What a disaster. Playing against The White Swan today we posted a miserable two-figure total, had our bowling smashed to all corners of ground, and even had to foot the bill for a broken window.
Batting first we were 5/1 after 5 (six-ball) overs, 35/1 after 10 and 47/4 after 13. It was dismal stuff, with one of The White Swan's bowlers delivering 14 dot balls before eventually conceding a run (and even that was a wide). In the midst of all this Tony Malik's 27 was probably worth a half-century, although he too was back in the hutch by the half-way mark.
We did mount something of a recovery in the final third of our innings, with Daniel Mortlock (30, including a 35-run partnership with John Young, whose contribution was 1) and Colin Anderson (10*, including a huge six) doubling the total, but 95 was never likely to be enough of a target.
Just how far short it was became apparent when The White Swan's ringer (a humourless blonde South African who looked like he'd come straight out of the breeding program, although called Johnson rather than Sturmsauber or some such) started smashing boundaries with arrogant ease. When Paul Jordan (1/33) dismissed his opening partner for 1 on the 17th ball of the match the score was already 43; in the end Johnson retired on 52 with the score on 58 after 4.2 overs and the match already lost. His full innings -- . 6 . 4 4 4 4 . 1 2 6 6 1 4 1 4 1 . 4 -- was 52 not out off 19 balls with 3 sixes and 7 fours. Not that our bowling figures were the only casualties: one of his huge sixes went through the back window of one of the Oxford Road houses. Normally that sort of thing is no bother as all teams have insurance policies to cover such occurences; the only problem here was that The White Swan had no such insurance and subsequently refused to pay for the damage, the main reason for the lack of any plans for future fixtures between the teams.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we now had a lifeless and meaningless to finish -- even though we managed to get 5 more wickets before the winning runs were hit there was never any doubt the final result. That the likes of Daniel Mortlock (3/7), Tony Malik (1/22) and Jack Anderson (1/7) ended up with healthy-looking figures was of academic interest only.