Alconbury Away

On May 14th 2006, our warriors crawled from the darkness of their winter hiding places, shook away the parasites that had set up home in their intimate protective apparel and marched to Alconbury, the scene of infamous cricket carnage in ‘03, bent on revenge. The groat was tossed and fell in favour of the enemy, who disdainfully plotted a short game and an early tea by making Hilton bat first. The plan nearly worked, as half of Hilton’s batting ranks were wiped out for 37. Then Tuddy produced his secret weapon – a new bat of such Gargantuan proportions that the local Maori community were eyeing it up as a useful source of timber from which to carve their next war canoe. He massacred the bowling by striking seven 6s and six 4s before the urge for a smoke overtook him when he had scored 75. Adi continued the good work, and smote a couple of 6s himself, with a normal sized bat, on his way to 39. Even so, Hilton’s total of 158 did not look unbeatable – though it must be noted that during our innings, Alconbury’s fielders had had to run an estimated 200 miles in retrieving balls from neighbouring fields and villages.

With the shiny, new ball, Ian and Adi rattled the defences of the Alconbury batsmen. Adi prevented any leakage of runs from one end. He conceded only a single scoring stroke from his first 40 deliveries – an economy so mean that he is a candidate to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. One by one,the batsmen were put to the sword until Ian delivered the coup-de-grace with a hat trick and Tommo finished off the already wounded number 11 to complete an afternoon of glory for the knights in shining armour. Alconbury alconburied! [Dentist’s warning: Revenge is so sweet, it can rot your teeth.]

Scoreboard:

Hilton 158 for 9 (Frost 75, A Darlow 39, F Leader 2 n.o.)
Alconbury 109 all out (I Jacobs 5-22, A Darlow 3-28, T Leader 1-17)

Hilton won by 49 runs.