Slawit "Stumped" by Delph at Hill Top

25 May 2010

The Delph bandwagon (“bank”) rolled into town on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Hill Top and at the end of the day it rolled back out with maximum points. It was perhaps fitting that our friends from the dark side, were the first visitors to Hill Top following commencement of our new changing room development. Hopefully inspiration will rub off, with a “Premiership” development of their own, for the Delphinian's current one star “en suite” facility doesn’t provide sufficient room to swing the proverbial cat. Capacity for Holty’s hair products and a mirror for Ibby are both out of the question. Come on Delph, you know it makes sense!!! Welshy won the toss and by his own admission made the mistake of sticking Delph in. The track started as a road, but broke up as the game progressed, much to the dismay of the Slawit players & supporters. Slawit had made a key change to their Saturday line ups , in “resting” Dingle from the second team in order that he could hopefully drink his family and former colleagues under the tea table. It nearly worked! The victorious second team returned later in the day and having said their courteous farewells to our welcome visitors…..found Dingle incapable of speaking and almost asleep at the bar. Hammered!. Oh dear!! Delph started the innings with Cruise & Irfan who looked in determined mood to cash in. Debutant Bjorn Taylor made the breakthrough dismissing Cruise after Delph had raced to 30 without loss. Irfan was now joined by the imposing Khilijee who together rattled along at a blistering rate. No Slawit bowler knew where to bowl especially to Khilijee. His class with the bat shone through. Irfan however was doing his very best to wind up the umpires and home fans by changing his bat every 5 overs or so it seemed. Obviously he is unaware that it’s not the bats fault you hit the ball in the air or play and miss more times than a number 11. Despite this Irfan passed fifty with the help of some generous fielding and bowling. Khilijee passed fifty also and Delph moved onto 179 before Slawit finally made another breakthrough. Irfan went for 82 off the bowling of Ibby caught behind by a smart diving catch from Holty. The run rate however continued to increase faster than Delph’s wage bill as Faisal Butt came in and made a swift 39 with Bjorn taking his second wicket removing Khilijee for 82. Out to the crease came the quiet & unassuming Aaron Lilley. He proceeded by smoking some nice shots through the covers. Then Butt ran one short much to the bemused Lilley who could obviously see this with his back turned at the other end of the wicket. Next ball Lilley squeezed it away for 2 more. Butt made the same mistake again. Lilley decided that this was now Ron Tindall’s fault and proceeded to let him know what he thought. Mr Lilley must be earning mega bucks from his sponsors Mcain’s as he carries his chip around on his shoulder everywhere he goes. Butt was put out of his running misery by Ibby but Lilley could not be removed as he hit 2 large sixes off Ibby to finish on 45 not out and take Delph to a massive 294 for 4. This meant is was time for tea & of course the obligatory twitter update from the Delph scorer (wtf!!!!!) Slawit who needed to score quickly from the off made a decent start with Waj striking the ball cleanly. Holty was the first to go though when Mr Tindall’s finger ended Holty’s afternoon much to his displeasure. Picko joined Waj and between them they began to go about trying to put the Delph bowlers to the sword. Khilijee however is a tricky bowler to get away and with the wicket now containing more mines than an Iraqi highway it was slowly becoming impossible to compete. Picko battled away only to pull a spitting delivery straight to Khlijee at point for 30. Boothy came in and stuck around showing good determination. Lilley was introduced to the attack and Wajid set about putting him around the park much to the delight of the growing crowd, most of whom had been drinking all afternoon following the footy presentation in the clubhouse. As they began to filter outside they saw Waj pass fifty. Boothy & Waj stuck around and at times made the run chase look possible. However Khilijee picked up Boothy for 30 as he wheeled away from the bowling green end. Then Waj went miss hitting a full toss of Lilley to square leg. This was the queue for the end of the run chase for Slawit and the mass ecstasy for Delph who sounded like they had won the league. Only Ibby & Bambi made it into double figures as between Khlijee and Butt, the latter with what appears a suspect action, cleaned up the tail. Slawit ended on 194 all out and can take some pride from the performance but unfortunately no points.