Halfterm Report: Or "20 Fun Facts About the First Half of the 2023 Season"

So the first half of the 2023 season is in the books, a season that thus far has featured as many league wins as potential season-ending injuries.

And the only thing that can be said about this halfterm report is that we could do better.

Anyway, here are 20 Fun Facts about the season so far.

1) Pride of place goes to the fact we've set a new club record for lowest ever total, 40 against Old Warden.

2) Discounting concessions (for the record we've conceded two and been awarded the points in another) we've played 10 league games and won one.

3) We've won one game out of seven batting first and lost all three batting second.

4) In half of our league games we have failed to score 100.

5) In every single one of our league games we have lost 10 wickets, our best performance coming when Wayne Cutts was run out off the last ball at Sandridge.

6) Ben Wiles is the only player to have scored over 200 runs so far.

7) Mark Tattersall and Josh Scott are the only other players to have scored more than 100.

8) Tattersall has scored the second-most runs; unfortunately he's also conceded the second-most runs and is currently 40 in the red.

9) Jamie Cummins and James Barker are the only bowlers with more than 10 wickets (12 each).

10) 20 different bowlers have taken at least one wicket.

11) So far this year we have used 39 different players.

12) Of those 39, 22 have recorded at least one duck.

13) In the scorebook at Wotton-on-Stone, Darren Lunney appeared as Bunny.

14) Wayne Cutts has given as many Offley batsmen out in one umpiring stint as he has scored runs (3 including 2 leg byes) in 4 innings.

15) Matty Taylor can't tell the difference between Boaty's bat and Boaty's arse.

16) Roger Piepenstock has an off games note for the rest of the year.

17) Richie Barker has now missed matches with three different ailments.

18) Peter Gilkes has more ducks (6) than the nine lowest-scoring batsmen have produced runs between them (5).

19) Despite everything we fielded a full team on three consecutive days from the 24th-26th June - 21 different players were able to experience the thrill of defeat.

20) After Monday's narrow cup defeat we are now concentrating on the leagues; we are currently 85 points adrift of safety in the Saracens League (how is that even possible?) and 35 points above the drop zone (how the fuck is that even possible????????) in the Bedfordshire League ahead of a trip to Kempston on Sunday who are actually below us.

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Taylormade Triumph

OSCC, 164-8, beat Eaton Bray, 94 all out, by 70 runs Said Boaty unto Matty "It looks like you're the fatty" "It's weight of runs that matter And I'm the better batter" And so they staged a duel To see if weight would conquer all Boaty went out first And if not quite at his worst He scratched around a bit And really looked quite shit He played and missed a lot The inside edge was his best shot Then an Offley wicket fell And Matty heard the bell His breasts were seen to jiggle As he marched out to the middle His arse dragging in his wake The result of eating so much cake Off the mark was Taylor swift He gave the run rate a quick lift And while Boaty joined the dots Matty T played all the shots The runs began to flow Though the running was quite slow They spread the field for Taylor He had no fear of failure He smashed the ball for four Then he smashed a couple more But soon was breathing hard Though he'd barely run a yard Then at the other end Boaty ...

#WardyOut

OSCC, 181-4, beat Old Albanians, 154-9, by 27 runs It might have taken a while but on a day where skipper Marc Ward was absent in a bid to seduce Snow White along with six similarly diminutive accomplices, Offley finally found a way to win a game. Perhaps it was because Old Albanians were even more hopeless than Offley; perhaps because even a blind squirrel sometimes finds an acorn and on this day Dan Goord located the middle of the bat; and perhaps the addition of Ben Southgate, someone who clearly knows what he is doing, combined to lead Offley to their first league victory of the season. For some reason Offley, a team who can at times consider themselves fortunate to play on a needle-strewn, dog-shit littered, pikey-infested council wasteland, found themsleves playing on one of the premier venues in Hertfordshire and raised their game accordingly. They might have found a way to drop eight catches (in fairness only four players shelled a catch but each of them compensated by dr...

iBat; iBowl; iPad

OSCC, 71 all out, got about halfway against Leverstock Green, 155 all out iPad At the captain's request (for a direct line please dial 0-9 for Wardy) I'm not allowed to mention what effect Saturday's result has had on our survival prospects. However, I think I am free to point out this challenging mathematical poser, namely what would happen if you took the points we have accumulated in the Bedfordshire league (depleted by 10 after Sunday's concession) and added them to those we have accumulated in the Saracens League? Answer: we'd still be pretty severely fucked.... Things did not begin well on Saturday. Richie Barker missed out with a nasty toe injury (laughably sustained attempting to bowl seam in the nets) and Danny O'Brien was forced to withdraw on the morning of the match after a tough week at work. Roger Piepenstock, a man who lives within a stone's throw of the ground, although perhaps not if that stone is being thrown by an Offley fielder, subseq...

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