Besides, now that Mr Trump is an avid cricket fan after finding like-minded individuals in the Kings Langley bunch, we're in safe hands. Mr Trump, famous for absolutely no reason at all, is used to selling ice to Eskimos and will find a way to explain yet another blunder to the world.
Meanwhile, let's get on to the reason a second column in as many weeks has been drafted. It is only fitting that we do our best to describe this amazing series of events as truthfully as possible. This will give historians an accurate account of the most amazing cricket match ever recorded by a serious journalist of international disrepute.
We should start, as always, with the obligatory disclaimer: if you are expecting to read about how the Lobats used their 3700 years of cricketing experience and international calibre of players to wipe out the opposition from the semi-finals, we recommend you read the equivalent column from the opposition. That story never happened.
Instead, what you will be reading about is the slow, painful effort that 14 not so young, but eternally optimistic cricketing wanna bes put each other through, simply because watching the grass grow was far too exciting.
Ok, on to the first day's events.
Saturday started as it always does with the sun rising at about 6am. Of course, no one can confirm this unsubstantiated rumour because all elite members of the Lobats were sound asleep.
What we can confirm is that fortunately most of us made it to the grounds on time but unfortunately the skipper skipped out to the middle and tossed like a tosser, but then fortunately the opposition made a flipping bad call. Ordinarily, bad calls are customary - in fact mandatory - in Lobats decisions. In this case, once again, it worked in our favour when the opposition asked us to field.
Fortunately for us, the skipper of the opposition was on our side, as we would soon learn throughout the events of the weekend.
Back to the cricket. We took the field. Our skipper bowled a few warm ups, that were rapidly dispatched to fielders, who even more rapidly moved out of the way and yelled 'yours'. In the first over, we had their two batsmen shaking hands with the keeper while in the middle of a run. This confused everyone, which resulted in wild screaming.
That scared the batsmen who both then started running to the bowler's end. By the time our fielder had picked up the ball and returned it to the bowler, both the batsmen were ready to face up. The umpire asked one of them to go back to the bowlers end because none of us were interested in running them out.
This irked Prasanna who took it out on Charuka, behind the stumps, by unleashing a thunderbolt that the batsman knicked. Charuka dived for cover the wrong way and found the ball stuck between all five fingers. He started the day with 10 fingers so he was seriously concerned until he realised he had another hand. Order was restored.
Prasanna got another wicket quickly and that fired up the sell out crowd: Ricky and Chathura. Chathu with his 9.5 fingers was giving us a one-and-a-half thumbs up and Ricky was commending the opposition with his hand that had the extra large middle finger.
We unleashed our secret weapon, Janaka, who started the revolving door of batsmen. They came, turned around and went. We had them on the ropes at 36 for 7. Normally this would be reason to celebrate, but the Lobats never needed a reason to celebrate. Ricky and Chathu had the pappara band going at full swing.
Their last three batsmen wanted to give the sell out crowd something to cheer at and started hitting six after six. When they were on 110 with the last pair at the crease, the batsman clocked another massive six that was going like a scud missile to a neighboring suburb. The silly bugger fielding in that vicinity panicked and tried to bolt to safety. Unfortunately, this old grandpa hadn't even moved a couple of feet when he noticed the scud missile appeared to have a heat seeking war-head that was headed straight towards his crown jewels.
Grandpa tried to jump out of the way, but got pinged by the ball that took him off the ground and pinned him to the top of a lamp post. The local fire brigade took him off the pole and placed him back on the grounds. Forensics found the cricket ball firmly lodged between his legs and since he never actually stepped out of bounds, the umpire ruled the batsmen out, declared the innings over and asked the Lobats to bat. Grandpa reminded everyone of the importance of keeping their eyes on the ball. Not everyone understood what that meant.
Time to bat…
Ten minutes later, two batsmen were seen chasing the skipper out of the pavilion, shouting something incomprehensible. Ricky helped translate. Turns out they were just practicing their batting.
The top order did their job of putting everyone to sleep. They were just following the skippers instructions of winning the race by putting the rabbit to sleep. Every now and then the opposition skipper screamed out loud to wake everyone up. This irked the umpires who were enjoying a quiet nap. The umpires warned the skipper twice. We ended day one 40/2 chasing 111.
When the opener's wife learnt that the Lobats could win the match, she called an emergency meeting to ensure that this would not happen because lunch plans had been made for the following weekend. Elite commentators from around the world tweeted her back and told her not to worry. They said cricket is a funny game, but it has never been that funny.
Day two started, simply because stopping it was beyond our control. Upul showed up on time for the first time in the last 10 years only because all the bookies had provided amazing odds on his being late. He picked up his loot and went straight home. He has now been fined for match fixing.
The opposition was a little unhappy with the spectator turn out on day 2, so they started screaming at the top of their lungs every few seconds until the entire neighborhood came out to see what the bleeping ruckus was. Mike was very upset about having his peace and quiet being disturbed, so he started walking around complaining to every tree that would listen. A few trees were seen fleeing the scene.
Then the Lobats started performing like they usually do. The revolving door was revolving again. The neighbors started calling 000 when they heard repeated screams from the middle. Soon we were 60/6. That's when Charuka went out to bat. Only a few days prior, Charuka had chastised the selectors for including him in the side when all his performances had been everywhere else but on the cricket field.
He was in a foul mood. Thank goodness. Soon we were within 40 runs of the target. It looked like plain sailing at this point until Nirav who was looking good at the other end decided it was too hot to keep batting. Then a couple of things happened.
One, we lost a couple of wickets and had only two wickets left. Two, Charuka pulled a muscle between his legs that he didn't even know existed. He was aware of a tiny muscle between his legs, but this other muscle was a revelation to him. He called for a stretcher. From that point on he was hobbling between the wickets. Meanwhile all the Lobats were wobbling on the sidelines.
Then we were down to our last wicket after Prassana also decided it was far too hot under the sun. That meant it was all up to Mike and Charuka. The inside scoop, according to a highly unreliable source, is that Mike, like Charuka, had also chastised the selectors for selecting him in the side.
Chris offered Mike his batting spot because Mike had spent a fortune on a brand new bat that came with one very important thing - a set of instructions on which way was up. Unfortunately it didn't come with a remote control, but fortunately it came with a guaranty of a TON. Unfortunately Mike thought that was the weight of the bat and left it in the hut.
Fortunately no one cared and it didn't matter because Charuka gifted the opposition skipper a dolly, which fortunately he chose to have none of. This resulted in cheers from the sideline. Then unfortunately Charuka skipped out to a ball and missed it, but fortunately the opposition skipper screamed so loud that the poor keeper and everyone within a 7 mile radius ran for cover, resulting in the keeper leaving the ball behind.
At this point, the young guys on the sidelines were complaining of heart palpitations. The old guys, whose hearts had stopped beating years ago, told Ricky and Prassana to be quiet and watch the game. They did.
We had crawled our way to within 3 runs. Every ball was now painful to watch. Not even the 2007 Ashes series had this level of tension and excitement, but then again that series was not determining the finalist of PDCA B something or the other. The bookies didn't know what to do - they had already lost a lot of money on the Upul wager. Besides the bookie was too busy batting to fix the match.
A single was stolen when nobody was watching. Fortunately Peter, ever vigilant, saw the single and logged it in the book. Now we only needed two more to win. But given Charuka's condition of needing a stretcher to get from one side to other, even the rabbits were holding their breath. That's when the two old men who had protested about being chosen in the side to begin with, hit a ball that resulted in a single, to tie the match.
The skipper picked up the ball and threw it towards the stumps. Charuka limped gracefully towards the stumps. The ball went past the stumps and Charuka turned around and crawled back for a second.
Hi-fives all around. The team manager was seen on the phone with Mr Trump. The Lobats had somehow managed to reverse over the line and crash into another grand final with no idea of how or why they got there.
No World Cup in the history of cricket has been this exciting. Many an international commentator has said cricket is a funny game. If only they knew.
Howzat.
Well done boys. Well done Charuka, match winner !!!
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