With the sun blazing the Pelicans welcomed the Nomads to the Field Of Dreams for their second “practice match” of the season, with the toss won it came as no surprise to the awaiting Pelicans that bowling first was the only choice.

Opening up from the railway end Toobes steamed in and in no time was laying down his 20mph rockets. Such devastating fire soon yielded his first wicket a fine catch in the gulley from non other than Andrew Englefield that new Pelican catching machine.

As if that wasn’t enough Andrew then opened the bowling from the Nags End and was again soon into his stride after he had been dispatched for a couple of mighty sixes.

Things looked to be getting a bit tasty as the Nomads number 2 decided six was the better form of defence, unfortunately having launched Toobes towards the railway line a slight misjudgement meant that the ball still with a light dusting of snow on it landed right on top of Asad, a fine catch indeed.

With the Pelican openers put out to grass Tickles took over from Toobes and the metronome that is Rags replaced Andrew.

With a truly unique variety of balls Tickles soon had his man, the book will say LBW but for those that were not there, Ticks steamed in and launched his exocet, unfortunately there wasn’t much rocket fuel and the ball looped high into the blue sky landing more on the Nomad somewhere round his box area as he had unleashed his body on what was meant to be something a bit faster and lower.

With 4 overs bowled Ticks was put out to grass to be replaced by Asad as Rags continued his metronomic bowling.

As is expected with these two Pelicans runs dried up and wickets fell, eventually Rags finished his 8 overs with only 30 runs taken off him, Asad in his own style ripped through the Nomad middle order returning excellent figures of 8 overs 3 for 17.
As the innings was drawing to a close it was time to bring out the big guns namely a return of Andrew and Adam the biggest gun of them all.

Andrew soon got into the stride of things and finally had his wicket a nice catch by non other than Ali, meanwhile Adam in his own style bowled his mighty bombs, unfortunately quite a few of these seemed to find their way down the leg side as Adam combined twirling guile with mighty wides, suffice it to say such a random approach soon yielded the expected result as the number 8 batsman was caught by Rags.

It was during this spell that not only did Tony earn his match fee with his acrobatic leg side stops but Sumit with all the confidence of Mitchell Johnson requested an over.

Such was the enthusiasm Skip had no choice but to comply and await the confident carnage that was about to follow.

It has to be said that what followed was not exactly the carnage that Skip or I think anybody else expected.

Coming in for his first ball was a bit of a marker sliding wide down the leg side, but hey we have all done that, the second ball was on the money, what then happened after that gets a little harder to explain……walking back to mark… perfect…… run up….. perfect… then wham right in the kisser an arm more bent than than a banana with scoliosis. With mouth wide open in disbelief Skip hoped nobody had seen the action, unfortunately that was a forlorn wish as even Stevie Wonder could have worked out the issue.

So next ball walk back…. perfect… run up…. perfect, wham another ball with an action that Babe Ruth would have wished for, the mayhem that ensued panicked the Nomads into running which was foolish and the Nomad 10 was run out. Trying to hide in an open field whilst dressed head to toe in white is difficult but Skip tried….and failed. With ever vocal murmurings from the Nomad batsman something amazingly to do with chucking Sumit unmoved returned to his mark with a perfect saunter only to perfectly run in and unleash another ball from an arm more crooked than Al Capone, again panic ensued in the Nomads lower order as a run was taken only for one of the Nomads to walk to the middle of the wicket complaining about chucking and no balls whilst Asad flamboyantly removed the bails. Its fair to say for a short while all hell broke out with claim and counter claim, accusation and recrimination.

Sumit did indeed produce carnage, whilst Skip had some sympathy for the Nomads, this soon dissipated once the complaining increased especially as they had posted a rather tasty 201.

To bring things back to some form of calmness tea this week came from the fabulous hands of Mrs Rehman who provided a feast for the Nomads and Pelicans to tuck into, Jalil tried to take some of the credit but as we know the kitchen is a part of the house Jalil never ventures into, we saw through his lies.

With tea enjoyed it was time to start that famous Pelican fight back, you know the one where we collapse.

Indeed the Pelicans did not fail to deliver as Asad wafted at a ball and was dismissed by the wicket keeper for 5, quickly followed by Niron for 0, oh how the mighty fall, followed by Hasan for 13. Ali on the other hand is made of sterner stuff and played his natural game against a couple of openers who to give credit where it is due were pretty good. He was joined by Sumit who with his whole family watching and having thrown quite literally his bombs into the game earlier took his guard and was bowled. His son a young fellow actually questioned his father’s abilities on returning to the clubhouse.

The wickets continued to fall Ticks 2 Tony 1, but Ali held on until after hitting a quite superb 40 he was out LBW, the game rapidly came to an end as Rags waas out for 2, Toobes 2 and Andrew 4 leaving Adam still standing, with the Pelicans all out for 69.

We can only go one way.

Reports are intended to convey an entertaining picture of the day’s play. No disrespect is meant, but if on occasion we misjudge matters, please take it in the friendly and humorous spirit in which it is intended.