My rather naive and wide-eyed enthusiastic approach to the tour games was rewarded when the organising committee made me Captain for the final game. Not only was this an overwhelming honour on my very first tour with the B’s, it was also a responsibility of knee knocking, jaw chattering proportions that only the horrific possibility of letting down 40+ people who’ve seen five previous defeats can bring. However, the team implicitly knew that when The Beast of defeat is grinning at you…you smile back!!! And smile we did, not because of the japes and hilarity of a batting collapse or bowling attack put to the sword but becasue of a resolute team performance which brought a triumphant end to fantastic tour. God Bless the B’s.

By Adam Berry aka “Younit”

B’s ? in 20 overs

Goathland ? in about 13 overs

Goathland is a pretty little village in North Yorkshire where the popular ITV soap Heartbeat was filmed – it is also a place Mildert B got schooled.

Mildert B chose to bat 1st on a wicket that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the jungle of Borneo. Foolishly we thought we could set a target – we didn’t. To be fair their bowlers (mostly on school holidays) bowled well and an 11 year did well to snaffle Hind for 1. Most of the rest of the batting was made of short cameos (if you can call them that), but credit must go to Adam Berry for staying their and Stips for finaly proving that he can hit a six and is able to “perform” for Mildert B.

We didn’t get many wickets, but Goathland did manage to find the boundary frequently, whereas mildert B had emulated the England 1-day team by only getting 1s and 2s. Their standout batsmen was about 70 (literally) and boy could he hit it – scoring 50ish of about 20 balls. Ina final desperate attempt to save face, Mildert B introduced the Noodles spaceball/dive-bomb/high-chuck/call-it-what-you-want. It didn’t work. A young buck, in those difficult teenage years, by some fluke picked the trajectory perfectly (maybe he was using radar?) and dispatched a flat six through the pavilion window. Bang went his pocket money – anybody in the dressing room would have been killed by flying glass, some of which lodged itself in the pavilion wall. Fortunately all we had to do was pick the glass out of our well travelled cricket bags and Stu thanked the Lord that his camcorder had narrowly avoided destruction. Although Goathland won easily, Mildert B applied themselves well and looked sharp in the field. We were simply outclassed.

A massive thanks to the fans who obviously enjoyed watching from a pub beer garden and especially to Laura for unveiling the Mildert B flag! After the game our hosts were kind enough to invite us to another pub where a good time was had by all. I believe a Mildert B cap now has pride of place in Goathland’s trophy cabinet. Hopefully we can win it back sometime!

B’s 189 in 30 overs
Londesborough 193 in 27.1 overs

A fairly farcical game to open tour with. B’s batting was interesting, lewis out to a sharp c&b, crowe, grant, gray and skym were all bowled for not much. Atko smacked his usual 50 then some more at the end to finish on an unbeaten 87. Woody was dropped four times before his streaky innings of 11 was ended early. Kirk and stipetic contributed 44 and 29 respectively to give the rest of the innings a modicum of respectability.

Powick and Hind replaced Atko and Skym for our fielding, and the less said about it the better. Overthrows, no balls and A LOT of wides coupled with some agricultural batting meant that we were pretty comprehensively beaten. Highlights included 3 wickets for the crowe and some good work behind the stumps from woody.

I think the mega carvery was to blame, hopefully staying away from such gluttony before matches will mean better results!

Right now, we are ranked as the 182^nd BEST TEAM IN THE WORLD (if that isn’t a tagline for the website I don’t know what is) and have 4 men (Hodge, Stu, Atko and Barney) in the league’s dream team. Atko got in there because he only bowls at tail-enders, fact.

With three matches remaining, including a grudge match against the FOS, the league title is still very much up for grabs. I think it’s fair to say we have been guilty of not getting enough runs up on the board in some matches, but our fielding has been pretty tight, especially in a recent match against The Glory, when we managed to defend a total of 154 despite having only 6 players, including Stu, who was drunk. Bowling has been consistent, with some great performances: Beech put in a sterling 4 overs the other week despite being so ill he looked like he might die at any minute.

Full stats can be viewed here

Mildert B: 71 for 3 after 9.0 overs

Mildert B won by 5 wickets

The Bees scored an emphatic victory in their first LMS match ever at Millwall Park. It must be said first and foremost that the opposition was pretty substandard (5 accountants who didn’t play much and 3 kids drafted in from a nearby school by the umpire) but that’s never stopped Mildert B getting beaten before, so something must have gone right.

The pitch was reminiscent of the Viv Richards stadium in Antigua being more sand than grass, and the artificial track had obviously been laid over a trampoline as even the tamest of balls got up a bit. All balls came from one end (due to the track being rubbish)and one spot in particular outside off stump caused a couple of “big” moments for the batsmen. Mildert B looked the very picture of sartorial elegance in the kit provided (red, pics to follow) as the match began.

Tradition dictated that the Bees fielded first and it didn’t take Atko long to have the opening batsmen out as he removed his middle stump. Stu, making his debut behind the stumps, did a sterling job of preventing the usual wides from Peach and Beecham harming the score much, and although a couple of fours were leaked (you know who) all in all the Bees fielded pretty tightly. Ally ‘The Tewkesbury Airstrike’ Gray made his bowling debut in tandem with Revo Lewis and the noodley one took a wicket in his first over. New boy Hodgson continued to be more economical than a bulk buy supermarket, and we even got a slip catch (Beecham doing the work off Kirk’s bowling). There were wickets for all the bowlers in fact, and the Firestarters were all out for a pretty paltry 68 inside the 20 overs.

Graymeister General and Stu were sent in to open the batting, and the FSA must have been slightly optimistic as they had Bromley’s greatest land baron out first ball, followed rapidly by Captain Lewis, stumped off a horrible delivery outside off stump. However, they hadn’t bargained on the awesome hitting power of Stu, who smacked a few fours and one giant six over midwicket in a Gilchrist-esque 24 off 11 balls. Beech and Peach were left to see home Mildert in the fading light, with “Napier” playing some fine strokes whilst Kirk managed to chinese -cut himself to a streaky 13 not out that Boycs would have wept at.

Last Man Stands turned out to be MINT, and as Spewy Lewis pointed out: It is cricket for idiots. Perfect.

We have 2 matches next week: Wednesday at Millwall Park and Thursday at Southwark Park (both 6.30). We need players so get your names down. Cost = £10.

RAK

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