Tong v Notton Match Report (by John Dey)

Tong’s game against Swillington felt strange from the moment the players packed their cricket bags into their cars (for Haseeb substitute ‘their cars’ for ‘someone else’s car that now needs a new lock’) as the game had been moved to a Sunday due to the opposition forgetting that the village fete was taking place on the usual day for playing cricket. It felt even more strange when the players turned up at the ground to find a youth football tournament in full flow. Ignoring the fact that the youngsters actually looked more like sportsmen than they did, the Tong players entertained themselves by watching Karl kick loose balls back at the young up-starts, whilst Martin enjoyed his usual super healthy pre-match (and probably during and post) match snack – a cheeseburger.

When the action finally got underway an hour or so later, Tong found themselves inserted on a deck which at times was ‘sporting’.

There were whispers around the ground that the newfound responsibility of fatherhood might rein in Nick’s attacking instinct. However, the cries from the sidelines of ‘hit him for six, Dad’ did not fall on deaf ears as the skipper played a rather remarkable late cut for a maximum from a wide beamer. More boundaries from both the aforementioned babysitter to be and Khurum followed, giving Tong an excellent start to the innings. However, both fell in quite quick succession to leave the visitors needing a period of consolidation. Martin and Graham, who put on an excellent partnership at a decent rate, provided this. Again, when both set batsmen lost their wickets, the target of 200 seemed like a long way away. Enter Masood, who, with help from Adam and Haseeb, gave Tong the big innings that the top order, sat in the pavilion (well on the steps), were castigating themselves for missing out on. Rumbles of thunder had all the players looking nervously overhead until they realised that it was just Khurum snoring.

The slightly sedate nature of the innings was cast aside when Masood (55*) got into a rather heated debate with the opposition captain about the slips talking to each other when the bowler was running in. This was all sorted out when the umpire informed the bickering pair that the only one talking was in fact Masood himself – a slightly alarming tendency that surely requires attention from men in white coats (and not umpires). Whilst the players knew that Masood talks a lot, they certainly did not realise that Adam had an angry side, which reared its head when he was bounced by the Swillington 1 st change bowler (“if that f***** d*** comes out to f****** bat when I’m f******* bowling I’m going to f****** knock his f****** stupid ugly f******* head off.”) Fortunately for all involved the normally placid young chap had finished his bowling spell before the previously mentioned ‘dead man walking’ came into bat. The innings came to a close with a great little cameo from Duncan (25*) and players from both sides clapped off Masood whose intelligent knock had pulled Tong’s total up to a more than competitive 228.

With Swillington’s previous batting performances in the league well documented, the opening bowlers, John (4-24) and Adam (3-14), took the new ball with great relish (Martin prefers ketchup or nothing). This eagerness was rewarded with wickets for both bowlers, one delivery from John clean bowling the Swillington no.3, leaving both players slightly flummoxed as to how exactly the ball had moved so much. Adam also produced the odd ‘jaffa’, one of which gave Haseeb his first catch of the season (please inform us before doing this again Haseeb – we can’t afford heart surgery after every match). Swillington fought hard for a period with their skipper walking down the track to the seamers, playing a shot a ball. This attacking innings was brought to an end with an excellent piece of stumping by his opposite number, leaving Nick stating that “it was almost like someone else doing it”. Everyone else wholeheartedly concurred. Duncan ‘Stephen’ Hawkins (2-3) replaced Adam and bowled a tidy spell, chipping in with a couple of wickets – the second of which can only be described as pure blind theft from a man anticipating taking his first ever ‘five-fer’. John quickly put the disappointment to one side (especially when he realised he could drop Duncan in the middle of Dewsbury with nothing but Martin’s now split cricket bat to defend himself) and after bowling Swillington out for 47 the players were happy to take maximum points from a game that at one point looked like it might be called off.