Bears,

Our D-grade season came to an end today against a bunch of {choose your own expletive}. 

With the Bears a man down and Tijo leaving early, a rare toss win from Spooner was accompanied by an even rarer decision to field first. Drady and Azz started things off tidily. Until, a left hander (who whilst not a ring-in, should not be allowed to play D-grade Social cricket) took to Azz (or was that Arch according to the scorebook). At the other end, Drady (or is that Gratty) took the opening wicket and DB claimed one when Gribbs held a straight forward catch, yes that's right, I said Gribbs held a straightforward catch - it was clearly a result of his hat being worn backwards. We could have removed the lefty, but a field change from DB meant that a straight forward chance for GT turned into a difficult chance. The lefty was also the beneficiary a 50/50 stumping call and went to drinks on at least 70 out of 2/105.

After drinks, the cockiness, {choose your own derogatory term} kicked in and the fun went out of the game. Tijo was taken for 30 in an over and GT was taken to all parts as our left handed friend raced past 100 and onwards. It got to the point where he 'retired' on 155+ and a couple of overs later, HP was given an LBW (only because the other batter was about to retire as well). If they hadn't already been cocky enough, they 'declared' and finished their innings after 30 overs at 4/221. A huge thank you to Heath for his efforts at fine leg throughout the 40 overs.

Tijo and DB walked out to bat. Tijo, who was only going to be around for a couple of overs due to his impending departure was bowled for a duck. Azz joined DB and the scoreboard was ticking over nicely until Azz was bowled for 11. DB was caught shortly for 22 after having blasted a couple of sixes. Spooner joined GT and the feralness of our opponents kicked in. Having made the decision to bat for as long as possible, every GT block was greeted with an expletive laden sledge, every time GT pulled away given they were yapping as the bowler came in got another sledge. GT was 'controversially' fired by Hot Pants for 17 which resulted in more GT-directed sledges. At the other end, Spooner was starting to find form not seen since... well... form not ever seen.

G-man was bowled not long after and when Drady hit a 4 straight up, Page Tavern started to think that there cocky declaration might have been a little premature. Unfortunately, Drady was caught by ring-in Hilly a couple of balls later. At the 19.2 over mark, HP said drinks, Spooner walked off and the ferals were at it again - the drunken idiots had run out of booze and didn't have anything to drink at drinks... Spooner's retort 'its not my problem you've got nothing to drink... seriously' was far more polite than what was actually going through his head.

Shortly after drinks, Spooner made the mistake of running after a misfield and was unfairly adjudicated run out by DB for 31 and Page Tavern, clearly showing how deluded they were, claimed 'that was one the we needed to get'.... clearly they had not seen Spooner bat before... We lost the last couple of wickets quickly after that to be done for 115.

After the match, Gribbs showed off the progress he has been making with the ball, sending down some leggies to Heath and HP. By this time, HP had magically recovered from a crippling knee injury that had him stations at slip all innings and was running like he was the young kid at the crease.

The last reported sighting of Page Tavern, had them all being pulled over for DUI and ousted from the finals... Good riddance to them, can't wait to see next year's media reports when Page Tavern and Top Pub meet....

Our last game is this Sunday in what shapes are far more enjoyable and friendly clash with the Tourists at O'Connor. As per usual, the team will be named Wednesday.

Spooner