Hello again everyone. I hope your Christmas New Years were good ones. I happened to go back home for the festivities and I can tell you now that Krypton hailed me with a gracious party. They have been watching my progress with the Braidwood Blues on the satellite and have gotten right into the sport with immense enthusiasm. Some, even going as far as to ask the man in the red suit for cricket gear for their Christmas presents. Hmm, just a quick question, did anyone happen to not get visited by Santa. If your answer is yes, then I might know why. While other Kryptonians were getting their cricket gear and what not, old fat boy thought he'd try something funny and gave me a cricket ball made of Kryptonite with a note saying "At least now you have a reason to drop the ball". Well, I wasn't going to take that and as soon as I was able to get away from my poison I chased down old Saint Nick and met up with him just as he was leaving some house in England.
Long story short, the special team of hospital elves were able to remove Rudolph's offending horn and released a press statement saying that the big boy will be right to deliver his presents this coming December. I just hope he has learned his lesson.
Now, how's about I stop boring you with my holiday activities and get on to the stuff that you have come to this part of the paper to read about.
On a day that looked like a pearler the Blues arrived at the Rec looking keen for a good days play. Hayward won the toss and elected to bat. Golly (who thankfully, as you shall see, hasn't left us yet) opened with Jimmy South, the latter getting out in the second over to a swinging ball and knocking Jimmy's stumps down like skittles. Hayward followed soon after, once again getting out cheaply, leaving it up to Golly to soldier on with Hazel. These two had a strong partnership, in which time Golly passed his 50 with a smacking 4. Hazel managed to get out though and he was replaced by Walker who started spanking the ball along with Golly to all parts of the field, forcing the Broulee players to the boundary, making it easy for our boys to pick up easy singles. The Blues were travelling along nicely until Golly was out just before tea for 114, the star of the Blues outfit getting his third century of the season, a feat that can not be claimed by many players on the south coast, hitting 11 fours and 5 sixes in his brilliant knock. After tea, Walker got stumped for 27. Maher, new boy Atkins and McClure all scored 12 but were unable to do anything with their starts and soon with Mundy gone the Blues were all out with Haggis once again ending up Not Out.
The Blues finished up with a huge total of 229, a score that we were very happy with, knowing that we would need a big score playing against a strong side. So, with the pads off it was now our turn to bowl, and with only an hour and a half left in the days play the Blues hoped to get a few wickets in the overcast conditions. We just didn't know that we would get more than a few.
Golly charged in from the city end and snared his first wicket in his first over with Jimmy helping out, grabbing a great mark at mid wicket. With the spirits up the Blues continued to attack with Haggis (1/33 off 4) pitching in by getting the other Broulee opener caught behind. Hazel (1/18 off 7) also got a wicket, using freakish swing to knock down the stumps with a beautiful ball, leaving the batsman shaking his head in wonder, after that though it was all Golly. His first wicket I've already talked about, so let me tell you about the others. His second scalp was all his doing, getting out the dangerous Brett Barling with a heated delivery that left the stumps wondering why they came to work on that frightful Saturday afternoon. He then performed a sharp caught and bowled that, from any other player, would have left the team speechless, but being the athlete Golly is it was just another ordinary catch that will probably rank in his top 50. His 4th wicket came by the help of Maher whose safe hands left the boys in high spirits. Another milestone written in the books of Milner's cricket achievements was then brought up with the ball of the century as Golly snared his 5th wicket with a mystery ball that I'm sure is still giving the batter from Broulee nightmares. The red heads 6th and final wicket for the day was an L.B.W and that was all for the Blues though as the last two Broulee batters saw out the day. Golly finishing up with spectacular figures of 7/33 off 14, a truly marvellous effort considering the Blues were a man down after Mundy dislocated his finger and went off to hospital with about an hour left to play.
Ah well, we'll get em next week. We are on top at the moment with the Broulee side still 139 runs behind our total. So hopefully we will be able to get them out and then slap another quick 100-150, then send them in again to bat and go for the outright win.
The Hawaiian shirt this week is a tie with, hmm, let me try and be secretive about this, with D. Glass and G. Haigh, hang on that wasn't very secret, how about Damien G and Garry H, yeah that's better. The two oldies of the Blues team sharing the honours of being the Blues biggest loser.
The Blues must win one of our last two games to make the finals so come down and cheer us on. We kick off at 1:00pm and finish at 6:30pm so do yourselves a favour and come down for a look cause I'm sure if a goat can do it, so can you.
That's it from me this week, until next time.
This is Clark Kent, signing off.
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