Friday, April 22, 2016

Lobats are champions, everybody champions…

As you are well aware by now if you actually occasionally wake up in the morning, some amazing events have happened in the world of cricket recently that can't be explained scientifically or otherwise. But as always we will do so here.

Mark Nicholas recently made some appropriate and accurate comments about our lack of brains although he forgot to mention the lack of trust and skill, probably due to laziness or lack of sleep, which we of all teams understand perfectly. Unfortunately, the West Indies read those comments and felt insulted for us and decided to go win the T20 World Cup on our behalf. We appreciate the gesture.

However, while they were playing this minor tournament somewhere in a land far away, on our shores, the real cricket action happened, as you all know.

Similar to the West Indies, the Lobats who share many things in common with that hap-hazard bunch, somehow made it to another PDCA Grand Final to determine the champions of B something or the other. However, unlike the West Indies that make up for their limitations upstairs with mind numbing muscle and some skill, the Lobats showed the world how to do it with none of the above.

Also unlike the West Indies, the Lobats chose to bat first after losing the toss and being told to bat. What we did with the bat was covered in the previous column that nobody read, so it will not be repeated here. In case you did read it and forgot what was said, we did the exact opposite of what we normally do with the bat and we scored runs. What was amazing was what we did with the ball.

We headed out to the middle and stupidly one of the Lobats wished the batsmen good luck. Chani protested. He said we needed the good luck and not them. He was right. That good luck handed over to the opposition was going to haunt us for the rest of the day.

The ball was handed to Prasanna. He polished it and handed it back. We then spat on it and handed it back to him. You will recall he dismembered two keepers in the opening overs of two games prior. This time we were hoping Prasanna would fire one of those thunderbolts through the bat and onto the stumps. He, however, had other ideas. No one really knows what they were.

So Ricky behind the stumps again, with nine fingers, was a lot happier and seen patting himself on the back regularly for lasting more than one over behind the stumps. The ball was then given to Chani, who you will recall, was asked not to bowl in the semis because we needed someone with two legs to bowl. But in the finals, as we didn't need him to do anything more for at least another season, we gave him the ball.

He hopped in like a Kangaroo and got a wicket on his first ball. We decided to give him a second ball after that performance. But then the good luck we handed over to the batsmen kicked in and wickets became scarce, mainly because dropped catches became abundant. They inched their way towards the target while we kept our eyes on the sky because that was a tactic they had used on us earlier in the season that proved highly effective. The last time we played them they organised a thunderstorm that turned the grounds into a swimming pool. If that happened again, they would have won as they were above us on the ladder.

Then we unleashed our secret weapon Janaka who in the first innings showed all the boys how to run between the wickets and on the field showed how to run after a ball. He then provided a master class in how to take wickets without relying on fielders or umpires. All the boys were seen taking copious notes. And one by one, wickets tumbled as we headed towards the end of the day with overs running out and quite a few runs yet to get. They needed about 50 off 10 overs. This was still doable.

Then four sixes in a row were not hit. Instead we got the a couple of quick wickets and there were fire works and cheers all around, somewhere in the world as the newly crowned champions celebrated.

There was chaos out in the middle, as the team song was chanted - Mandela's a champion, Obama's a champion, Rav a champion, Ricky a chimpanzee, Prasanna a champion, Charuka a champion, Janaka the only real champion, Mike a champion, Chama a champion cook, Roma a champion texter, Chani a one-legged champion, Las a champion, Chris a champion, Peter a true champion, Upula a late champion, Chatu a nine-fingered champion, Jude a champion bar tender, Johnson a champion, Fonzy a future champion, and everybody knows Neshan used to be a champion.

They sang and danced for all of at least five minutes. Pictures all around. Video capture, sent all around the world via Facebook. It was a rain dance, because then it rained. And that was that. The end of another world event. The festivities are to be continued at Mike's bar and grill where hoppers and meat curry will be served to Champions and chimpanzees alike…