Monday 1 June 2009

Sledged

On Saturday, I made the worst 30-odd I've ever made. It was an unwatchable and visceral horror, like Oldboy.

Somehow surviving what felt like a stone-dead leg before third ball, I got off the mark with an edge between the keeper and first slip which they both watched sail by. There followed a spell of trancelike Boycottian contemplation when I wondered if I would score another run not just then, but ever. 

The spell was broken by a cut that came off the toe of the bat and went between the wicketkeeper's legs, so I decided to listen to my internal Peter Moores [doesn't everyone have one?] and take the positives from the experience - i.e. that it was quite funny I was still in. 

It lasted another hour or so - oh yes - during which the most productive area was the half-bat squirt through backward point. After the umpteenth one of those, first slip threw back his head and said, 'fucking hell, it's Paul Collingwood...'

I'll take that as a compliment, boys...

NB: One of their openers had a Charlie French bat. It was a handsome blade, the first one I've seen in the flesh [I was going to say in the wood, but that sounds somehow wrong...] I spent his innings making eyes at it.


2 comments:

jrod said...

Please do not compare your dodgy collingwoodesque innings to the greatest action film ever made.

The Old Batsman said...

I know. Sorry. I meant unwatchable in the sense of looking-through-your-fingers-because-you-can't-believe-that-just-happened...

Oldboy is a strange masterpiece. Unlike the innings.