Good Evening Bears,

Last Sunday saw the Polar Bear B-grade line-up faced with the daunting task of toppling the undefeated Wombats. On the Bears side, was that 6 of the players now in folklore as the only Bears to record a B-grade win this season were in the line-up, the downside was that the opposition had turned up.

It would seem as though there shouldn't be alot to write about, but with the assistance of Chook, there is a abundance of match report-worthy incidents, so in no particular order, here goes...

The Bears were faced with unBEARable 47 degree heat and in true Bear spirit, we lost the toss and found ourselves in the field, although Spooner had some success at the toss and managed to negotiate a second drinks break.
The Bears looked like starting the match with only 9 players as Pabs had gone to Curtin first while Pommy was at Hughes. Thankfully, Pommy arrived before the first ball and Armface was there in support so deputised for Pabs in the early overs.
On the topic of Armface, what about those Crocs!!! It was disappointing that we didn't get to see a hat-trick of Armface hitting the deck trying to chase after a ball. Although the fact that the third consecutive full-toss from Ads went straight to debutant Dean 'The King of Cool' Martin was about the only luck we seemed to have in the field.

It just wasn't our day...

We had two high chances where the best placed fielder lost the ball in the sun and no Bear could get to it in time, unfortunately, the second of those also happened to be on Reppo's hat-trick ball (real hat-trick this time). We had 2 bowlers hit the stumps but not claim wickets as Pommy's loopy delivery was correctly no-balled and the inside edge off Spooner failed to dislodge the bail. Diesel took a fine outfield catch only to be marginally over the boundary when he took the catch. We hit the stumps regularly with our throws, unfortunately, more often than not, the ball rebounded for overthrows and our more youthful opponents, pounced on any fumble. Poor Pommy decided it would be best to not attack a catch and just save a boundary, only for the ball to hit the one bare spot on the ground and balloon over his head for 4 (this was the ball immediately following the Diesel catch).

There were some highlights though as Chook, Repo, Ads along with Dean all took handy catches. Chook, who I'm now starting to think should be called Ben Stokes given his overall performance and heritage, also produced the ball of the millennium, bamboozling the batter who shouldered arms and lost off-peg. While Reppo's second spell and Ads' comeback after having 1/16 off 1 were of high quality. Vino also produced a good performance behind the stumps given the heat.
In a clear sign that the Wombats were part-taking in excessive beer drinking (consuming their collective weight according to Chook), there was some creativity in their scorebook with Jonah, Kramer and Doozer all bowling for the Bears. For those wondering, that translates to Spooner, Pablo and Diesel respectively.
Whilst they drank their collective weight in beer and had fielders passing out during the match, the Bears ran out of beer before the end of the day (well done Pabs & Armface). 

Our performance with the bat started well as Dean (deputising in the Armface position) and Chook took us to 1/71 in the 17th. Unfortunately, the dismissal of Chook, led to a collapse and despite our best attempts to see out the 40, we were dismissed 10 overs after Chook's departure. Despite their alcohol intake, the Wombats were holding onto some screamers and our tactic of hoping that none of them would be conscious after 40 overs failed. 

A huge thank you to Pabs who stood out in that heat for in excess of 20 overs and umpired, even the Wombats appreciated it as he was provided a beer by one of the beer wenches that Wombats had (which led to a discussion about being in Hot Pants). Pommy also debuted the Go Pro whilst he was out in the middle (umpiring). Its a shame the Go Pro wasn't out there to capture his dismissal. A big thank you to Gribbs for the abundance of water, to Chook for putting water on the boundary, to Dean and Diesel for playing at relatively short notice, to Armface for coming down and watching.

Whilst the final scoreline might indicate a horribly one-sided affair, it was far from that Bears!!! It was a very spirited performance in horrible conditions against a quality side. 

Spooner.