In the land of fairy tales the endings all always happy, good luck abounds and everyone has a jolly good time. Not a bit of it this week for the fourth team visiting Nieuwegein. First of all the game was on Saturday not Sunday and yours truly had drank enough beer the day before, watching the Netherlands beat England, to sink a medium sized oil-tanker. The 20/20 result was likened by one English tabloid newspaper as equivalent to a rocking horse winning the Grand National.

So nursing a very big hangover, the toss was lost and Nieuwegein elected to field, this did not worry me unduly because we have put in some reasonable batting performances this year and I did not expect this to be any different. Our lack of recognised openers could be a problem which was confirmed when Nagesh was caught out practising fly-fishing outside the off-stump turning a wide ball into a wicket! Fat Paddy flattered to deceive hitting one straight six and then providing some catching practice at mid-off. New boy Lakshman pulled some muscle or other and requested a runner, Nagesh got all dressed up but, like a dead atheist, found he had nowhere to go. Ugly boy Matchett troubled the scorers hardly at all and the score was 66 for 4. Duncan, returned from his round the world tour, made a good impression scoring three boundaries and all on the off-side was then out to some very ordinary off-spin. Special mention to Richard Wolfe who opened the batting and was still there after five wickets down finally falling for a very creditable 26 runs and Tim Lewis who caused half of the team to rub there eyes in disbelief when he played consequetive straight forward defensives and nursed the entire tail for a season's top score of 30 runs. Our tail then made the day of one of the most ordinary off-spiners I have ever seen (yes even by my standards!!!) by providing him with a hatrick and a five wicket haul. Thanks to Tim Lewis, we were defending a total over a hundred, closing the innings 125 all out after 28 overs. A truly miserable effort, but it did not dampen spirits and the team still reckoned we could win the game.
During lunch I was talking to one of the opposition who, like me, spoke very little Dutch. So I enquired of him where he was from and how long he had been in the country and he answered Sri Lanka and six weeks. I feared the worst and when I then asked him what he was doing here (meaning what sort of work) he said playing cricket and my worst fears were confirmed. I decided not to share this piece of intelligence with the rest of the team until he came in to bat.
Nagesh opened the bowling and ripped the middle stump of the opener out in his second over but that was as good as it got because the aforementioned Sri Lankan came in to bat. Despite the best efforts of Nagesh, Richard Wolfe, Richard Matchett, Duncan, Patrick Phillips and the skipper, who did at least induce an edge from the Sri Lankan, the game was over after 20 overs and we were well and truly thrashed by nine wickets
Mention must be made of the generous Surinamese hospitality of our opponents who provided beer and the spiciest roti I have eaten in a long while. Furthermore, in the fourth team we believe that one should always find the good in everything and that was that we would all be home early enough for sex!!

ACC4 125 all out after 28 overs.
CCN 2 126 for 1 after 20 overs.

Cheers, the old King!!