Hatfield Peverel.

Report vs Southgate Compton

Match Report
Date 21/04/2024 
Oppo Hatfield peverel (a)
Type 40 Overs
Report by Liam Mulholland

The O's season got under way with a visit to Hatfield Peverel. Fresh from the clubs awards evening the night before Player Of The Year runner up Hudson was determined to improve
on that and arranged a crack of dawn meet with the club president. On arrival with the sun just rising, the pair of them completed multiple tasks cutting the outfield, rolling
the wicket, stocking the bar and making sure the toilets were in pristine condition. 
On what felt like a February day, O's were asked to bat first. Edgemister Barot started the season in usual style with a top edge that just evaded slip. His partner, A. Baker-Merry 
proudly came to the crease with the Player Of the Year Award, which being bigger than the Champions League trophy made it difficult for the standing umpire to pop in his coat pocket. 
Edgy quickly found the middle of the bat, blasting 5 impressive boundaries before getting his bail clipped by impressive seamer Andy Cheek for 24. A 51 run partnership, a fine stand 
to enter the season, enter 'The White Lara' who was in imperious form cracking 7 fours and 3 monster maximums, one into the nearby allotment, unfortunately he clipped one of the 
local residents on the arse toppling them head first into his bed of spuds. Minky retired hungry and thirsty with a lightening 52 to his name, hurrying up to the pavillion to scoff 
4 Sainsbury's meal deals. A. Baker-Merry departed for a steady 20. Debutant John Hayes who after looking impressive in his net warm up arrived at the crease, a few wise owls on the 
line had seen this sort of build up before and quickly snapped up the 5/2 Paddy Power was giving for a 0-5 score. Hayes departed for the regulation debut duck but the good news being 
beer money was now sorted for the evening. Hudson played a nice looking innings falling short of a deserved 50 for 46. Innings closed on an impressive 236-6. Hayes attempted to chomp 
his way through a massive 6 kilo bag of grapes at the break before the O's tried to defend their total. 
A brilliant start by the bowlers backed up by some great outfielding reduced the hosts to 62-5. Whittam dismissing the dangerous Cheek with a stunning grab down the legside off Hiscock,
a victory looked on the cards but enter the nemesis Mr Extras who took the game away from the O's, racking up 71 ridiculous runs, the Baker-Merry brothers playing their own game of 
who can bowl the biggest wide, deliveries going straight to gully, square leg, cover, you name it, anywhere but the wicket, even out man in the allotment received another glancing blow 
as he was attending his runner beans. The scoreboard now racing along unaided by the batsman , the few balls that were in the grounds postcode were pumped for 4 by Watson who reached a 
tidy 50. 'The White Lara' summed up the situation perfectly when he said "If the brothers get one more over, I'm going vegan", fortunately the skipper replaced them with the score now 
on an out of control 202-6. Hiscock shocked the batsmen by actually pitching on the strip collecting a very smart 4-19, dragging us back in the game at 215-8, run rate had slowed 
dramatically but unfortunately one of the wide boys returned and so did more extras. Finally, 92 year old Southwell scooped the skipper for 4 to finish the game off with 7 balls to 
spare. With the Artic conditions and just a nifty 5 minute drive home 'The White Lara' was on top form necking on his winter drink of half a pint of scotch and a petrol chaser. His sixes 
now getting bigger and longer as he believes one landed in Normandy and one is being tracked by the International Space Centre, possibly landing on Neptune later this week. The last 
vision of Stef was him trying to stomp the mounting of leftover grapes in the shower to attempt a bit of wine making. He could have taken his boots off, not a pretty picture.
Next game Hatfield Heath - April 28th.  

Return to Main Page

© Dave Revell