Oporto – Game 1
It was doubtless irresponsible of the KCC executive to send this group on a tour to a city synonymous with an alcoholic beverage, but strange forces seemed to be at work before a ball was bowled: Chris Ledger was sighted at the Taylor’s estate posing in front of an oil painting of one of his ancestors – further evidence of why he leads us with such a sense of entitlement; Elias and Farrukh were spotted panting down a travelator, erroneously informed their flight was about to leave and endangering their weekend spells (“if they’ve got a Muslim name, let’s really have fun with their flight experience” – Gatwick staff manual); the KCC youth policy meant they were off with 3 men in their sixties, 2 just or about to be fifty, 4 in their forties and no-one (bar the Nayar boys) under thirty; and, most worrying of all, Steve Thomas announced on the plane that he was an intelligent and educated Australian – if not an Aussie moron, surely an oxymoron.
Sat 16 April Oporto Lost by 7 wkts
We 154/10 in 48 overs (Ledger 41, Jefferson 24*, Hussain 18, Extras 35, Alam Khan 3/36, Ferreira 2/7, Gupta 2/21)
They 156/3 in 29.2 overs (Alam Khan 128*, Radford 11, Hasan 1/19)
Tha’ wast playin’ down Piccadilly when tha’ shudduv bin down’t Bakerloo. KCC batted first and second ball Neeraj had his off pole plucked out. A long spell of selfless umpiring then? But no, he walked across to his room for a mint tea, massage, spa bath and to listen to some French rap with his accompanying sons Alex and Stef, reappearing for his lunch. Gore and Thomas were soon back in the shed, too, and the innings never really got going with Ledger batting responsibly, which never feels quite right. 92/6 became respectable with a 47 stand from Elias and Mark (the bowling bodies have gone, so it’s time to justify your existence somehow) and with 154 on the board Ledger announced that it was a “competitive” total – the modern day euphemism for “not enough runs”. The innings was somewhat stalled by Oporto’s Maxx Mobiles strategic time out, in that this lasted 2½ hours not 2½ minutes and involved plying their opposition with wine and port. The low point was a nasty leg injury to Michael whilst batting, the 105th of his career (club record), which would see him retire hurt and be put out for the weekend (“it’s a funny one this, it doesn’t actually hurt”). Stefanos Nayar stepped in to take his place for the rest of the tour and the team’s average age instantly dropped by 13 years per man.
Sunil and Farrukh had Oporto rocking on 10/2 but Danny Morrison would have burst a blood vessel because suddenly it was raining maximums – Tabrez being particularly and spectacularly DLF’d (“this one is out of here”). Alam Khan made a brutal 128 not out – there were 21 other runs off the bat in the whole innings. KCC repaired to the bar to regroup.
