but the tea was top notch as always, with two home made cakes. Larger plates required.
Evil Dave and Faggie opened the bowling. Evil got a wicket. Faggie shot blanks, again. Harder Jr bowled a pretty ferocious spell and took two vital wickets. At the other end, Jatin was the star of the show taking four wickets for just ten runs. Seagull promptly took him off before he could claim a five-for. He was not amused. T Yuck was up next - I think they were a rock band from the 2000s - no wickets, but played well. At the other end Seagull bowled a tight spell and claimed a wicket. Egg replaced him and continued to make it tough to score, which forced a run out that saw us take the win.
Thanks to Wantage for hosting once again. See you next year.
Seagull