Bury Cricket Club
Bury Cricket Club
As the heat wave continued Bury breezed in to Colwyn Bay looking for a clean sweep , which one has to say was a stark turnaround from last year where we lost all three games. So no pressure on skipper elect Dom who achieved his first goal won the toss and decide to bat, not sure next year’s skipper will have the same good fortune looking at Bury’s final score. Into the fray came strong arms (Popeye)Ramsay jnr and Greenhalgh senr , not too sure how many balls Ramsay lasted it was short and sweet perhaps he was yearning to get back to see Olive Oyl , anyway off he left with his tail behind his legs, big bro Jacob managed a wry smile on passing to join Greenhalgh at the crease, two balls later Mark’s lack of good fortune in a Bury shirt continued and he met a similar fate, he feathered one to the keeper and off he popped, enter Smalley having come for the day from down the A55 to join the touring party, four balls later he met the same fate as Mark Greenhalgh and snicked off. 11/3 not quite the start we had in mind, cries from the balcony “T20”!! were still scowled upon from manager and skipper who had full faith as GG was next to the wicket, Gary and Jacob set about rebuilding the innings and that’s exactly what they did, Jacob was again impressive with his ground shots and kept the scoreboard ticking over punishing anything short and bringing Gary to applaud in the same vein as myself last night with a “shot of the day” his well timed extra cover drive was straight out of the top draw. Jacob reached another 50 and was in full flow, GG showed his class backing him up playing sensibly latching onto anything loose, score board now repaired and a 130 run partnership was in the book and Bury were back on course. GG plied on the misery for the home side and compiled a magnificent score just missing out on his hundred (98), enter skipper Dom he too joined in on the act and after another circumspect start he piled into the Bay bowlers and reached 50 in no time, Raza came into bat for the first time in three days and got the only ball that turned, chopping it onto his stumps , Lee Halliwell got his first tour runs at the death and we finished on a very healthy 271. Gorgeous tea was devoured and the southern fried chicken strips went down well with the tourists , subo enquired where the gorgeous chips originated from as she was well and truly into the fast food one presumes looking for any signs of a possible kebab, we were duly informed they weren’t Asda’s not Morrison’s not Tesco’s nor Aldi’s but Lidl’s frozen then deep fried , and we left somehow hoping Mrs Smith would take the plunge on the deep fat fryer. For further details go to https://www.change.org/start-a-petition. Those runs on the board and the lethal combination of southern fried chicken strips for tea had somehow fried skipper Dom’s brain and a plan of action was hatched regards who was umpiring and at what strategic times people would be relived of duties and it would all flow into place and Wayne you don’t need to worry you can rest we’ve sorted it. So field is set batsman at the crease , Halliwell has his run up sorted Dom assumes the umpires position and were ready to go , Smalley then counts fielders , Raza interjects too and its all decided we only have 10 , wait Gary’s in the deck chair making a call bemused by the fact he’s required as his slot wasn’t to start yet. The last time he had heard his name chanted like that was when we got back to the club from winning HC Smith Cup , Gary ! Gary ! Gary ! Was the cry. The early breakthrough came and skipper gained control or had he, Gus’s second appeal for LBW on the pro prompted him to raise his finger and then the deathly silence was met and off he went , the keeper gathered the ball from fine leg and we went again. Scoring was relatively easy to come by and boundaries flowed, a full complement of bowlers were used Gus Lee Smalley Raza Josh Lou Jacob and somehow although we chipped in with the odd wicket, the score went rattling at some pace 100/150/200, undoubtedly the best batting track we had played on , by then Dom had the field spread eagled and conducted the orchestra from the boundary initiating instructions through Raza, by the time I had re took umpiring duties Dom approached me with the “could get tight this” lose this and you’ll go down in history was my reply, it seemed to have the desired effect and he brought back Gus and Smalley to strangle it and they didn’t let him down , 40 was needed off was it 4 over’s or was it 5 was the question, the official umpires knew the Bay scorers had accidently gone one in front and were in control of proceedings , Raza was trying to explain to Aaron and Mark G, you can imagine how that went and more panic enthused , Aaron by now has had the mathematics explained to him and when there was two over’s to go he shouted “ last over boys”. Obviously Aaron’s continual attempts to claim just one catch on tour had clearly frazzled his brain. All’s well that ends well and Bay finished 16 runs short of the target, skipper quiet rightly took the plaudits and 3/3 it was. Game was played in the right spirit the lads were magnificent in representing the club throughout the three days a great time was had by all, myself and Mr Bean arrived safely back home around 11:30 and another tour was done. Big W
Mr Beans Day Day two was all about Mr Bean (Donovan) what an eventful day he had , if he wasn’t walking around Wetherspoons before last orders trying not to draw attention to himself with his bright orange day glow carrier bag full of strongbow ready for the celebratory victory party , which one presumes was held in Nathan’s hotel room , it was hard to guess this was the lad who “ ramped us “ yes you heard right Donovan ramped one of the Mochdre front line bowlers to secure a somewhat surprising , some would say victory over our first maiden tour hosts Mochdre . Bury’s North Wales tour has been in operation in over 50 years and its was the first time we had visited Mochdre which was a magnificent setting and we were greeted with good hospitality and hopefully we left a good impression for a future return.Bury won the toss as usual elected to bat on what looked a pearl of a wicket for those horse racing enthusiasts GG took the captaincy reigns and a carefully selected batting order was produced , this time around Jacob lived up to his maternal instincts and held his brothers hands for first 10 overs and got us off to a flyer and 80 was on the board very quickly, Jacob in particular playing some good ground strokes including one timed effort through extra which really was the shot of the day , first wicket down in marches Mr Bean this time no carrier bag but his trusty wand and what good use he made of it , shots all around the ground and Bury really had the momentum Jacob was in full flow and the hundred came up . Jacob was the second wicket to fall to a soft caught and bowled but a very well constructed 50 odd had really set a good foundation and in my eyes was the match winnings innings .Two wickets down with over hundred on the board management were happy knowing premier Dom was next to stride out thinking 180 was a distinct possibility, umm for four overs he couldn’t hit the skin of a rice pudding , it was this time Donovan took charge of proceedings and ramped one of Mochdre’s front line bowlers for four to which the opposition skipper piped up having watched Donovan unorthodox style on some occasions “where the flippin heck did that come from “ what we didn’t let out of the bag was , he shocked us more than he shocked them, even Alfie the dog was rolling around laughing at this point. This seemed to ignite Dom into superman type powers for the last over and he hit Mochdres 1st team skipper for 4 huge sixes and two boundaries just taking the 32 off the last over, it was some of the best quality striking of a cricket ball you will see , thankfully Dom was around for the script writer when he played.169 was the total and Bury turned round satisfied GG opened up with Raza and what a great start we got off to bowling Cheshire County player Will first ball , revenge was certainly in Raza mind as few weeks before at Rydal he took us to the cleaners for just the 150. Young Halliwell took the other end and got some tap early on in true 20/20 fashion but bowled with guile and craft at times with a good yard in him . Raza got another one to lift and GG kindly obliged in slips , by this time the wicket at one end had turned into something nasty and became difficult to bat on to say the least . Young Bowen was given the opportunity to bowl first change but was plundered to all parts , to his credit it didn’t effect him and he was up for matching Rogers exploits on day one throwing himself at anything that he could get near too whilst fielding saving some valuable boundaries. He was replaced by Lou yep Lou not Paul’s wife but Lou Greenhalgh who bowled a very tidy spell under pressure of the run chase as Mochdre middle order had got stuck in as they say and one of the batters not Jones rattled 50 and we were up to 100.MOM Jacob then turned his hand to some off spin and it was just what the doctor ordered and nipped out couple of wickets one of which his brother took, and stumped showing him how to do it and Bury were back in it , in between Aaron had skated his way in from long on to spill one and we could have all relaxed, as it was pressure was back on and GG master stroke of bringing back Halliwell in the penultimate over worked wonders and he removed the dangerous no 10 . The scene is set who’s going to bowl the last over, of course it could only be Mr Bean it was his day and he duly obliged showing full faith in the skippers cock up of who’s bowling the last over and kept his cool bowling outside off stump then removing the last man to secure a Bury victory with Mochdre finishing four short, great effort from the boys and 2/2 no pressure for today’s skipper looking for a clean sweep.Of course late night celebrations were in order and Subo decided to make an SAS type entrance to Wetherspoons mainly due to be hidden from sight of the stand in area manager and his troup of lady barmaids , fortunately it was the male variety bartenders who were serving and all the Ramsay’s got a drink !! Hip hip hooray hip hip hooray, mission impossible complete and Sue had finally completed her one task for the day , sorry second she did do wonderful job scoring over ruling the umpires decision and taking orders from the fielder giving Jacob a four instead of six , its ok Sue we won by four much love xxx .Of course it wasn’t going to be a good night unless we were kicked out of Wetherspoons long after 12 , well it was approx 12.30 and Subo was really into the non cloudy non fizzy Chardonnay and she did ever so well not to make eye contact to the young lady bartender who had swooped in from nowhere ( well really she spotted her a mile off and was having that b...) telling us to sup up for 15mins. Not to be deterred on she marched to the kebab shop and and got the owner to serve her up her own cocktail mix of kebab and she is now known as Subo Shish Bowen.Thankfully this parting of the ways under direction of the kebab shop management was under good terms and Sue was last seen swaying up North.Mr Bean had made his getaway to Nathan’s and duly woke me up at 4.30 am throwing his ring up in the toilet , hopefully like me learning my lesson at around a similar age that strongbow was fizzing out of his nose, I wouldn’t mind by the time 5.30 am ca me around I was re awoken by the toilet itself this time , he had somehow managed to lock the flushing mechanism so it was filling the cistern up permanently and a noisy flow of a filling cistern carried on till 6:30 until I managed the jam the f....g thing.Anyway good days and times had by all onwards to Colwyn Bay.Big W
A convincing win over our Bangor friends gets tour off to a good start, a decent opening partnership with a belligerent Joe Mitchell always looking to take the initiative and a sabre rattling Ramsay Junior getting us to 50 in no time, Bury's determination to seize the opportunity didn’t stop there Ramsay Senior was determined to outscore his brother who was unlucky to be dismissed in the mid 40s with one that he bottomed edged onto his stumps, Ramsay senior produced some well timed shots to keep scoreboard ticking along at a good rate and by the time Mitchell departed having gone into T20 mode which saw him score more than a single on at least two occasions Bury were well set.Enter our International man of mystery Ahmad Iqbal and ex Pakistan u19 star and currently on loan from Liversedge CC who’s extra cover drives were exquisite got Bury well over 150, by this time Ramsay senior had upped the ante and was matching Iqbal shot for shot and was retired at the skippers request just short of his 100.Some hard hitting from Iqbal late on crashing boundaries all over along with tour debutant Flaherty who incidentally has a terrible snoring habit got Bury to a score well in excess of 200 and certainly something to bowl at.Bury opened up the bowling with another debutant Patrick Potts who bowled with some menace unfortunately it was aimed at Ramsay senior's keeping as opposed to the stumps or even the batsman which brought about an early change of bowling, enter Big C who quickly got into a rhythm and brought back memories of wishing Stoney was captain for the day and would have happily bowled non stop, he got his reward with couple of wickets and Bury had broken Bangor’s spine, left arm spinner Iqbal joined in on the act and by the time the Mrs Mills lookalike was removed, Bury had a stranglehold on the game. To his credit Potts returned for a second spell and got his reward castling another Bangor batsman's stumps and Big C was still toiling away.Flaherty too made his bowling debut and picked up a wicket with his first ball and Bangor were left reeling and stranded in no mans land.Some notable fielding displays were enthused with Raza showing his crocodile like catching, skipper Metcalfe following suit and a corkscrew like attempt from Mitchell senior who was Bury's standout fielder throwing himself like Joseph in his technicolour dream coat at anything within his diving range. Bangor finished well short in the mid 160 s and Bury were off to a winning start .Other observations of note Raza beats Mitchell junior in a race to retrieve one from the fine leg area, Ramsay senior's attempt at a stumping in a slow motion type fashion with the batter winning the race from 2 yards out.Big W refuting Ramsay junior's claims his brother is a good keeper and took valuable notes that he won’t make committee or scout reports for future tour selection teams.Evening rendezvous was at Wetherspoons with Burgers around at 10pm which led to a Ramsay Rockus which started with “he gave to me to give to him to give to me to give to him” in relation to EU and non EU passport / driving license / no driving license ID.Paralegal Subo stepped in to offer her take on the manager refusing to serve an alcohol non alcohol drink who preferred to change labels on the beer taps rather than serve a parched Ramsay.She was then interviewed under caution by the duty manager and by the time she had applied for a Wetherspoon chain of stand in regional manager she had to finally climb down to avoid a first time touring party chuck out from Wetherspoons.Things calmed down by closing time and by the time Gary Garner and his golfing party turned up, Subo was well into the Chardonnay scrumpy like cloudy fizzy white wine.Some non interesting facts were spoken well after a 2nd warning to drink up at 12:30 am including Duncan “chase me“ Norvelle's wife was once hit by a golf ball whilst he the star at a golf pro-am event and whilst he landed and departed in a helicopter she departed separately in an ambulance. Rock star legend Alice Cooper plays off a 2 handicap and for those soap lovers Jack Sugden ex Emmerdale is as boring a companion on the golf pro am circuit as his character. Also Speedy is off to change his pants that he bought from M&S and Pam is still wondering why they don’t fit as there’s a first for everything. An interesting day with Mochdre T20 Weds to follow where we're told is the best batting track around North Wales and I’m sure the new arriving party of Dom, Aaron and the Greenhalgh's will make no use of at all. Great 1st day had by all more reports to follow.Big W.