Lobats unfortunately use reverse gear to go forward

Ok, ok, ok … yes I promised to only subject you to one of these mind numbing pieces of dribble this year, but due to another unprecedented series of events this weekend, we have decided to ignore the UN embargo on this column and are seeking to sneak another story past the censors.

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.

The circus came to town

Boyz - as you know this column has long been banned after the censors decided that the column was so boring that even the one follower of this column - the writer's father - stopped reading it.

However, after this last weekend's events, a special committee was brought together to decide what should be done. When they couldn't decide, it was escalated to the local mayor who promptly escalated it to Mr Turnbull, who promptly escalated it to his best friend, Donald Trump.

Mr Trump's first reaction was to say that he enjoys squashing crickets with his left thumb. When his chief of staff explained the international significance of the Lobats and cricket, he called an emergency meeting at the United Nations to get the clearance for this story to be published.

He retracted his previous comments and said that the weekend's efforts definitely deserved a report by an international journalist of a reputable publication. When they all laughed at him, he called upon the one publication that takes him seriously. This publication has built its reputation on only reporting nothing but blatant lies and pointless stories. So the editors got together and decided to put together a special publication.

Here it is.

First things first. For those of you expecting a story about how the Lobats (the Lack of brains and trust and skill) came together and pulled a rabbit out of a hat and somehow accidentally won another game that they should have lost - you will want to stop reading. This is not one of those stories. Chances are that you have already stopped reading, so we shall continue.

This is a story of a rather incredible series of events never before seen even by all the members of the elite Lobats that has a combined 3700 years of cricketing experience between just three of them. These years of experience was brought to the side after Mike, Janaka and Johnson were banished from all other sides and ended up as life time members of the Lobats.

On to the events of the day.

The usual happened, as it usually does. We went into field after a few gentle stretches and a back rub or two. Given the combined age of the side, we had to be cautious. A couple of the guys left their wheel chairs behind in pavilion. We also managed to leave the new ball in the hut, which lead to a minor panic when no one could remember what a new ball looked like.

The opposition didn't look like they were going to damage too many blades of grass, and it was all very civilised and gentle. Our fast bowlers, who learnt their art of pace bowling at the James May school of slow drivers in fast cars, did their thing of running and letting lose some gentle pace balls.

Prasanna, however was on fire and fired through a few thunderbolts. Ricky, behind the stumps, tried to stop one of those thunderbolts and lost a finger. He had to quickly hand over the glove work to Charuka who in his last match also did the same thing - kept for an over and then handed over the gloves to Ricky. Ricky spent the rest of the day walking around with his middle finger pointed at everyone. Even Peter had tolerate being flipped the birdie by Ricky.

The opposition batsmen did their thing of giving us catching practice. Our fielders did their thing of running, hopping, skipping, jumping and somersaulting - doing everything possible to make their dropped catches look spectacular. The opposition did their thing of rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically. Ricky walked around and flipped them the finger.

Nothing out of the ordinary here. Nothing to report in fact. That's why you're reading about it here.
We had them on the ropes at no wicket for some 60 odd runs after 20 overs and we were confident we had the game in the bag. Although our par score chasing is now 44 runs, one thing the Lobats can not be faulted for is their eternal optimism.

That's when the winds changed on us. The second 20 overs was ballistic. They scored a total of close to 180 runs in the end. We ran off the field and into the hut before some of those balls came down from outer space.


Ten minutes later when the umpire said it was safe to emerge again, our batsmen charged out into the middle. This, mind you, was not out of a desire to go face the music, but mainly because they were being chased out of the pavilion by the skipper who was holding a bat firmly over his head.

Both openers had been promoted to the opening spot because they had failed in all other spots. After taking an eternity to take guard, the first opener charged back to the pavilion claiming his job of facing one ball had been accomplished. From that point on, everyone pretty much followed his lead and we were about 30 for 6.

This is when the unprecedented series of events began. At this point the opposition, who were an under 12 side from a school we hadn't heard of, had managed to get under the skin of pretty much everyone within a five mile radius. At the centre of this 5 mile radius was our very own Chaminda. We're not quite sure what triggered Chama's fuse, but he decided everything had to go. There was six after six interspersed with the occasional run out chance.

One of the sixes ended up near the pavilion where all the boys had gathered to enjoy the fireworks. The opposition fielder who was chasing the ball came up to us and decided to chastise us for not fetching the ball for him. Ricky, who was still walking around sticking his middle finger up at everyone, appeared momentarily baffled, which of course everyone knows is nothing out of the ordinary.

But when Ricky realised this poor fellow was seriously disappointed that after his bowler had been pummelled for six, we failed to fetch the ball for him, Ricky started his engines. Ricky told the little man where to fetch the ball and what he should do with it after. This resulted in a spectacular course of events. The poor little boy decided to not fetch the ball and instead ran straight back on to the field to first complain to the umpire. When the umpire was as baffled as Ricky, he complained to his skipper, who may have actually been his father, because he looked like he was about 24 years old. The skipper took matters into his own hands and was waving his hands frantically left and right at us. Ricky waved back with his middle finger. We took their frantic waving as an SOS distress signal and asked the fellas whether we needed to call an ambulance, the police, the life savers, the coast guard or someone's Mum.

Their response was somewhat unclear, but all sorts of fingers were being pointed in all sorts of directions and a few of their lack of brains and trust decided to convene around the umpire. So far every time they congregated in a huddle of this manner, it ended them jumping up and down repeatedly and them making sounds only heard in remote parts of the Amazon where a rather rare species of ancestors of the homo sapien species still roam. In Australia this sound could  very easily be mistaken for a Kookaburra, but these were no Kookas. This was definitely sound recorded from the pre-Neanderthale era, when predecessors of mankind roamed freely.

That's when we realised the circus was in town. Ricky was over the moon. He was cheering left and right. Chaminda thought the cheer was meant for him and kept going hammer and tong until unfortunately the umpire felt his life was in danger and decided to send Chama back for looking rather dangerous.

The opposition once again huddled and those pre-historic jungle sounds emerged once again. Then they started jumping up and down and we were glad there weren't any trees nearby. Little kids in the neighborhood started running back to their homes, out of fear that Taronga Zoo had opened all its gates and the wild life was on the loose.

The opposition kept looking our way and hailing complements. We acknowledged in kind. They thought they had the game wrapped up, until Prashanna and Janaka decided to show the clowns who their daddy was. Janaka clocked six after six and got us to within striking distance, albeit a little bit too little too late and we lost the game by only about 20 something runs.

At this point, your roving reporter, like Ricky and most other sober observers, decided to make a run for safety and we all picked up our sarongs and fled the scene. Most of us didn't want to risk looking the untamed in the eye. Scenes like this have never been recorded on a cricket field. We are happy to be the first publication to bring this story to you first hand. We have Mr Trump to thank for that. He is now an avid fan of cricket.

We have also decided to start selling tickets to the next circus act these clowns will be hosting. Please buy your tickets, although rumour has it that they are all sold out - all one of them. Howzat.

LoBaTs up and sputtering in 2014... the Lucky Team?

In the last article, this reporter promised you an interview with the new skipper. Of course none of you will recall that given that no one read the last article and more importantly no one gives a hoot.

However a promise is a promise and it's hardly ever that this esteemed publication gets an exclusive, so you will be subjected to one of the most boring interviews in the history of journalism. 

Before that, let me update you on the progress of your beloved team. Normally that wouldn't take more than a sentence or two given that progress is the last thing on any of the minds of the LoBaTs. Not to worry, these are not normal times and besides as you well know by now, the one thing you are guaranteed here is anything but an executive summary...

So the season is now under way with three matches behind us. The pre-season practice sessions  consisted of Fonzy sending out a lengthy email, followed by a comment or two from the peanut gallery - mainly Chaminda really. Meanwhile the senior members of the 'lack of brains and trust and skill' put together a spectacular team, at least on paper.

This paper, however, was lost when a mild breeze got under the wings of what was a very well designed paper plane... It is believed that team list is now somewhere between Perth and Malaysia. Mr Abbott has promised to launch a naval search and rescue effort, but don't hold your breath, unless of course you are practicing for your next scuba dive.

So without this team list, we were back to the old machang network. Fortunately, this network is tried and tested and it consistently delivers the same result - which is no result. This meant that as always the first match was going to be a patch job of who ever was available. We were happy with anyone who had the one skill required to be an elite member of this group - the ability to fog a mirror with one's breath.

After struggling to find 11 people with this skill, we decided to take the advice of a wise man. When we couldn't find a wise man, we just asked the first person who was silly enough to talk to us. This old Chinese lady simply wished us good luck. We didn't take her words lightly. We looked up the word 'luck' in X Factor and according to Dannii Minogue luck was really about showing up, working hard and taking a few risks.

We showed up, lost the toss and spent the rest of the day working hard on the field. We took some big risks by handing the ball to each other to see who was silly enough to bowl. Chani hopped in on one leg and swung his arm. He got himself a quick fire wicket with a catch hit to cover that somehow got lodged in the hands of midoff after the cover fielder took cover by making a quick dash towards fine leg. 

There was no one to bowl from the other side so everyone was given one ball each. Fortunately the batsmen got so confused they gifted catches and proceeded back to the hut. Then Rajitha was woken up and unleashed. Before we knew it, we had them all out for 73, thanks mainly for the fact there were only about six of them.

Suffice it to say we managed to get the runs and a small lead. On day two we were back to form with our usual spectacular collapses and so they batted again. This time it proved a little more difficult to get them out. When we finally did we needed about 82 runs in 8 overs.

Romesh and Upul were sent out to do the job. They had other ideas. So Rajitha was summoned out of his slumber. He was so angry at being disturbed that he hammered everything. Spectators put on helmets and got on their bikes to make a quick exit but not soon enough. One poor little spectator was almost hit on the head twice. We ended up 15 runs short of an outright.

Match 2 was going to be a bit tougher it appeared when we got to the ground only to find the opposition carrying out international level drills in the nets and the field. They had about 50 men in white running around, diving in the outfield and speeding into the nets. We were one short and that too was the one person we rely on to win all our matches.

We contemplated asking one of the 50 members of the opposition whether they wanted a game or five with us. But then we learnt that the opponents were a reincarnation of the team we played in the grand finals last year. That made sense. As you will recall, the opposition in the finals last year were seen practicing for two days before the game.

Our skipper went out to toss with visible fear in his eyes. He was given a lecture by the international grade umpires on the rules of the game. Turns out he has been playing the game all wrong these past 40 years. He was now visibly happy that he understood what he was supposed to be doing out there.

The skip managed to finally do one thing right. He won the toss. But then he decided to bat. And as usual we found ourselves at 20-2 thanks to Rajitha who got a ball that swung to the right, then to left, then did a cart wheel before going straight past his bat onto the stumps. According to Raja, that was probably the best bowler in the country.

The country's best bowler was now on a hat-trick. He appeared to have a few tricks in his hat. Fortunately Upul managed to keep the next ball out. But that's all he managed to do. He failed to keep the next one out and we were now 20-3. Ishan came in and calmed things down. But it was only a matter of time before our international umpire gave him out lb although he hit the ball. We asked for a decision review and a few polite words later Ishan was back at base camp. 40-4.

As you all know, this is never a cause for alarm. This is standard operating procedure for the Lobats. Usually from here we would limp to about 60 and if we are lucky we would get to our par score of 114, thanks mainly to Mr Sundries, our favourite player. So there was absolutely no panic anywhere except in the other camp where their opening batsmen were unprepared to bat so soon.

Then Romesh stepped on to the field. He was told to get his usual 140+ runs in the remaining overs. After a few overs he was in his thirties. Actually he has been in his thirties for years, but who's counting. Then he gifted his fifth catch which was finally accepted and he returned to base camp.

That's when the two oldies of the side decided to do what they do best and put everyone to sleep with swashbuckling defensive prods and misses. Michael held up his end like he has been doing this for years. Truth is he has been doing this for years. Eventually while the other side was snoring the two tortoise snuck past the 200 mark. Eventually the other side woke up and sent Mike packing. 

This brought Tricky to the middle and that brought Prasanna to the middle a couple of balls later. Yet a couple of balls later Chris was taking guard. The Lobats revolving door was spinning like it had been hit by a typhoon. Chris put on a 26 run partnership with the opener who had blinked and found himself with the last man. We ended up on 266 runs to defend! After our bowlers started getting hammered, Nirav stepped up and took his obligatory 7 wickets in 7 overs, starting with a catch from Ricky that surprised Ricky more than anyone else. We defended our total. 

After all the luck we had in the first two matches, we thought we would test a new formula of luck and a few of us decided not to bother to even show up to the game and see if we could still win. This meant that once again we were playing musical chairs with the ball to see who would bowl the first over. It was a long day in the office, with once again Chani doing the lion share of the work, ending with a Pfieffer and Rajitha taking 3 between his afternoon nap. Upul eventually decided to join us towards the end of the day so he could have a bat.

In 7 overs he was 37 and we had 47 of the 171 runs required. On day 2, Upul felt he had contributed enough, so he didn't show up to continue his innings. The problem was that 3 other guys also appeared to have the same idea as Upul and we were left with only 7 guys to do the batting. Rajitha's usual fireworks with the bat were mis-firing but fortunately so were their fielders. We did what we do best, limped to 171 with as many sundries and edges as possible. We managed to prove that you don't even need to show up to win provided you have enough luck. And that is that. 

A season came and went to a grand final won by boring the opposition to death

Since the last update on the LoBaTs, a lot of very little has happened. Well, at least one year passed and depending on how you look at it, that’s either 365 days, 8760 hours or 525,000 seconds. In that time, the Lobats were resurrected and thrashed and then thrashed and thrashed.

In the spirit of this column, which fortunately nobody reads and therefore has no spirit, we will find a way to turn the very little that happened into a very long story. Here it is.

Last season came and went, during which a new captain was found at pretty much every match and often during the match. The team bounced between some spectacular performances whichever way you look at it. The season started with a thorough beating from our brethren in Canberra. This was followed by spectacular innings throughout the season interspersed with spectacular collapses. Then towards the business end of the season, a win that was crafted by getting the other team all out with only two runs to get ensured we made our way into the semi-finals.

The semi-finals came and went – as they do. No one is quite sure what happened. The other team featured a bowler that by all counts was the best bowler in the league. He was also their best batsman. He won the accolade of being the best bowler after bowling a ball early in the season to our opener that was absolutely unplayable, unless of course you had a bat in your hand and knew how to bat.

Yet somehow, after the opener made way for the rest of the team, we thrashed them and made our way to the finals. The finals was against the best team in the league. They had won pretty much all their matches. They were old foes or friends, we’re still not sure. They did however call one of our own grandpa during the finals. As we weren’t sure if that was a term of endearment or a sledge, judgement on whether they are friends or foes will be deferred.

The scene was set for another spectacular clash, one of titan proportions like that we had against the Kenyans many a season ago. This time instead of a very loud keeper we were presented with an opposition skipper who loves to lecture anyone and everyone on the laws of the game. Of course by this stage we were used to lectures from our own skipper that had told us not to show any mercy and to bat 60 overs without scoring a run, simply to show character. So the opposition skippers lectures were a welcome change.

But all this lectures had even put the birds to sleep, or may be they were just bored to death. It definitely wasn’t the usual surface to air missiles that used to get launched when we were bowling that were keeping the birds away. In fact, there was hardly and scoring in this match. Both captains ensured this with their long speeches that had everyone sleeping soundly – normally it’s only one of us that sleeps soundly before shouting ‘stay there, long way to go’.

In the lead up to the game, numerous emergency meetings were held in numerous offices across town about matters that had nothing to do with cricket. For instance, the Reserve Bank was having various talks on how to stimulate the economy, while others had various meetings on how to stimulate themselves further. On the day of the match, one of our players was seen giving a few tips on self-stimulation to other team’s skipper. This resulted in another lecture.

At the end of all these meetings, 11 Lobats showed up late to the grounds as per usual, only to be confronted with an opposition that had been there for 4 hours practicing and in the middle of a hakka. That was quite intimidating and serious thought was given to calling the game off and declaring the winner even before a ball had been bowled. Yet, in the spirit of cricket, calmer minds prevailed and it was decided by two spirited cockatoos that were picking worms on the park that the game should be played, before they got bored to death.

So our skipper was sent out to toss in the hope that he would lose his way to the middle and not come back. The skipper then promptly announced he was going to be twelfth-man. Normally this would have sent shivers down an already nervous bunch, but everyone knew what it meant, so no one even yawned. It meant everyone else was going to have to rotate on and off the field while the twelfth man did all the bowling and batting.

We lost the toss as always and the opposition batted. Fortunately the pressure of trying to remember all the lecture notes of their skipper was more than they could handle and they started gifting catches. Unfortunately, none of us knew what to do with a catch, having never even caught a cold before, and we had to rely on them walking on their stumps to get them out. Fortunately this happened for only 119 runs. Unfortunately that was 5 runs above our par score.

That’s when our skipper of the hour hatched a plan that had never been tried before in any previous incarnation of Lobats. He decided to wake us all up. He did this by taking responsibility and promoting himself to the # 3 spot on the batting order, which as you all know meant he was essentially opening. So when the inevitable happened and one opener unselfishly made way, the skipper came in and pitched camp in the middle.

Eventually, what felt like a couple of weeks later, we had slept our way to 114-1 with the main contributions coming from the one player in our side that has never let us down, Mr Sundries. In fact, this player won the batsman of the season award. At that point the skipper and the other opener selfishly got themselves out so they could get a start on the cold beers and handed over the uphill task of bringing us home to the remaining 7 players. Remember, our par score for the season was 114, so this was a massive task for 7 guys who were now sound asleep.

The cat had been set upon the pigeons and the fear was visible in the dressing room. Our team statistician pointed out how often we had gone from a position of weakness to losing in a matter of minutes. Fortunately the opposition were unaware of this and our top scorer, Mr Sundry, added to his incredible average and got us over the line.

The celebrations lasted well into about 3pm at which point the beer ran out. That’s when the skipper came up with his best suggestion all season. He recommended we head immediately to the pub and led the way, sirens blaring. In a state of complete intoxication, it was decided that the team would stick together for another season provided Sundries was available and willing to play for us again.

Unfortunately, given Sundries’ total score and season average, he has been graded at a level that would, well require the Lobats to play against the national side. So the case is being reviewed by the Australian Cricket Board as to whether the Lobats B12s can be accommodated into the international cricket calendar as Australia’s second national side.

Meanwhile, as with all good subcontinent sides, it has been decided that as a result of last season’s winning performance, serious changes were required to the side. It was declared that the loss ratio was not sufficient to keep the current structure of the team. In fact there were serious discussions as to why the finals was won so easily and why the team failed to lose more matches as spectacularly as it had in the past. It is understood that there has been a change to the leadership of the team.

And as always, this esteemed publication has the scoop on all this. In fact, your roving reporter has actually managed to score an interview with the new team captain. As you know, none of the past Lobats captains ever gave an interview to any publication - not because they struggled with English, or because they had nothing interesting to say, or because the lack of brains and trust and skill refused permission for them to speak about any matter to anyone – but simply because no publication could give a toss! So stay tuned for part 2 of this piece for the inside goss… It promises to completely bore you to death!

Pictures that will bore you to death...

LoBaTs are back unbeknownst to the team that has been named that... And they score big!

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Not quite sure what that means but I thought I should take this opportunity to share that with you.

Meanwhile those of you who have followed the Baulko LoBaTs must have been wondering whatever happened to that amazing team. You're not alone. Ok, may be you are alone - truth be told no one else has been following the LoBaTs. And while we're telling the truth the team was only really amazing at collapsing and being dispatched to all parts.

Nevertheless you were not alone in wondering whether the day would come when we would find ourselves an amazing team.

So here's an update. Firstly, there really isn't much to update, so let's just jump to the secondly. Secondly let's get some of our new followers up to speed. Ok, so there aren't really any new followers, but some of the old boys are now so old they forget things very quickly.

For the benefit of them, if you are wondering what or who is LoBaTs, let us start by saying this is a highly prestigious title bestowed upon us after years and years of - we're not sure what really. In the UK, if you are an old fart who happened to get the attention of the queen for some silly act or the other, she bestowed the title of Sir.

Some of you might recall Sir Ian Botham who's only contribution to cricket was a few bad jokes and plenty of bad press. In a similar vein, our Baulko 12s were given the right honorable title of LoBaTs after years of showing a consistent 'Lack of Brains and Trust and Skill'. The name has since been carried around with pride and even established international notoriety when Trevor Chappel claimed on international TV to have coached the LoBaTs to numerous losses.

To make a long story much longer, the senior brains trust got together in the off season and hatched a brilliant new plan. The plan was brilliant in its simplicity. Most brilliant plans are. In this case however it was simple only because the brains trust gets a splitting headache if it isn't simple.

The plan was to find a team that was likely to have at least one win a season and call them the LoBaTs. Like with all brilliant plans, the trick lies in the execution. A wise man once said something. Unfortunately none of us can remember what it was. But if this wise man was around, he would tell us that it's better to have a bad plan executed well than a good plan not executed, or something to that effect.

We had a bit of both. We found a team and decided to call them the LoBaTs. They fitted the bill. They were all curries - mainly Lankan curries - and they had a love for the game - 'had' being the operative word. As for which game, we are yet to establish.

The LoBaTs were reborn, unbeknown to them. They were a proper bunch this lot. The skipper blasted out numerous emails with plenty of gusto and endless instructions. An emergency meeting was called at Charuka's house to establish a constitution and ask for donations, mainly for pocket money, really.

The emergency meeting, resulted in numerous follow up emails and follow up emergency meetings out of which a team was hatched, or so we are lead to believe. The Canberra Lankans were then invited to Sydney for a warm up match, mainly to instill a bit of confidence in a few of the old boys.

The Canberrans came, pillaged, conquered, had a feast and left with the silverware. They hammered over 370 runs - after which we lost count. Seven of their batsmen retired out of boredom. We dropped more than our mandatory quota of catches - 24 by some counts, 27 by other - after 12 we lost count. The captain got a grilling from the premier bowler for dropping half the teams quota. The captain even contemplated dropping himself from the side.

Your roving reporter also lost a finger in the process of making a dropped catch look difficult. He is now typing with just one finger. While the opponents hammered everything to the boundary, including the umpire, when we went to bat, the boundaries had grown and pitch had been planted with land mines. We had the usual procession of wickets followed by the familiar 'aiyo'.

Suffice it to say, this new team that had been named the LoBaTs was very quickly living up to the team's reputation that had been painstakingly built over the years.

The captain shot out a few more lengthy emails after the match to ensure the confidence the team had gained would be maintained for the season. The skipper's emails had to be summarised and translated for a couple of the players that struggle with sentences that contain words longer than four letters.

The LoBaTs were back.

The first official match of the season was last weekend. In what was probably a first ever, at the start of the game, the captain wasn't working the phone like a Bangalore call centre trying to find aunties and uncles to come and fill in. Everyone was there on time, except of course for Las who's not everyone and is never on time. We wouldn't have expected anything less.

Also in a first ever, Ricky was there without his pads on. The skipper won the toss and sensibly (yes, again another first) decided to bat. Everyone looked at Ricky expecting to tell him to take his pads off, but then realised he wasn't padded up. This caused immense confusion. The confusion was sorted by the skipper asking Ricky to pad up, just for fun.

Then Prassana and his opening partner, who shall remain nameless simply because he can't remember his name, conducted a few stretches. One of the lads quickly reminded them not to stretch too much or they might not recover in time to bat. They saw the wisdom in that and headed out. A few overs later Prassana whacked a bouncer straight into the bottom of his middle stump. That was probably the hardest shot in the book to play to a ball like that and he succeeded. This started the all too familiar procession of wickets.

Lasi played a few beautiful forward defence strokes to balls that just missed the stumps and went through the keeper legs for byes. He was then given out lbw to a ball that was heading towards fine leg but according to the umpire would have then made a u-turn and come back to hit the stumps from behind the keeper.

This umpire was straight out of the Sam school of umpiring. He had his finger up from the moment he parked his car. In fact, unconfirmed reports are that he parked the car with his finger up. At this point we started blaming the skipper for batting first.

Charuka came out before the umpire had put his finger down and unfortunately had a ball hit him in the pads. We were three down with not much to show for it. Rajitha wisely (once again another first) decided to wait till the umpire put his finger down before heading out. He told the boys 'not to worry' he'll stay there because there was 'a long way to go'. We all knew how much he hated to walk such a long way back and forth to the middle so we were confident he would give us a long innings.

He came out, kissed his bat and dispatched his first ball to the boundary. A couple of balls later he copped a bouncer and found a way to gently return it as a catch to the bowler. This was probably the hardest shot to play and has never been seen in any coaching manual of any kind, including the Karma Sutra vol 17 that has quite a few illustrations of awkward shots. We have it on good authority that this shot will be illustrated in vol 18.

Rajitha was last seen having harsh words with the bat he is so fond of. We were now 4 down for 31 runs. The skipper had given the other opener specific instructions to reign in his naturally attacking game and to simply stay there without scoring any runs till the end of the innings. At this stage, this looked like a very simple task.

Captain Chaminda then decided to take matters into his own hands. He walked out to the middle and decided diplomacy was the best way to handle this hostile situation. He showed the bowlers some respect instead of his usual disdain. It worked. The bowlers calmed down. Finally when the opponents had fallen a sleep thanks to the opening batsman's natural lack of stroke play and general lack of talent we managed to put a few runs on the board, thanks mainly to the wicket keeper that appeared to be on our side.

To wake up the fielders, they decided to liven up the match and gave the ball to a pie chucker. This plan worked. The partnership was broken after the opener's eyes light up and he swung wildly to a straight ball that took out middle of middle. The opener was seen still spinning well after the days play was over.

This was good news for the LoBaTs because it meant Romesh was next. Romesh was not in the mood for diplomacy. In fact, he was in a foul mood. He hammered over 110 runs in less than 60 balls. One over he dispatched the opening bowler for 22 runs. It happened so fast that we lost count of his final score.

Through all the carnage, Chaminda continued to play his captain's hand by rotating the strike thanks to the byes the keeper was giving us. Before we knew it we had over 300 runs on the board.

At this point Ricky was seen jumping up and down on the boundary asking the umpire to raise his finger again so he could get a bat. Romesh felt sorry for Ricky and gifted his wicket, albeit after 110+ was contributed. This resulted in Melro trying to club everything into the following day. His swashbuckling innings of one over buckled and Ricky finally had his turn.

Chaminda finally decided to let Shashi bat. He went out with a bat, but no one is quite sure why because he didn't use it. He swung at pretty much everything and anything but the ball. Finally the bowler realised that all he had to do was bowl one at the stumps and that was that.

At this point we learnt that Chris had made what was easily one of the safest bets of the season. He promised Ricky 50 packs of smokes if Ricky scored the hundred that he said he was good for. When asked what Chris would get if Ricky didn't score a 100, he said 'a laugh'. Suffice it to say Chris got his laugh and Ricky who ended up being not out at the end was seen swearing at the 11th man Parth for not sticking around long enough for Ricky to score another 94 runs.

But by this stage we had 350+ runs on the board. About 50 of those were thanks to the keeper who put his gloves up to our warm applause for reaching that milestone. Now for week two of this match. Stay tuned.

Cricket - what cricket? And that's that...

In case you are wondering what has been happening to the Baulko cricketing boyz, the LoBats, you are not alone. It just all went quiet … mind you that's not a bad thing.

A quick enquiry with the team management resulted in a rather slow response… Finally a variety of rather incomprehensible official responses were provided, mainly by anonymous and highly dodgy sources. One of the responses was ‘I’ll call you back.’ Unfortunately I forgot to ask when – hence this could happen sometime in the next 10 years. We’re not even sure we remember the question.

A lengthy press release was issued by another anonymous and highly unreliable source that claims to be part of the Lack of Brains and Trust (LoBat). It was 15 pages long and the main story to come out of this facsimile was that now my fax machine is out of paper. It said that a number of factors had contributed to a very quiet finish to the season. Most of those factors were highly confidential and can not be revealed, but what can be said was that there was a lot of rain and most of the players were not allowed to go out in the rain by their mums who were worried they would catch a cold.

Although the fax was 15 pages long, 14.5 pages were blank, so that's all we can say about why it's been rather quiet in the cricketing world of the Hills district. There were some nasty rumours that a number of the boys were unable to play because they were burnt out by all their commitments to a variety of things, from IPL watching to barbeques, baby sitting, lawn mowing and general laziness. We have not been able to confirm any of these rumours, so they will not be reported…

Another nasty rumour claimed that the Baulko LoBaTs were thrashed to smitherines and the players, captain, coach, physio and team psycho have been suffering from shock. Further rumours were that they had been given a special ward in the Hills district loony hospital… These rumours were strongly denied, hence it's a safe bet they are as close to fact as you will find…

In the end, the season ended, at least we believe so. The boys had a beer, then another and then another 10 each… So the next six months will be back to playing shadow cover drives in the privacy of one's living room, day dreaming of the centuries and five wicket hauls that never happened… imagining that when everything looked lost, the skipper threw the ball to you or asked you to go out and bat and you turned the game around – from ensuring that we were heading to a slow defeat to getting us there very quickly…

Howzat? Have a good off season boyz…

When you thought you’d seen it all, another epic with a few differences

What is it about the LOBATs and epic matches? Just when you thought you’d seen it all, you see it again.

There were a few differences this time around though. Probably for the first time this season, Ricky sent an e-mail around saying we had too many players. We initially thought Ricky had trouble counting. He was probably confusing people's nicknames with their real names and was double counting. But the accounting was right. We had 14 players. The recruitment drive had worked and now we had a good list of players who don't bat, bowl or field.

Immediately a few veterans made themselves unavailable just to stress Ricky out. One of those veterans was Rajitha. But we told him nothing doing mate (or was it machang) and in the end we had 12. In case you’re wondering how we found Rajitha who has been missing for these past 5 weeks, apparently his wife woke up one morning and found him asleep under the covers. She hadn't noticed him there for the past 5 weeks. So she woke him up and we got him to the grounds.

Ricky lost another toss. This time the opposing captain was one step ahead of Ricky and said they would bat before he could open his mouth. For the first time Ricky decided to open the bowling himself, still on a high from the damage he did with the ball the previous week. On the other side was Ani, who had fled the country late last year and somehow slipped through immigration back into the country. He was told to terrorise the batsmen. Instead, he terrorised the fielders.

One of the opening batsmen thought he was Warner and started swinging the bat at everything. At best he was a very distant cousin because after a couple of sixes he missed a straight one and was given lbw. The umpire appeared to be a disciple the Sam David's umpiring institute – he was a trigger happy fellow.

There were some classic moments during their innings. Their first drop was a machang from the hood – actually Angoda. Charuka and the slips started distracting the machang with a bit of a Sinhalese chat. It was working for a while with him missing a few balls, but then he dispatched one into the playground. We asked him to be careful because there were kids playing there. He obeyed and started blocking until he knicked one.

He was replaced by a lanky young chap who hit his first ball for six by mistake that really impressed Vasee who gave him a standing ovation. This fellow later had to dive into the crease to make his ground, resulting in a rather scratched elbow. Charuka immediately showed his concern by telling the batsman that he should get himself out and have his elbow cleaned up.

When that didn't work, we decided to change things up and threw the ball to the Stig. Seeing what was happening to all the bowlers who actually knew how to bowl he quickly threw the ball to Rajitha like a hot potato. Rajitha said he was going to bowl ‘pace’. He had everyone scared, except for the batsmen. We then realised we had mis-heard him. Apparently he was going to bowl ‘space’ - balls that would be launched into ‘outer space’.

For a while it looked like a few satelittes were in danger of being damaged. We were bracing ourselves for an international incident. Then Ricky, forever the diplomat, decided to avert such an incident and looked around for someone else to bowl. Suddenly everyone had their backs turned, except for the Stig. He was given the ball.

His pies were also sent into orbit. The keeper asked him to keep it on the ‘off’ and give it a good spin. That's exactly what he did. The ball pitched about halfway down the pitch and went straight on so slowly that the batsman was spining after taking a huge swipe missing and then swiping again. The ball finally trickled past the batsman and onto the stump. While the ball hadn't spun at all, both the Stig and the batsman were still spining in one place while everyone else was hi-fiving Vasee for no good reason at all.

After we introduced a new rule that a lost ball was out, we managed to get wickets on a regular basis in between the sixes that were being dispatched to the car park, the street, the tennis court and the neighbouring suburbs. But although we had a regular procession of batsmen, there was one guy on their side that was a big bully.

One ball he hit and then ran and tackled Saj – the bowler - for no good reason at all. This guy was the size of a sumo wrestler, so when we saw Saj flatenned from the tackle we started dialing the paramedics. Unfortunately the mobile phone network was down after a few satellites had been decommissioned during Rajitha's bowling. So we asked Saj to get on with it.

The sumo wrestler then clocked a catch at the speed of light back to Ricky off Ricky's bowling. We were all watching for a replay of last week's Matrix moves. Instead this episode ended with a few ‘aiyos’. The sequel of most shows are usually not as good as the original.  Ricky was seen rubbing his ego after that while Ani (aka Keanu) was seen showing him what he did wrong - bowling rubbish.

We finally managed to get the sumo batsman to mis-hit a ball that went straight up. Charuka had some serious ground to cover, which he did, seriously. He then dived, rolled, skidded, twisted, twirled and turned over ending up flat on his stomach with the ball lodged in his back side. That was the last ball of their innings, thank goodness. A few of the guys were seen thanking the heavens for getting them through that traumatic experience. At the end of this carnage we had 245 runs to get to win. This was about 198 runs beyond our wildest dreams.

Not to worry. The DL formula was back in action in the batting line up. Dias-Las were sent out to bat and they had already knocked off 75 runs even before facing a ball based on the latest version of the DL formula (v323214) that now uses very sophisticated algorithms to determine a fair score for the openers – particularly one opener that would otherwise not have a single run to his name.

You might recall the last time the DL formula was updated it took into account what the batsmen had eaten the previous night and whether they had a good night’s sleep. Now the formula also takes into account a few other key factors that can't be revealed due to the fact nobody knows what they are and we would not be able to make up a score if we were to reveal this information.

The batting got off to a flyer, that is once Las started facing the ball. He hit a quick fire 27 before holing out to slip after trying to reverse sweep the fast bowler. Then Saj came and took over where Las left off. He contributed a solid 44, during which time he lost his partner – the Stig – who was simply watching the proceedings from the other end – something he is good at. The Stig, who's average is back to being very average, had been given lbw and had to be carried off the field, kicking and screaming. Asked why he was crying, the Stig said someone said something to him. Asked what had been said, he said “I don't know machang, but the bugger said something, no?” An inquiry has been launched.

Charuka went out to set matters straight. Instead he was sent straight back a few balls later. He too was lbw. But unlike the Stig, he accepted his decision like a man. Someone said something to him too, but he wasn't bothered because he understood it and it was just directions back to the hut.

It's usually about now that the number 8, 9 and 10 batsmen start padding up as it is usually on a matter of minutes before they have to strut their stuff. However, Rajitha was sent out with instructions to ‘Stay there! No hurry!’. Saj and Raja got a great partnership going. But then Saj decided to invent a new stroke. He hit a full toss straight onto his helmut and was caught at covers! This stroke has been named the Saj HammerHead… He was seen wobbling off the field and he kept asking everyone to stop repeating themselves. He is still hearing echoes and sees the occasional satellite.

Sam then put his bat into autopilot mode and started the rebuilding. But then his bat mis-hit a ball onto his pad and he was given out for no good reason at all. He has lodged a service request with Graynicolls and is considering burning down his umpiring institute.

Meanwhile Rajitha who was worried about being spotted by a Police helicopter, decided to make the area a no fly zone by pumping a few sixes. He made it to 49 before resuming his nap back in the hut. This set the cat among the pigeons but we only needed another 40 odd runs in 5 overs. Ricky and Vasee were out there to get us home.

That is until Vasee got a bit tired and decided to take a nap in the middle of the pitch. He told the bowler to wake him up when he was ready to bowl. The bowler chose to get him out while he was sleeping instead. We had been penalised an over by the umpire for the time it took to fetch all those balls from neighboring suburbs. No leniency was given for having to wait for balls to re-enter the stratoshpere either. So it was touch and go stuff.

Ani joined Ricky in the middle to score the remaining 20 runs in about 2.5 overs. Then it was 12 needed off 7 balls. Ani swung and managed to connect his bat with a low flying fly. So it was down to the last over with still 12 needed. The flies declared the area as a no fly zone at this point.

A drink was sent out to Ricky with a few words of wisdom. A Lack of Brains and Trust and Skill (LOBATs) meeting ensued in the middle. The meeting minutes indicate that Ricky said he appreciated the drink but didn't care for the wisdom. That was probably a result of the ‘wiseman saying’ at the last match that resulted in so many missed chances.

So Ricky took strike. He swung and missed. 12 off 5 required. Next ball, swung again and missed – 12 off 4. Next ball swung and bottom edged, stealing a single. Ani then swung and missed. 11 off 2 required. The next ball was another single, which meant we needed a no-ball and two sixes. There was no no-ball and no six. It came down to the wire again, except this time Ricky didn't go nuts at the end of the game. Instead there were a few ‘aiyos’ followed by cherios…

The Scorecard