By Ben Dickinson

2006/2007 Saturday League Round 5 - 30th September 2006 @ Hong Kong Cricket Club

At HKCC: Centaurs 109 (Keith Hemshall 40; Luke Rewega 7-1-24-4) beat Nomads 105 (Alex Goodman 34*; Chandrin Dissanayake 8-0-43-4, Neel Kumara 9.4-0-48-6) by 4 runs

Centaurs vs HKCC Gonads

Buttock clenchingly tight finishes are becoming the hallmark of this Centaurs season and Saturday's game vs the HKCC Nomads - one of the League favourites - was as close as you can get without the need for brown trousers and a nappy...

Think Headingly'81 or Edgbaston'06 - an underdog up against a team loaded with the very chippiest of Aussies, sod all runs in the bank and the seemingly impossible task of defending them...now, like then, the underdog powered home and the Gonads were left to rue what may be a critical loss for their title aspirations.

Hemmers won the toss and Rich and and the Chand headed into bat. Chand was out to that bloke who tries to be angry all the time (why does he do that…) and Brams was out to the same bloke, still angry, not soon after. When the author and star nuimber 4 was out to an impossibly unlucky dismissal for one so gifted, it was left to the two hares of the team, messrs Cauldwell and Skips to build something that resembled a competitive target. With watchful care they put on an impressive 50 stand with Dicky C eventually falling for 25 and Hemmers a crucial 40 - his dodgy ankle amazingly not leading to any run-outs...it may be worth doing the other one later in the season...

A bit of bish, bash and a fair hint of bollox saw the C's limp to a less than threatening 109 all out...the Nomads were almost charming in the mid-innings break - a sure sign they fancied knocking the runs off at a fair click....

After a break for rain that briefly lifted Centaurs spirits as the bar begged to be abused for the remainder of the afternoon we were forced out to bowl by a quickly draining pitch and an oppo anxious to kick our arses...and then mayhem began....

Neel bowled as if jet propelled by a mutton vindaloo, before we knew it we had knocked over thier top 3, supposedly the best top 3 since Moxon, Athey and Tavare were in their pomp...indeed, their number 3, according to one expert statistician(Brenton) had scored 1.3 Billion runs in the "too hot to trot" league in NSW - but we did for him for a big fat golden quacker. Special commendation should go to Brams and Skips here for flanneling around long enough about where Brams should be fielding that they ran out of time to move him to an orthodox spot and the ball sailed unneringly straight down his throat...

Wickets continued to tumble - thier number 4 to an absolute jaffa from Neel, the middle order to some brilliant catching by Chandrin, Marky Mark behind the sticks, who gave an impeccable performance with the gloves - if you are a Centaur of semi recent vintage, remember Brams' hilarious keeping performance vs the coppers of a few season back and then then take the direct opposite of that performance - and Big Brent, who gave one of his loudest ever Centaur performances. Suddenly we had the b*ggers at 60-9 and the victory march was on....except it wasn't, cos we never win easy...

The 10th wicket pair suddenly made the Lanky Lankans resemble Messrs Gillespie and Kasper the friendly rubbish bowler as they strolled relatively easily to within 4 runs of grabbing victory...but Neel put paid to that with a vicious off stump yorker...the Ceuntaurs had won and the world was a beautiful place...

Special mention to:

Neel - one of the best bowling performances (6-40 odd) produced by a Centaur in many a season

Chandrin - great support to Neel with the other 4 wickets

Mark D - fantastic work behind the stumps

Hemmers - excellent 40 runs with the bat

send your Most Voluptuous Player votes through to Marky D who will collate for the season...

Our day in the sun is over - back to the burning bodiesof PKDumpsville and the U19’sin 3 weeks....well played to all(well, except me)...

Dicko

Ps – Hemmers, Oges’s is copied on here – please add him to the list to ensure he gets more excitement into his life in Amsterdam…

Team:
1. Mark Dellora (Wicketkeeper)
2. Chandrin Dissanayake
3. Keith Hemshall (Captain)
4. Neel Kumara
5. Rafaqat Ali
6. Steve Brammar
7. Ben Dickinson
8. Paul Molloy
9. Royce McDonald
10. Brenton McDonald
11. ?