15 Jan 2008

First things first - a correction from the last match summary. It was reported that Sam was
seen smoking on the boundary in our last report. This incorrect report almost resulted in him
receiving a life time ban from the sport when his wife read the article and threatened to revoke
his temporary visa. So let's set the record straight - it was in fact Ricky Kapoor Punter who was
guilty of smoking on the job – let’s hope Ricky’s Mum doesn’t read this. How’z That would like to
apologise to all parties concerned and takes no responsibility for all inaccuracies.

Now back to the cricket.

Last Sat started in the usual fashion. Stand in skipper Charuka was frantically working the
phones 10 minutes before start of play when the usual suspects were no where to be found.
Rajitha's presence was ensured this time by Charuka who drove to his house and escorted him to
the grounds. But Eddie had once again disappeared in the middle of the night, last seen heading
no where special.

Dilshan saved the day and showed up – sneaking out the back door when his baby boy
was screaming at the top of his voice. He was advised to wear his cup on the way home.

Ricky made an announcement to anyone who’d listen that he had given up on the opposite sex.
This prompted everyone to not turn their back on Ricky.

The day got started with the skipper throwing the new ball to veteran space bowler Imran Atif
Khan. Young and agile Prasad was thrown the wicket keeping gloves. He threw them back.

Atif put the pressure on Prasad from the first ball. Some went to the left and others to the right
and most went off the middle of the bat to the boundary. Even the batsmen struggled to figure
out Atif’s strategy. Only Ricky seemed to know the plan and was heard shouting “I know what
you are doing, Stif.”

Before long, however, Atif got his first wicket when the batsman struggled with the pace. The
ball came so slowly that the bails almost refused to budge. Even Prasad got carried away with
the slow pace. You might recall the match where Prasad attempted a catch with his elbow. This
time he tried to stop one of Atif's space balls using his mouth. This required immediate medical
attention of the mental kind, administered by Rajitha.

Atif did finally get one of his balls to go through at pace – in fact it was clocked doing 160 km/hr.
This was on the way home when he was clocked speeding on the M2 in his little blue sports car.
The speed camera photo shows his other ball firmly lodged in his throat.

The other bowler who did a bit of damage was Rajitha. Although he started the day by
complaining he had a back ache after attempting to sit down too quickly, he managed to
mysteriously cure this problem when the skipper threw him the ball.

Debutant Aneesh also contributed a second ball wicket before ensuring the fielders got into
shape chasing balls to the boundary.

Thanks to some classic catches, we had them at about 60/6 from 16 overs. Young Prasad won
the KFC catch of the match when the ball was lobbed softly up in the air above the batsman’s
head. Prasad dived to the left, got up, then dived to the right, got up, moved back to his original
spot and caught it to a thundering applause. He was almost carried off the field by Rajitha who
fortunately remembered he had a back ache. Besides we still had a few more wickets to get.

We were doing so well that Prasad immediately ordered everyone to stop taking wickets so that

we would have enough runs to chase. He led by example by promptly dropping the next catch.

Not wanting to disobey Prasad, one of the monkeys placed at deep mid-wicket immediately tried
to run into the trees when a catch was sent his way. Even with his best attempt to run away
from the ball, it landed in his palms. He did, however, succeed in dropping it in style and quickly
signalled a four to the cheers of both sides.

Rajitha also contributed to the team strategy. In fact, he even managed to kick the ball from slips
all the way to the boundary after dropping the catch. Charuka and Ricky also chipped in with
some high quality drops. Rajitha did get the award for best drop though.

The only person who refused to follow the plan was Sam – yet again. When Rajitha got
hammered for what looked like a certain six runs, SuperSam snuck out from behind a tree,
somersaulted on to the field, took a hop, skip and a flying leap and caught the ball with
his stomach. Prasad vowed to try that one next time. During the team huddle, when the
rest of the team asked Sam what he was doing in the bushes he said he was definitely not
smoking. He confessed to raising his finger at a couple of rabbits, giving them out lbw.

With one wicket left to go and still not much runs on the board, the skipper threw Ricky the ball.
Actually, Charuka threw the ball at Ricky hoping to hit him after he had got sick of being pestered
for a bowl all day. Ricky mistook this for being asked to bowl. All the fielders did the sensible
thing and scattered, placing themselves safely behind the largest possible tree they could find.
Only the umpire and the wicket keeper were left to fend for themselves.

Ricky immediately launched into mental disintegration strategy that Warne would have been
proud of. This was a rather risky strategy considering the batsman did not appear to be of the
stable sort. The batsman and Ricky traded words, or at least noises. No one was quite sure what
to make of the exchange, but it appeared to have deep meaning to both parties. Ricky seemed
to have it under control. This was proven when he got his man out a couple of balls into his spell
and the two of them hugged and shook hands mid-pitch.

The scene was set with 118 runs to chase – a task that has repeatedly proven to be well
beyond reach. The plan was simple – Prasad would score another 100 and hopefully 18 extras
would be given by the umpire that Rajitha had befriended. Although Ricky was told he would
be batting at No 8, he had his pads on even before the openers had made it off the field.

Immediate orders were given to Sam to stick to scoring. Sasha was sent out to umpire.

The run chase was anything but usual. Prasad was ready to face the second ball of the day, but
was made to wait a little longer. The second ball of the day was a juicy full toss down leg that
the opener tried to leave. But it was so juicy that it managed to find the middle of the bat and
then a bush. This prompted Sasha to start sledging the batsman – asking him if this was the first
six he had ever hit. The opener set Sasha straight saying he had once scored a six when he hit
the ball to the deep midwicket boundary, and got six runs over covers – he ran two runs and
then got 4 overthrows.

That shut Sasha up for another two balls. The opener then tried to leave a ball on the off side
only to have it find the bottom edge of the bat and then the boundary. This resulted in further
sledging from Sasha who ran up to the batsman and offered him a drink, saying he was on 10
runs and must be very tired! The batsman then called for Sam to give Sasha out.

Lasith then got going and we were quickly 21 runs in 3 overs. Ricky had already started his
customary praying for a wicket. Lasith continued to stroke a fluent 52 runs with cover drives and

proper drives off good length balls. Prasad finally got sick of waiting for his turn to bat that he
took off his pads and asked the skipper to find another one-down batsman. Before the skipper
could look around, he had his answer on his lap - he suddenly found Ricky sitting on his lap.
Considering the morning’s confession, the skipper got twitch and Ricky was given the nod.

Unfortunately when the openers scored the winning runs, he was seen heading towards his
car, pads still on. He reported scoring a century at home. His aunty confirms this report.

All in all it was a good day… How’z That?