ACC4 - VOC4 or ADAM & EVE THE TRUE STORY

maandag, 21 juli 2008 19:34 |

Adam and Eve were reclining under a figtree munchin away with nothing but paradise on their minds.

Adam flings a halfeaten fig away and happens to strike the stem of a birchtree a good 15 yards away (actually they didn’t use yards in those days, in fact they didn’t have any measurements at all – but that is of course a different story). Now Adam notices this and registers it as an achievement. I have just hit that tree from a reclining position from a fair distance away, he thinks. So he rolls over and informs Eve. Eve being in a paradisiacal state of mind listens to him and thinks nothing of it. But an important moment in the history of mankind has just passed and it has nothing to do with an apple. The rot has just set in.

Adam keeps flinging figs to the birch and in the end hits it more often than he misses. Then he wants to make it more difficult again so he crawls back another seven yards and starts all over. ‘Ha! I hit three in a row,’ he exclaims but again Eve has only paradise on her mind and food in her mouth so she doesn’t even look up. ‘I bet you cant hit it if you keep your arm straight,’ a voice sissed from the undergrowth. Adam looked round and a snake slithered out onto the empty patch carefully avoiding a fig that the tree dropped at that very moment.
‘A straight arm? Why would I even want to?’ Adam laughed.
‘If you don’t have rules, it’s not a game and if it’s not a game you can’t win.’ The snake was deadly serious.
‘A game?’ Adam hesitated. ‘I don’t play games. I’m in paradise…’
‘Bullocks,’ answered the snake, ‘you just cheered yourself for hitting the tree three times. You were playing a game. Now I challenge you to throw it with a straight arm and if you hit one out of six you win.’
‘That’s stupid,’ said Adam and he looked to Eve for confirmation and whether she nodded in acquiescence or just because she was falling into a paradisiacal nap we’ll never know.
‘Suit yourself,’ said the snake and slithered off. ‘But I’ll be watching,’ its voice sounded from far away and yet quite near.

Predictably Adam had to give it a go. After the fourth try he hit the tree. ‘Chucking,’ a voice came from the undergrowth. And somehow Adam knew that meant he had bent his elbow too much. Eventually he got the hang of it. By this time Eve had moved over closer to the appletree because Adam had found it useful to run up before releasing the fig. He had just hit two in a row and was looking forward to shouting out ‘Ha!’ again if he hit a third when the snake showed up. ‘I’m about to do my trick again,’ Adam proudly informed the snake for in the meantime pride had fought its way into paradise. ‘What trick?’ the creature sissed. ‘My Ha-trick.’ ‘Wait,’ the snake cried and slithered over to the birchtree. ‘I want to get a good look at this. If you make your Ha-trick you win, otherwise I win.’‘Fine,’ said Adam confidently for the concept of doubt was yet to dawn on him. He bounded in on his long runup and let one rip straight at the birch. Not a living soul in the entire garden doubted that the fig would hit the tree. Most everyone braced themselves for the loud Ha! that Adam was surely to let ring out over the treetops of Eden. Not a living soul? Well perhaps one had a different idea. Although it has since then remained very much up for discussion whether this particular creature actually has a soul. The snake using its tail swiped the fig just before it hit the tree and made it fly though the air sailing a long distance and just over that part of Eden known as deep square leg. ‘Six. Six. Six’, cried the serpent triumphantly. Adam was holding his head in dismay as he looked past deep square leg and then he felt something arise in him that he had never felt before: anger! Anger bordering on fury.
‘You legless piece of shit, that’s cheating’ (as a sideeffect sledging was born).
‘New rule,’ the snake replied.
‘You cant just make up new rules,’ Adam said charging after the snake.
The snake thus leading Adam out of the garden cried: ‘Of course you can, new rules are fun!.’
‘We’ve got to agree on them first. Come here and I'll turn you into a stump,’ shouted Adam as he crossed the mountains. In the faint distance the crunching sound of someone biting into an apple was heard.

And so when VOC came to ACC for a friendly 4innings test match we agreed on the new rules beforehand. These rules were played:

Last man standing (the ultimate batsman can bat on – but has to hit 2s or 4s or 6s except on the last ball of an over which must be a 1 or 3)
Free hit on no-ball
Hitting sight-screen on the full is 8 runs.
Second battinginnings will commence with not out batsmen of first innings on strike
Follow on will be 80% of first innings score

ACC batted first and boy did they use the new rules to their benefit. Richard Matchett came a yard short of hitting the sight screen. Then hit a six off a freehit. With three overs to spare they were all out, except of course the last man standing: Mr Haans Smout. Who managed five dots and a single in one over. Then two twos but failed to make the single on the last ball. So ACC only batted 19 overs but still made 101 runs for their first innings. VOC took to the willow and had to make 81 to prevent the follow-on. Which was only just achieved. A rain shortened second innings of 10 overs was then commenced in which ACC belted some with the two Richards hitting huge sixes and VOC was set the task of scoring at 10 an over. Although they managed to put pressure on the ACC field to the extent that Paddy had to quieten the whole team down as overthrows were being blamed on everyone except the snake who invented them. Nevertheless ACC kept VOC under the total but couldn’t get them all out which means technically it was a draw, but as someone changed the rules again halfway through it will count as a victory and the trophy will remain in Amstelveen for one year after which it will travel to Rotterdam to be defended in a similar game with of course completely different rules.

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