Skip to main content

Boaty Walks On Water

 OSCC, 206-2 beat Eaton Bray, 172 all out by 34 runs


Scott Boatwright's customary aversion to rain is caused by the fear that his lovingly arranged strands of hair will be swept away like a coastal resort in the face of a tsunami, something the renowned Bobby Charlton doppelganger can ill afford.

And yet on Sunday, for 111 deliveries, Boaty walked on water on his way to an unbeaten 89 and was cruelly denied a maiden century by the elements that reduced the game to 35 overs a side.

The good news for the rest of humanity was that a Boatwright century would invariably have marked the beginning of the end of days with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding forth to do their bit.

As it was the bold Boatwright (that's bold not bald) settled for a career best 89 not out, a score that is likely to produce an investigation into the charity Boat Aid and see it shut down for embezzling runs.

As befitting the conditions he made customary use of his textbook paddle shot, scoring the bulk of his runs behind the wicket, amassing 14 boundaries in all.

Boatwright shared a stand of 93 with Josh Hook for the opening wicket. 

Hook occupied the crease for 57 balls, eschewing risks with the air of a man who has as much faith in the Leeds United back four as an Offley batting order that featured Teenage Terrace Tearaway Jamie Cummins at number six.

Jono Evetts helped guide Boatwright to his half-century before departing for a seven-ball duck to leave Offley on 105-2.

This proved the cue for the laser show as Ben Wiles launched a devastating attack on the bowlers as he hammered an unbeaten 63 from 35 balls with a pair of sixes and eight boundaries. 

While Boatwright's wagon wheel featured its customary couple of spokes behind square, Wiles smashed the ball to all parts as he dominated a 101-run partnership to lift Offley to 206-2.

The Teenage Terrace Tearaway struck an early blow but Eaton Bray made a good fist of things as they reached 82-1 before Mark Tattersall, fresh from his latest holiday, produced a double strike to tilt the game back towards Offley. 

Evetts made the crucial breakthrough to remove Ashiq for 61 from 67 balls and after that the visitors were always floundering for survival amidst the depths of Boatwright's runs.

Cummins finished with 3-33 while Tattersall, Wiles and Hook all picked up a couple of wickets as Offley won by 34 runs.

And yet Cummins should not only have taken 4-33, he should also have claimed a hat trick.

Alas the Teenage Terrace Tearaway passed up the chance of a hat trick as he allowed a loopy return chance to fall harmlessly to earth.

In fairness to the youngster he probably surprised himself in that he had managed to produce three successive deliveries without serving up a wide.

Overall a missed hat trick and the result itself was largely immaterial on the day Boaty attained batting immortality and walked on water like an Offley Jesus.

Amen.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dotting Davis's Defiantly Dogged Determination Delays Dispiriting Defeat

  O SCC, 113-8, lost to MK Warriors, 171-8, by 58 runs Since the dawn of time man has sought to take on fresh challenges and scale new heights. Man has walked on the moon. Everest has been conquered. The 10-second barrier for the 100 metres has been shattered. Americans elected a massive orange twat as President.  Twice. Britain elected a gormless, unprincipled and spineless dipshit as Prime Minister.  So far only once but let's see where we are in another four years. Marc Ward won a game as captain. And yet as Sinead O'Connor might have put it, nothing compares 2 u, John Davis, on finally joining the Offley Double Figures Club (DFC) at just the 38th time of asking. Davis reeled off a breathtaking series of strokes as he scored a sublime 13 to lift his career average up to 2.378378378. Mysteriously and unfairly spurned as a bowler of late by a succession of captains, Davis has grabbed the opportunity to reinvent himself as a stoical middle order bastion of blockage. On a ...

Ten Down; Seven Up

  OSCC, 24 (Twenty-four) all out, lost to Ampthill 28-3, by seven wickets Vietnam. You weren't there, man. You don't know! Across the United States grizzled veterans sit in bars and legion halls sipping Wild Turkey and Jack Daniel's and recount the horrors of the Tet Offensive, Khe Sanh and the fall of Saigon. Many years from now, the shattered remnant of Jamie Cummins' Dark Command may recall their trip to Ampthill with similar dread. It started well enough for the debutant captain who won the toss and elected to bat first on a good deck on a hot day. What happened over the next 11 overs was something that had not been seen in the 28 years of the club's sometimes illustrious and occasionally infamous history. This was infamy at its most infamous. With the club's all-time leading run scorer, Steve Bexfield, nowhere to be seen, absent either due to a miscommunication or because he was late as usual, saw the scorebaord from the road and thought sod this for a game...

R Don Stiffs Offley

 OSCC, 133-4, lost to Flamstead, 136-5, by five wickets Less than twenty-four hours after Scott Boatwright came within a single blow of a maiden century and Offley's fielders dissolved in the rain by dropping eight catches out of ten, the sun set on another season in the semi-finals of the Hertfordshire Village Trophy. A team bearing little resemblance to the one that had qualified for the last four, one that had been ripped apart by anniversaries, weddings and holidays, produced a spirited performance with a lineup held together by children's prayers and angels' kisses, relying on the presence of the Great Samdani to add a little stardust to proceedings. Following a delayed start due to heavy overnight rain, Ben Wiles inevitably lost the toss and Offley were asked to bat first on a green pitch tinged with green. Richie Barker and Dan Goord opened the batting, reprising the 2024 final where they shared an epic stand of 1 and were both back in the hutch within two overs. Aft...