Ripley
Sunday August 18 at Ripley Strollers won by 76 runs Strollers 238-3
(35 overs; Travis 86, Oliver 53no, Love 40, Pittams 38no)
Ripley 162
(27.4 overs; Mangham 5-20, Broster-Turley 2-46, Brodbeck 1-13, Macaulay 1-13, Le Serve 1-30) A trip to Ripley is always a pleasant one for the
Strollers, but has more meaning for Archibald Geale David Charles Brenda
Francois Benedict (Ben) Mangham than most. Ben likes Ripley so much he named
his son after the clubrooms. Or was it a beach in Goa? Who can remember. In any
case, Mangham arrived looking frisky and dapper in a psychedelic kitty cat T-shirt
with just the right amount of lilac in it. Look good, play good, feel good?
Read on to find out.
Captain Steve Rogers, no doubt inspired by the memory
of his nonchalantly lofted winning runs at Ripley last year, took his Ripley
counterpart to the cleaners in one of the finest displays of après-midi tossing
this scribe can remember witnessing, and opted to reverse-insert the home side
in balmy conditions.
The decision of who he should send out to open the batting
was a simple one: George, to avoid a tantrum, and Blair, whose wife Jen,
parents and progeny (albeit still waiting to appear) had come to see him in
action! Beyond cute.
Mr Travis Senior, in particular, was all pride at seeing his favourite son
stride to the middle, still wearing the beige family pads. Not a skerrick of
white on them, and not a dry eye in the house. Because who in a Strollers
relationship is reaching and who is settling falls and will always fall within
the purview of a Strollers match report, I would also like to also record my
view that Jen is settling – possibly egregiously.
Jorgito and Blair began circumspectly, faced with a quite
spongey greenish pitch and accurate opening bowlers – one of them called
Freddie. This must have been confusing for Jorgito, torn between wanting to
kiss the bowler and wanting to smite his offerings lustily. On the bright side,
he appeared to harbour no confusion whatsoever with regards potentially
glancing any of Freddie’s leg-side offerings.
As our Lord (De-la-Ruuuuuuuuuuuuueeeee) frequently
proclaimed, Jorgito wasn’t getting within cooee of those. Love and Travis
gradually worked their way through what gears they had available to them. In
Blair's case, that’s quite a lot of gears.
Mother and father and Jenny looked proud as punch as he
lofted down the ground with the wind and played sensibly along the ground into
it. Jorgito put his gears (and robust motor) under greater strain than usual by
running between the wickets with something approaching urgency, and called
quite a lot of those runs with something mistakeable for clarity. This was
confusing for all assembled Strollers.
The Travis-Love partnership grew, and not even the Lord's
frequent exasperated proclamations about George's legside play were enough to
provide his usual Lord's Kiss and end the 'tnership (which can be a useful
abbrev’ for partnership when one is pressed for time or wordcount).
Blair fell for a chanceless 86 (just a couple of weeks
after he made 87. Make of that what you will. #statchat), inclusive of one
lusty maximum, bringing to an end an opening stand of 138.
If pressed to compare their opening stand to a purveyor of
burgers and fries, I would select Chicago Grill – that world class Hammersmith
eatery and provider of generous and weighty dishes. That reference will
unfortunately fly over the heads of the Strollers’ own Weasley twins Freddie
and George, who don’t know what is good for them when it comes to vendors of
later night burgers in the W6 postcode.
George fell a few balls later, caught at slip from the
bowling of George Geaves for a personal season's best 40, which he later
attempted to negotiate up to 60 due to degree of difficulty of the pitch and
bowling attack.
I have my own views on this, but will defer to the
judgement of our esteemed President and Statistician Magatha Patston when she
tidies up the scorebook at season end (if the Salt and Pepper Princess Her
Majesty’s Ship Robert Eugene Wall hasn’t fenced it before then).
Regardless of where we land on overall value of George's
innings, it definitely fell short of the 100 required to trigger the Princess
to tattoo the very large and very white mainsail that is the canvas of his
regal body with the Flensburger Pilsener logo. [After the tradition started
last season with weeee Mitchy Alley, if a pre-selected Strollers opening bat
makes a ton at Ripley everyone, or at least some people, has to get a tattoo,
of a design of my choosing. Whoever is match manager for Ripley next year: my
apologies in advance for the selection headscratcher you’re going to have when
26 Strollers put their hands up for the fixture].
Western Australian debutant Jack Le Serve, having set back
Steve’s arm injury by several weeks with the 300 throwdowns he’d faced during
Blair and George’s generous and delectable opening stand, trotted out to join
Glennary Oliver at the crease. The Lord had moved his proclamations away from
his usual stentorian medium, and towards one of physical demonstration. No, he
wasn’t doing another one of his one-man interpretive dance shows, he was
umpiring! Including some very strong Christ the Redeemer poses while signalling
wides from the centra umpiring position.
Le Serve was sent on his way lbw for two, giving the
impressive Sam Nash his second wicket. During Le Serve’s stay he nearly managed
to lap Oliver while running three – a level of athleticism the Strollers are
only too delighted to recruit. Pittams and Oliver then combined for a ‘tnership
of 78. Oliver recorded 53 not out inclusive of a lot of twos, because he likes
to showcase his speed between the wickets and prefers to demurely nurdle the
ball than to spank it.
Pittams was more overt in his lust levels and deposited one
smite beyond the straight boundary in an innings of 38 not out that George did
not seem to feel strongly should be upgraded to anywhere near 60 using the
patented Love accounting system. That left 238 on the board for Captain
Rogers to defend, each of them expertly recorded by Ally-Mac, and it was
upstairs to transition the attack to the sandwiches and scones!
Freddie Broster-Turley and James Dela Rue opened the
bowling and ran into the obstacle of Ripley’s aggressive Australian opening
batsman Braydon Pink, who appeared to have a prior engagement starting at
about 5pm and was attempting to complete the run chase by that time. He was on
track to do it too, before being well caught by Oliver from the bowling of
Broster-Turley just after raising 50.
Having earlier bowled the other Ripley opener through the
gate, Freddie had the honour of banking the full set of Ripley openers in his
wicket gîte – a feat known locally as a Ripley Double Dipley. At 80-2 after
about eight hours, the match was delicately poised. Dela Rue toiled into the
wind, bowling some hard overs against Pink and the Ripley first drop without
luck, before being replaced by Mangham, who was immediately incisive, bowling
Ripley's No 3 for a hard-pounded 38.
Le Serve replaced Broster-Turley downwind and enjoyed
bowling in ‘tnership with Mangham. Le Serve was fascinated by Mangham's
profession and couldn't wait to find out more about how Mangham finds couches
to film on week-in week-out. Mangham, in turn, was intrigued to meet a
real-life miner for the first time. Such are the foundations that bowling
‘tnerships are built on. Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, famously, first
developed a mutual appreciation of each other when comparing stamp collections
at a cricketing philately meet in St Lucia in the early 1980s.
Le Serve snared his first wicket for the club via a skied
catch, and Mangham added two more wickets to his tally via edges to first slip
where Travis ganneted the ball up like it was a bottle of Castrol engine oil
and his hands were Love's generous power unit. From 125-3 at drinks, Ripley had
stumbled to 135-6 and skipper Rogers' brow began to unfurrow.
Mangham skittled two more of Ripley’s middle order and
finished with the exceptional figures of 5-20 off his seven-over allotment. In
the context of the run rate at either end up until that point, this was a
seriously economical effort and one that Love and I agree should be upgraded to
figures of 5 for minus 26 – Magatha please note accordingly. A
seriously impressive effort (as one would expect from a man wearing a
psychedelic cat T-shirt with neither too much nor too little lilac) and one
that was in a few ways quite similar to Keeley Hodgkinson’s 800m Olympic
victory…while in most other ways not being comparable at all.
Le Serve's spell also ended - as a miner he needs to be
careful not to overexert himself lest it provoke his early stage black lung -
paving the way for Simon Brodbeck and Alastair Macaulay to operate in tandem
for about the 370th time in their careers.
Wearing matching shoes - after wearing matching shorts and
shirts last week - they recorded identical figures of 1-13. Nearly as cute as
Travis Junior listening to the calming sounds of leather on willow and being
indoctrinated into the #cricketlife from the boundary.
Broster-Turley managed to take a catch to provide Simon's
wicket (after earlier dropping two earlier chances, the difficulty of which
doesn't necessarily need to form part of this match report, and generally
flopping around on the ground a lot like Raygun the B Girl), while Dela Rue was
the catcher for Macaulay (two balls after dropping one from the same bowler -
much to the mirth of Love who returned several proclamations in the Lord's
direction and told him to 'walk 500 miles in those shoes LORD!!!!').
A 76-run win for the Strollers, expertly shepherded by
Captain Rogers, who selflessly neither batted nor bowled while managing to
ensure that everyone else enjoyed a lovely day (and, all importantly, had their
expectations managed). To provide himself with physical and mental stimulation,
Rogers opted to pack up the team kit while we all watched him and provided
pointers and advice from the comfort of our seated positions in the dressing
room.
Refreshments were taken in the fading sun, and Ben phoned
Paige to fist pump while filling her in about his Ripley Triple fWhip with
double Travis Dip – no doubt while envisaging future use of tip. This call
revealed that Paigey had bagged four wickets of her own! What a day. Capt: Steve Rogers. Wkt: George Love.
Match fees: Alastair Macaulay. Match report: Mike Pittams.
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