Accrington Cricket Club

Zed's Diary
Follow our 3rd Team skipper on his journey onwards and upwards. From humble beginnings with the A Team, Zed has now assumed charge of the 3rds. With the 2nd team captaincy next in his sights Zed continues his journey to the top.

They came across border control and through UK customs into Accrington and immediately were lost in an organised and tranquil urban suburbia that they were most alien to. The Nelson cricket team were not used to seeing Tarmac roads, pavements, working street lights, houses with their windows and front doors intact and most shocking of all, the total absence of armed police officers on foot patrol keeping order!

I lost the toss and the Nelson captain in all his splendid ‘boldness’ (had one hair on his head….no offence Granville!) Asked us to bat first. Within no time our fragile batting order was busying itself doing what it does best, collapsing! We were reduced to 50-4 within 10 overs and then in came Johny and in partnership with myself put on 70. Little Johny had two shots in his batting repertoire. His first is a straight forward defense and his second is the 'foot movement less' cover drive (whereby he does an impression of the statue of liberty and the only thing that moves is his bat).

When he managed to connect he pulled off the latter shot with great elegance, the only problem being he tried to cover drive every second ball including bouncers and leg side wides! He went for a fine and gritty innings of 31 and I managed to put on a 28 ball 44 before I was caught and bowled. From 120-4 our batting order decided to play dominoes again! We were looking down the barrel at 147-9 before Paul Burrows played a few lusty shots (18*) and got us to 168 all out.

The last man in Aqib 'Rambo' Javid decided to sneak out the dressing room when he went out to bat because he new I would lecture him about the bat he was using. The guy doesn't use just a bat he uses an artillery piece! His bat is about the same weight as him. When I saw him go out to bat with this I predicted he would be bowled, taking into account the fact that by the time he has lifted his bat up with both hands and his right leg! His stumps would be doing cartwheels while he is still bringing his bat down from his bat lift, and what an easy prediction this was. I was not pleased as Paul was looking good at the other end and needed someone to hang around with him especially since we were bowled out with 9 overs left.

Two things need to happen here, either he changes his bat or he needs to goon a steroid injection course and spend about two years locked in the gym. if its the steroids he decides on then I shall recommend him to second 11 team legend and notorious steroid abuser Wazza '12 injections' Hussain.

Our bowling reply was predictable on a flat track as Nelson raced to 50 inside 8 overs and had the hundred up for the loss of one wicket inside 16 overs. In the end it was a relatively easy win for them. They got to 170-4 with 12 overs to spare. Matty Schofield for the second match in a row was the only outstanding bowler with figures of 8-2-20-2. The rest of us found it hard going on a track were we should have got 220 when we were batting and this now makes it 3 matches in a row where our batting has let us down.