Last season ended on a high. Somehow, no one yet knows how, the Lobats won the premiership and ran away with the silverware. Running away with the silverware is nothing new. They do that every time they go to a restaurant that serves food with anything other than plastic ware. Fortunately they rarely eat at restaurants, which is why they have very little silverware to show off.
Sorry, I digress. But then again, if I didn't digress this column would be no more than a sentence or two, so let's digress.
After winning the silverware last season, an emergency meeting was called by the you know who - yup, the Lack Of Brains and Trust and Skill, aka Lobats. This meeting is yet to be scheduled.
The issue at hand is the team's unacceptable performance last year. As you know the Lobats pride themselves on never rocking the boat and allowing the opposition to win all games in the interest of maintaining the spirit of the game. So when our skipper, through no fault of his own, last year decided to somehow get us to the semis and then the finals and then, heaven forbid, win the bleeping finals, all hell broke loose.
At the highest levels of government, the skipper's head was called for. In fact, a special assembly at the UN was never requested. Nevertheless, skipper Nirav was summoned to a hearing and asked to explain himself. He had to defend his lack of actions and decisions but mainly his performance that resulted in the Lobats being 'graded' up two leagues. Fortunately at this hearing, no one could hear a thing partly because of Nirav's soft mumbling but mainly because of poor hearing of the audience. For those who could hear, it was clear there was no explanation. So a decision was made to make a decision soon. We're still waiting this decision because it's not yet soon.
In the meantime, skipper Nirav was sacked, which in this team is a promotion but he was also suspended temporarily from the side which in this team is a bonus. Hence his name was not in the starting 20 line up that made the press a few weeks back. Instead a list of names of individuals that never did anything was put together and a team was formed.
Order had been restored. The issue of a skipper had to be resolved. When everyone volunteered, it was decided that a decision will not be made and all 11 players on the field would be captain. The guy who did the least and/or had the best reputation as a tosser would toss. This was because they were most likely to lose the toss, not aggravate the other side and not rock the boat. And with this the seasons started and the first match came and went and something happened that rarely happens.
Here's what happened.
The other team tossed. They were good at being tossers all of last season. A decision was made and we ended up batting. After our performance in the finals last year, it was decided that once again the openers would be sent out with strict instructions to do absolutely nothing so that everyone else would have something to do. This worked well in the finals. So that's exactly what happened.
Fonzy replaced Las at the top of the order. Las as you know was expelled from the side for showing good promise. He was send to a hard ship post to teach some natives the game of cricket. He is sowing oats in London. The poor bugger.
Fonz fitted right into the opening spot - after losing some weight in the off season. As per plan Fonz lost his other pretty much immediately. Chats came to the crease with a point to prove. He wanted to prove that you can actually bat with 9 fingers. He proved it. He scored some 60 runs along with a small contribution of 110 from Roma and another 40 something from Upul who showed up without whites, shoes, a bat or anything else for that matter. He played in his pyjamas. The other batsmen were mainly salad dressing oiling the way to 292 for 8 declared.
The following week we bowled, and bowled and bowled. Finally we got one of the openers out after he scored a fifty and got bored. Our skipper ran over and congratulated this batsman - for what exactly remains a mystery. Some say that this was to maintain good international relationships with tossers. Others say it was to not rock the boat. But what is for sure is that our skipper has and always will remain a mystery.
Then we eventually got the other opener out. He didn't get a handshake from our skipper, but was told that a milk shake was waiting for him in the dressing room. Then their innings got stuck when their batting coach who had been giving our batsmen ample batting advice during our innings, failed to bring out his coaching manual. He could barely see over the stumps and every ball we bowled to him ran the risk of being a beamer.
We decided to hand the ball to Shane, our new found mystery bowler. The scorers who had no trouble with every Sri Lankan name we threw at them, struggled to spell Shane and we had to tell them to spell it like it sounds. Obviously Shane is not a famous name in Kings Langley.
Slowly but surely we got to the end of their innings, thanks mainly to Ajaz and Prasanna with assistance from Roma. And that was that really. So we're now expecting the new skipper, who has yet to be announced and identified to be sacked immediately.
A decision on this is pending. Stay tuned, but for heavens sake don't hold your breath. The boat has been rocked. It decision time. Over and out.
