The Whalers
arrived in
The Whalers
arrived in chipper fashion sporting new ties in combination with a number of
blazers, shirts, shorts and T-shirts to give quite a catwalk parade. After a small tour of
Matt ‘won’
the toss after the opposition offered him his choice and in true tradition, we
headed out to bat with Rob and Pip leading us off. After chasing a wide one in the second over,
Rob quickly returned sending Kev in to plunder the
bowling. His usual view on running meant
the score moved quickly in boundaries.
Pip was next to fall after compiling a useful 27 and following
contributions of 27 and 29 from Duncs and Al, combined with a jug avoiding 47
from Kev,
the Whalers were well positioned for a big final flourish. However, a flurry of wickets and some good
tight bowling saw us restricted to 191-9 off our 35 overs when 200 was beckoning.
The
opposition response began steadily on the low wicket with some tight bowling
from Dan and Khalil. Well, some tight
bowling from Khalil (5-0-11-0) and a pick and mix selection from Dan (4-0-22-0)
had Kev complaining about getting his shell suit
bottoms dirty diving around behind the stumps.
This brought on the first change of Matt and Kamal who got things moving
with 2 wickets for Matt who ended with great figures of (5-2-7-2). In truth, after the reasonable start, the VRA
began to lose wickets with some sloppy running and sharp fielding by the
Whalers yielding 3 run outs (team jug!).
It was then left to the wily spin/seam of Gilo
to finish them off with 3 wickets for 13 and a wicket a piece for Rob and
Ed. In the end their score of 107 all
out meant Whalers had won by 84 runs to start the tour on a high.
So, with
the match won, the Whalers returned to the bar to take on the VRA in a double
or nothing boat race (video on the website).
A strong start by the top four was then delayed somewhat by Pip
savouring the fruits and flavours of his ale whilst the opposition continued to
chug down their beer. By the time Pip
had announced that he thought the hoppy aromas reminded him of the autumn sun
setting over a corn field, the VRA had sculled their beers and bought everyone
a celebratory Bitterballen.
Overall a
great game at a lovely ground played in good spirits set the tone for a night
on the town in
The sorry
state of the Whalers at breakfast held testament to the cheap booze on
offer. However, buoyed by sausage
butties cooked by Dunc’s Dad and an introduction and
team photo with the newest Whaler, we headed off to Den Haag for match 2
against The Roosters. On arrival at the
ground we found two pitches, both plastic with one created by a piece of carpet
down the middle of an Astroturf hockey pitch.
Thankfully we found the opposition next to the other, more attractive
option and after a very civilised pre match chat over
coffee and cake, we set about playing some cricket.
Matt again
had no option on the toss with the opposition playing the experience card and
telling us we were batting. With their
team made up of former good standard players entering their twilight years we
expected some steady but tight bowling but no quite the opening over which saw
us 0-2 with Ads bowled and Al held at slip.
This was shortly followed by Rich being caught and bowled to leave the
Whalers looking pretty sorry at 4-3 off 4 overs. This brought the experienced partnership of
Duncs and Dan to the crease and with the immediate aim of not getting completely
embarrassed, we set about staying in and ticking the scoreboard over. 30-3 off 10 overs became 70-3 after 20 at
which point their main bowler had gone off home for his tea and Kamal was
bewitching Dan whilst bowling for the opposition.
As the
match progressed, the scoring began to accelerate leading to Dan finally being
caught at long on for a cracking 55.
After a small pause, Kev wandered to the
wicket to explain that he had been sleeping on the boundary and didn’t fancy
running much. Some quick boundaries from
him saw the score pass 150 before he was clean bowled head in clouds. Duncs passed 50 before chancing the arm of
Kamal and getting run out for 64. Rob
(10), Pip (2*) and Ed (0* including three huge swipes) completed the innings
with the Whalers at 176-7 which was felt to be around 30 runs below par but a
huge improvement given the start we had.
Tea and
beer followed before we set out to see if we could rattle through the oppo and use our extra yard of pace in the field. However we had all noticed that their wicket
keeper was not quite in keeping with the rest of the team, being 18 and lively
behind the stumps. He then proceeded to
show us that he could bat a bit by launching Khalil for a straight six in his
first over. Chances were few and far
between as the first pair saw off the opening attack of Khalil and Ed before
Matt continued his tour form with two wickets.
However, that was about as good as it got with The Roosters moving along
serenely at around a run a ball and even the late wicket of the young opener Bogaartz for 78 by Gilo couldn’t
stop them reaching the target for the loss of three wickets with 5 overs to
spare.
Again a
great game against a very friendly opposition ended with their choice of man or
the match (tour host Duncs – not a biased choice at all!) and free beer all
round. After winning the Whalers hearts
through this gesture, we departed back on the magic bus into
All in all
a very pleasant tour with a 50% win record and a chance to see a bit of
Duncs