Carib Beer XI vs IBM, Regents Park, Monday 13th May 2019

The first Carib match of the season was played out at Regents Park in glorious spring sunshine, at least until the sun set and then it was slightly chillier, enough to explain the absence of Carib Willis. The late notice absence of Carib Rogerson remained unexplained despite his promising form in the Carib Winter Cricketing Academy at the Oval. Our match was the now traditional season opener against IBM, normally a close game with the IBMers usually fielding a mixture of proper cricketers and those unfamiliar with the right end of the bat, so ideal oppo for the Carib ranks.

The absence of regular skipper, best batsman and chairman Carib Mr Haigh and also the absence of vice-skipper Carib Weaver meant we were in the (capable?) hands of deputy-vice captain Carib Goochie Rayner. Goochie was somewhat reluctant to take on the reins as his 100% winning record was at stake, and much like Carib Willis when batting he was keen to protect his averages. However cajoled by the Carib ranks that it would be unconstitutional for him not to be our captain he was persuaded to participate in the toss. Goochie promptly won the toss and was shocked he then had to decide what to do, eventually deciding we would have a bowl.

The Caribs trotted out to the outfield with just the one late dropout meaning we could field 10 players including a debut for Ringer Rishi and Carib Nitin playing his first match as an official member. Congratulations Nitin! Nitin was rewarded by being promoted to the opening bowler and participated in a fast bowling opening partnership alongside Carib Adam. Their opening spell was tight and resulted in an early wicket when Carib Moss was the first man of the season to claim a catch, which was eventually held after a juggling act at square leg. Carib Nitin unfortunately denied a wicket of his own with the rare sight of someone dropping one off their own bowling.

However wickets were to prove hard to come by as the standard of the IBM batting was of a good standard. Unfortunately for the batters there was also a very lush, slow outfield so boundaries were also a rare sight, only 5 boundaries in the entire IBM innings. So this combination along with the Caribs bowling regular wides (over 40 in total!) meant the game trundled along for a few overs. The first change bowlers of Caribs Kant and Cordey kept things relatively tight with the highlight being a spectacular bowling of IBM Neel that saw the off stump sent flying from the ground.

Due to the absence of quite a few other Caribs such as Carib Worthy we then had to find 4 overs of general filth from the rest of the Carib ranks. Caribs Moss and Berry were suitably volunteered and managed to generally keep the scoring from going too far in the wrong direction by bowling wides and no balls. Skipper for the day Goochie, fielding at a very fine third man, was also kept busy with many balls keeping low and evading the grasp of Carib keeper Bowen.

The return of the Carib opening bowlers helped keep the score down and the IBMers finished on a decent, but not un-chasable total of 131-2.

Our opening batters were Ringer Rishi and reliable Carib opener Holmes. Ringer Rishi being another recruit from our stand-in skippers team at NT, following in the footsteps of Carib Nitin. Both Nitin and Rishi being carefully watched as any contribution would be counted towards their performance assessments at NT. Carib Goochie was also keen to remind them both they owed him beers in the post match aftermath at Great Portland Street.

If runs were hard to come by in the IBM innings this was even more so the case for the Caribs with Ringer Rishi's solitary 4 being the only boundary of the innings. The Carib innings started in comical style for the IBM skipper Spicer with him starting with 2 no balls, one miles over head height and one that bounced 5 yards in front of him. Then in the process of his third delivery he injured himself and had to be mercifully replaced by a team-mate. Said teammate IBM J Anderson (we believe not Jimmy), promptly tooke the wicket of Carib Holmes after a short stay at the crease. Carib Berry followed after not too much longer and so Carib Moss joined Ringer Rishi for another slow scoring partnership. Ringer Rishi was scoring at a decent rate relative to the outfield, but having reached 21 asked Carib Moss if they could swap bats as he was not timing anything with the bat he had started with. Carib Moss was happy to oblige, safe in the knowledge that his own choice of bat is normally irrelevant when you rarely hit it off the square anyway. However the change of bat was to prove the downfall of Rishi as he was promptly bowled 3 balls later. At this point we were just about in the game with 70 more needed at the half-way stage of the chase. However this had perhaps been aided a little by the bowling of some of the IBMers including the two girls amongst their ranks.

However the middle part of the innings then followed with some more torturously slow scoring as all of Caribs Moss, Rayer and Bowen struggled to score at all, with all three eventually being bowled having failed to make much decent contact with the ball. IBM had also saved their better bowlers for the final overs so scoring was becoming increasingly difficult. Carib Nitin was next to the crease, who had been very vocal throughout about the need to run more and now had the chance to prove himself. His own scoring rate was not too bad, however the running part was not too great as he took the opportunity to run out Carib Northern pie-bakery magnate Cordey who was also not finding it too easy to score runs. Just as Carib Cordey was getting going he was called through for a suicidal single by Nitin which was never going to be a problem for the IBMers to complete the run-out.

Carib Adam came to the crease for a late cameo, but all to no avail as IBM dutifully completed a comfortable 25 run victory. Thus continuing the variable results between the teams as the last 5 matches between the teams have now seen 2 wins apiece and one tie. So we look forward to playing IBM again once more next season.

Carib Beer XI Lose by 25 runs

Scorecard