Ii was clear to anyone blessed with the gift of sight: Sunday was going to be one of those days. Heavy rainfall on Saturday had rendered many pitches throughout the land unplayable. Matches were cancelled or rescheduled for many.

But with the hockey and football seasons starting to breathe down our necks, some brave cricketers decided to ‘give it a go’. The Fabulous Firsts sniggered, having lost the toss and seeing their opponents decide to bat. The Sympathetic Seconds correctly predicted the side of the coin to be showing and chose to bowl.

As you read this tale make sure your gun is loaded with silver bullets or your threshold is protected with garlands of garlic otherwise you may be bitten or is it smitten by the story of the battle between the vampires and the werewolves. In the faraway land of ACC there were many different clans. There were the primadonnas of the first clan, the pretenders and thieves of the second clan, the third clan was made up of journeymen of all kinds but the fourth clan were werewolves, conceived under an evil moon and the fifth clan were the mortal enemies of the werewolves, the vampires!!

As the old General sat and pondered the history of his particular legion of the Imperial Roman Army of ACC, his mind turned to past battles won and past battles lost. The famous northern campaigns against the hordes of Groningites, the now infamous invasions of Britannia as well as the countless rearguard actions fought some of them in vain but everyone etched upon his memory. The famous fourth legion was no more, usurped by a group of interlopers under the command of the new upstart Abidus Malikus. The old general MacDonaldus had been commanded by Guido Ceasar to form a fifth legion from the remains of the old fourth legion but all that was left was old men and young boys.

The innings against Ajax started like many others. Bob and Bert strolled to the middle, and even before the first ball was bowled, Bob was mentally assessing the fielders. There’s only one stat in his mind: surviving the most dropped catches in the season. Which one would he bamboozle with a catch so easy, so early on, that they couldn’t possibly be ready for it? As it turns out, his talent spotting is second to none in that department, and he duly notched up two such survivals in the first five overs.

Sometimes the skipper’s lot is not a happy one, nothing is more painful that having to take a bowler off who is bowling well or disappoint someone by dropping then down the batting order. Fortunately or unfortunately in this team, such victims do not sit quietly and accept the skipper’s decision they voice their discontent and abandon all verbal etiquette. Anyway back to this later.

The Pinsterren weekend saw the return of Old MacDonald from his Australian adventure. No rest for the skipper because no sooner had his plane landed than he was watching his son, Sean Walsh aka Chip playing for the U-11’s. As he bravely fought the jetlag and the bags under his eyes became suitcases, the telephone rang and one his “crew” informed him that there was no match ball for Sunday’s game in Rhoon against WCR 2. Cricket without a ball would be a virtual concept that would tax the best of spectators so after eight hours sleep Old Macdonald dragged himself out of bed and made his way to the clubhouse before the rendezvous at the FEBO for the long journey south.

A Wide Sandwich
(but watch your diet for it can ruin the first (legal) ball of the season).
The first game of the season for ACC5 was a wide sandwich. In the sense that it started and ended with a wide. Perhaps a bit more like a clubsandwich for there were lots of other wides inbetween as well. Although it must be said that like a clubsandwich there were many very tasty and juicy bits in there. In fact it was a very tasty sandwich indeed. What stands out most was the overall flavour of the game. What to think of the five lbw’s Olympia’s umpires gave. It says a little of how much the ball stayed low, but a lot also of the gentlemanlike spirit the game was played in. Many a joke passed between the two teams and not only in an effort to get into the batsmans mind. Their overgangsklasse bowler remarked on how gezellig it was and our overgangsklasse bowler wanted to say the same but still cant pronounce the word.