Nope!! everyone was far to busy netting I'm afraid.
A lovely time was had by all in a completely empty Oval Indoor School (now is the time to book London nets chums!)
Neon Cricket and his significant other turned up. I was pleased to see that Neon complied with the overwhelming forum stereotype, all rippling muscles and cut physique. He purveyed a curious mix of filthy seam-up and something he described as his 'leggies'. However, with the bat, he was my type of player - favouring the pull and the swat, and contemptuous of anything not pitched up.
The forum's favourite 'bearded wonder' Felix turned up once again sporting his Lincoln green outfit. With the bat, he is a man transformed, damn you Jake Vitas for selling him a B&S bat - all of a sudden he is KP - driving over the top, slamming through the covers and flicking off his hip - and some of those he connected with too! With the ball, he still runs up as if he has too many elbows and knees, and propels the ball at such a speed, that if he doesn't like what comes out, he can run after it, gather it up and start again.
And then there was Rick James - or 'Big Al' as we call him. He is so youthful-looking and fresh faced, that when he arrived I nearly directed him to the Archbishop Tennyson School. He has a lovely big blue bag and is very enthusiastic - so enthusiastic in fact, that he took a chunk out of own thumb during his follow-through in his first delivery and bled all over the place. His bowling is a work in progress and involved a lot of growling, but with the bat, after an initially tentative net, second time round he was more confident and really started putting bat to ball - keep going son!
Then, half way through the evening, a homeless person turned up. Short of stature with a straggly grey beard and rheumy eyes, he seemed keen to play, and as he didn't smell funny, we let him. Lo and behold, when he took his flasher-mac off, it was Boondougle - hooray!! Once again he unveiled his box of off-spinning tricks, many of which now don't bounce - but it is with the bat that things really took off. Resembling a small, angry helicopter he flashed his blade around, and contorted himself into all sorts of positions. His strikes were accompanied by a series of "arghhhs" and "yaaaaahs" and it is fair to say that with the filth served up, square leg and point took a peppering.
All in all, a jolly time with new chums - and it's worth considering, the school was so empty that if we could actually get 10-12 people to commit and turn up, we could have a right old nerd-off party, gambolling around wagging our tails and sniffing each other!
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Topic: Winter Net Locations - South of England (Read 35559 times)