Carib Beer XI vs UKGI, Regents Park,

Tuesday 1st August 2017

The usual drib-drab of Caribs slowly made their way to a gloomy Regents Park for the final match of the 2017 season. The weather was grey and a bit chilly for an August evening, although nowhere near as bad as the evening earlier in the summer which had nearly cost Carib Willis some of his digits due to frostbite.

With it being the start of the holiday season, we were somewhat short on Carib members, with only 5 regulars being available. Fortunately our trusty Team Secretary Carib Holmes did a fine job of rounding up a few ringers, bringing us up to 9, which was more than adequate given the UKGI opposition only had 8 players. This was our second game of the season against UKGI who were keen to play us again and handily agreed to step in due to the sad decline of the fixture against the BoE All stars who struggle to raise a team given the Caribs steal all their likely recruits for ourselves.

In the absence of regular skipper and best batsman Carib Haigh (who had elected for a holiday in the tourist hotspot of war-torn Ukraine) and the absence of regular stand-in skipper (who was back in the country from his holiday in Brazil, but just couldn't be bothered to turn up) ageing middle-pacer Carib Rogerson, the reigns for the day were entrusted to our deputy vice-captain and only man to feature in every Carib match this year Mr Weaver. Mr Weave kept up the Carib tradition of losing the toss and we were sent out to bowl first. Half-track bouncing bowler Carib Worthy, fresh from his warm up of two cans of lager was not asked to bowl first to give him time to sober up, instead the opening bowlers were the express pair of Carib Swanand/Shaun/Shawn and regular ringer for this season Adam Tanveer. The Caribs quickly ran through the top order with Adam first to strike taking the wicket of UKGI Morris. This was followed up by Carib Kant dismissing UKGI Morris who had been a thorn in our side in the earlier match with a skied top-edge which was taken by Ringer Kessel, on debut for the Caribs and also entrusted with the gloves in the absence of regular wickie Carib Bowen. The woes continued with a lucky escape for a run-out not given after some fine fielding by Ringer Horn, however the UKGI team did not learn their lesson and Carib Horn was involved in another run out that this time saw the UKGI batter on his way back to the sidelines.

Bouncer bowler Worthy was now called upon as first change, and helped keep the UKGI score ticking with a collection of long hop bouncers and wides. Carib Weaver also kept up the Carib captaincy tradition of bringing himself on after the opening bowlers had done the hard graft of dismissing the top order and bagged himself a highly dubious lbw with the ball appearing to striker the batsman somewhere in the waist region. Carib Moss was also given a bowl, still whinging about his poorly finger from an inevitable dropped catch from 2 weeks prior. Remarkably he bowled only one wide in his 2 overs for a relatively tidy spell, ruined only by his last ball going for a boundary 4, one of only 5 boundaries in the innings on a desperately slow outfield.

Ringer Horn also turned his arm over and was the beneficiary of another lbw, although this one was at least vaguely approaching the stumps. Tom bowled in tandem with another ringer Adrian Clinkett, who bowled a very tight spell of two overs for just five runs. Unfortunately for the Caribs UKGI Gorrie was now at the crease, the man who had guided his team home in the UKGI win in June. He cruised along to a comfortable 25, only not retiring as he was last man in. This being due to another run out and a spectacular bowling of current Dodgers batter Dollin and UKGI skipper which saw his middle stump sent flying out of the ground. UKGI was allowed to bat as last-man-stands due to the UKGI team being one short, however he didn't last too long, falling into Carib Swanand's trap of bowling a slow full toss which the UKGI man skied towards the safe hands of ringer Adam.

So the UKGI team were all out for an opposition low of the 2017 season of just 92 runs, surely giving the Carib team a decent chance of victory. Our opening pair were the epicly slow scoring Carib Holmes and Ringer Dale. In a season of slow scoring this opening duo surpassed all records, racing along to a score of 13-0 in 6 overs, admittedly in the face of some good tight opening bowling, putting to shame the costly 37 extras given away by the Caribs in a low-scoring contest. Ringer Dale, having played himself in, in the manner of a proper batsman decided to try and up the run-rate, only to pick out the mid-on fielder and find himself trudging back to join the Carib ranks. Ringer Adrian, keen to up the run rate took on a tight single to just his second ball, and was unlucky to be victim to a fine run-out with the UKGI fielder scoring a direct hit with just one stump to aim out.

This saw Carib Kant sent in at number 4 for the comedy innings of the day. Before even facing a ball he was limping along, having an incident with his box not quite being in the correct area. Thus Swanand called for a runner which the opposition kindly agreed too. However after only actually facing 3 balls Swanand was dismissed, again leaving him short of his target of a double-digit total. The Caribs putting themselves in a big hole at this stage being just 20-3 after 9 overs.

Ringer Horn did his best to up the run rate, encouraging his pedestrian partner Carib Holmes, again looking to match the achievement of absenct Carib Rayner and carry his bat without reaching 25, to take on some more quick singles. Tom departed, to send out the king of the straight-out-of-the-coaching-manual-forward-block Carib Worthy. Jarrod didn't disappoint with some classic blocks early on in his innings, though he did pick up the run rate, eventually scoring 17 at nearly a run a ball. The UKGI team now brought on their part time bowlers, and despite bowling 4 wides in an over, UKGI man Morris managed to engineer the dismissal of Carib Holmes, who in excitement at the chance to cash in and get his run rate at above a run every 2 balls, managed to tread on his own stumps.

Ringer Adam, with his coaching from last week still fresh in his mind looked like he might pick up the run rate sufficiently with a couple of quick fours, leaving the Caribs needing 24 from 3 overs, which looked possible if Adam could stay in. Sadly for the Caribs it was not to be, with the return of the UKGI opening bowlers seeing Adam's wicket and a chance at the match lost. Caribs Weaver and Worthy battled valiantly, but in the absence of strong batters like Caribs Cordey and Haigh we came up just a little short, losing another close match by just 9 runs in the end.

Luckily for Carib skipper Mr Haigh he was absent, so was saved the rigmarole of drinking his end of season can of Stella. However all the Caribs present retired to the Green Man pub, to be entertained by the local singer "Adam" and reminisce about the season past and also about recent Ashes wins with UKGI Aussie skipper Mike Dollin. So ends the 2017 season, overall not many wins to shout about, but also the first season in living memory when we haven't been totally thrashed by at least one team, so we will take that as a positive.

Carib Beer XI Lose by 9 Runs

Scorecard