Match Report

Sea Battle of the Woods
VRA 1 208 runs. VRA 221 runs.

Hello sailors, it’s potato peeler Richo here and it’s Sail 2010, so I thought I would tell you about the only two things in life that smell like fish. Before that, I just want to say that we beat them. Yes, we actually beat Zami 1. If you don’t include our first encounter when we were called Zami Lube and Zami Goose— and Mike George assures me that this was a friendly— this was our sixth and, finally, our most successful attempt at snatching victory from the ‘Jaws’ of defeat.

It was Paul McPhilimy’s birthday and Phil Yisrael’s wife was about to give birth to number two at any moment, so perhaps their attention was not fully on the game. But with our new leader ‘Captain Deck Hand’ lashed to the wheel of the good ship Zami 2, barking orders at his trembling crew, he decided to bat first and send out our whale hunting crew, Spits and Kappella into the calm green seas for a 40-over thriller under a grey and threatening canvas sky, that let the occasional sunlight through its many moth holes.

The ‘Great Crictator’ (9 runs) stood proudly at the non-strikers end—glaring with contempt at his old enemy while his teeth swam inside their plastic protector bowl— he joined Tommy Spits (30 Runs) in blocking so many balls between them that the game started to resemble the first day in a 25-day test match. There were so many dot balls that it made the cricket book look like it had caught a rather nasty case of pirate measles.

Eventually The Kap was caught and bowled by the Horizontal One, Sanne Salomons. This sent in Rimo Man, the great shark hunter himself, Louis Rimmington (46). Watched at the shore’s edge by his nervous parents as he almost reached his 50, until Zami 1 fished out their weapon of mass destruction, ‘The Howler’. Who soon made whale blubber out of the trembling young Rimo and sent him back to the shore to play with his sand castle.

Then Captain Joost Deck Hand decided to release the terrible sea beast at his command, none other that Rens ‘The Kraken’ Mulder (39), who unleashed his full fury and cracked a torrent of sixes in every direction in his short but effective few overs. Eventually caught and bowled by The Howler. Then a strange calm beset the green waters as JJ (21) floated out like a sea mist. Could he be the one to free our souls from eternal loss to Zami 1?

Suddenly the waves broke and up from the murky depths— where even Davy Jones dare not venture— and up rose the frightening, giant Octopussy arms of Paul ‘B’day Boy’ McPhilimy. And what a sight: a beer in one hand and a fag in the other, amusing tubular alcohol equipment in one hand and a tripod in the other, a camera in one hand and a Kookaburra in the other and sent Zen Master JJ (21) home with LBW tattooed on his knee caps.

You would think Tim Ellerton(18), having seen this, would run a mile. But he’s made of sterner stuff and went out and hid in plain sight dressed as a mermaid wearing a silly white hat. And very effective it was too, until he was also bowled by Octopussy.

Marnix ‘Master Bates’ Hazeweijer (3) would like to know why he was sent out to bat in these dangerous conditions when it was obvious to anyone watching that Theo ‘the pink handed giant shrimp’ Lindemann would whip off his bails the first opportunity he got from the bowling off Captain Mierlo? Which he did.

Captain Joost Deck Hand(8) and Toon ‘The Statue Fish’ Hintzen(6) took the Not Out award and were given 10 lashes each for showing off. Thanks to a generous donation of 40 extras from the enemy, we surfed home with a very defendable 221 runs.

There are some who think he’s one shrimp short of a full catch, who think his sails do not quite fly at full mast, who think he’s one fluffy cloud short of a perfect storm, and true to character Captain Joost Deck Hand (6,1,37,0) decided to risk it all and bowl himself first. The crazy bald seagull decided to prove years of cricket experience and wisdom wrong and start with his loopy semi-spin canon ball attack, which was knocked for fours around the green pond with ease and abandon. But the risk paid off because he captained and steered his side to victory. Therefore he was right. Which captains always are. So there.

After years of training by the Zimbabwe Navy to bounce pebbles across his private lake, this pointless exercise has eventually paid dividends because boy can Luke Brown (8,1,29,2) bowl. His first scaly monster to be gutted was Mike ‘batfish’ George(40) followed soon after by the Lucy Fish (21), which was caught at deeply silly Collignon by Tim ‘white shark’ Ellerton. Octopussy was then run out and Toon ‘The Statue Fish’ Hintzen sang happy birthday as he swam lifelessly ashore. Much to his unamusement.

Suddenly we caught him. The prize catch of the day. Phil ‘Sledger Fish’ Yisrael is a cunning beast, so he was surprised to suddenly find himself flapping his tiny fins on the deck of the good ship Zami 2, caught by Luke Brown off JJ’s bowling, mouth opening and shutting involuntary and emitting no sound; the Sledger Fish had been silenced at last.

The largest known living sea organism is the Blue Kempen. Spotted off the starboard bow, Captain Deck Hand brought out his secret weapon, The Rich Fish (3,0, 22,1). After a couple of warm up tosses, Johnny ‘Richo’ Richardson bowled the magic ball, and reduced the Blue One to a crumpled jellied heap on the popping crease, while The Rimo Man stumped him with effortless glee. Now expertly stuffed, with eyes replaced with bright blue marbles, The Kempen now hangs majestically in its glass case in pride of place on Captain Deck Hand’s cabin wall.

Then the Howler was controversially run out, so less about this later, and Captain Mierlo was also stumped by the Rimo Man off the spinning Tommy Spit Fish (4,0,27,1). Fish Mold Mouler(6) was run out and the Pink Handed Giant Theo Shrimp(1) remained alone on the deck, not out with a total of 208 team runs behind him. Bye the way, one of them is fish an the other is Hull.

Written by Johnny Richardson