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Falken Cricket club versus Oslo Aliens, Star date 12th June 2018.

Aaaahhhhh the great Norwegian Indian summer of 2018. Scorching hot days and nights, not a drop of rain, electric fans and crap prosecco sold out across the country, tanned and fit Norwegian girls showing off some fine pair of skis and ridiculously over priced beer to methodone the happiness out of all and sundry.

As I made my way on the number 74 bus through the center of Oslo towards Ekeberg, I was reminded of the Yorkshire countryside but with fit tanned Norwegian girls walking the streets instead of the drunk, naked tattooed slappers one would normally observe on the roads indigenous to Yorkshire. Beautiful bus ride, I love the journey to the top of Ekeberg for all our games.

I alighted off the bus at the top of Ekeberg admired the view and started my casual walk to the ground, all was well in the world, then my ears smelt the whirl of a lawn mover grazing over a backyard lawn. Ah tis a fine day to cut the grass thought I. As I walked I casually peeked in the direction of the backyard from whence the sound originated from, I was heavenly graced, no blessed with a divine sight of epic proportions. A stunningly Hot tanned, fit, blonde Norwegian girl wearing a skinny black bikini with legs for miles and a fine firm pair of 32C kanelbolle was ensuring the backyard lawn was trimmed as well as her fjord was. I may have bad eyesight but some things I do not miss. A well trimmed verge is one of them.

After 10 minutes had past, I forgot what the hell I was doing on top of Ekeberg and how I got there. The messages on the Aliens whatsapp group brought me back to reality and I begrudgingly continued walking to the ground…while peeking over my shoulder about 20 times.

I arrived to the ground and joined the warm up session which left me wheezing like an asthmatic chain smoker. The warm up made me feel almost as dizzy as I was when I was observing the lawn being trimmed…

Asaad decided to arrive fashionably late, was probably watching the lawn being trimmed like I was. Branson arrived late as well, when he was asked why I he was late his reply was “Im from Manchester, I run on Fergie time”. Oh well, better late than never.

Captain Dennis of the good ship Aliens cricket club wins the toss looks at us and realises the following:

- its damn hot and nobody brought beer

- non of us are awake

- non of us are fit

- non of us are paying attention unless its towards that chick in the bikini moving the lawn

- nobody had lunch, tummies are growling.

- nobody is listening to anything Dennis says

as such he says decides its best to bat and not have us f*ck sh*t up in the field.

Dennis duly sends our openers into bat hoping they came to play cricket and not fart about on a Tuesday evening because there is nothing on the tele.

Dave and Shahabaz stride forth to face the might of Falkens opening bowlers. Dave starts of in true opening fashion picking off 1s and 2s and then after a dropped catch from the fielder Sajaad he started power shifting into top gear effortlessly despatching 4s to all corners of the ground.

Shahabaz starts off slow but unluckily gets caught by the fielder even though the fielder fumbled the ball and got lucky with the catch. Shahabaz departs for 0.

In strides Captain Dennis swinging his bat like a cross country ski pole in his right hand. Dennis takes guard and starts of playing a great supporting role to Dave who is racing though the gears and effortlessly getting the scoreboard to tick over with Aliens 39/1 of 8 overs.

Dennis after a dropped catch by the Falken keeper realises the gods are with him and dutifully sends a giant 6 into the heavens as thanks for the previous luck. Dave and Dennis ran hard chasing singles and 2s and even had the stamina in the tank to run a 4, reminded me of Jonty and Klusener back in the day. Unfortunately the gods(F*ck them) decided they had enough of Dennis and he was out caught for a well earned 32 off 39 balls.

In comes Asaad locked and loaded ready to launch some stratospheric boundaries. Unfortunately after threatening to swash buckle in customary fashion he was caught by the bowler attempting a hybrid helicopter shot for 3. Dave stands alone.

Sunil comes forth determined and ready to maintain our run rate regardless of what fire and brimstone are bowled at him. Like Gandalf on the bridge of khazad-dûm Sunil was not letting anything get him out. “You shall not pass” echoing around the Oslofjord after every stroke played off Sunils bat.

Sunil and Dave expertly ticked over the singles and what a joy was it to watch Sunil maintaining a Federer-esk level of concentration and refusing to be distracted by anything other than maintaining the run rate.

Even the umpires signal to Sunil that he was out LBW did not stop Sunil as he continued to run a quick single after being given out LBW, turned and accelerated for the second run like Wayde van Niekerk cornering out of the final bend and totally ignored the umpire.

After the screaming and shouting from the bench got his attention Sunil finally reluctantly walked the lonely walk back to the sheds for a total of 4. If only that umpire was shy enough to pull his finger back down who knows how many runs Sunil could have conned ran for us. Dave looked at Sunil walking back to the sheds with the same look on his face that the plaid shirt guy had, the guy who was kicked out of the Trump rally last week.

In comes Damon to support Dave and gets out LBW to the same bowler who got Sunil out. Damon thankfully decided to not pull a Sunil, Dave was desperately looking for someone to hold up an end.

Benan strides out ready to support Dave till the end. Benan scores a good few 2s and a 3 and is out unluckily for a total of 8. My time to support Dave has come, over eagerly and due to not concentrating due to recent gardening memories I get myself run out chasing a lunatic run and leave Dave watching another batsmen take the lonely walk back to the sheds.

Peter comes out to partner Dave and by now Dave is is heart broken from having so many partners leave him that he decides to get out for a well-earned 69 off 62 balls. Give that man a Buckfast!

Peter and Arif finish the innings and take us to a grand total of 126.

Our turn to field and Dennis decides to open the bowling with Damon and myself. Damon comes out firing on all cylinders maintaining his impeccable line and length has the openers stuck in the crease and struggling to score against him. Myself was bowling my usual uncontrollable inswing and started gifting Falken a plethora of runs allowing their openers to score and tick the scoreboard over. Woe betide me thought I.

Dennis that bloody Norwegian knew as an immigrant I had no recourse to any Norwegian union representation and bowled me for 3 overs non stop(Almost inducing a heart attack + asthmatic episode) allowing me to bleed 20 runs from my 3 opening overs. Damon fired many broadsides over the Falken bow but unluckily no wickets as he finished with 17 runs from 4 overs. The Falken openers had successfully negotiated the opening exchanges against us.

Dennis sends in Benan and Peter are sent in to stem the tide and like Broad and Anderson on a green top at Trent Bridge immediately both start making progress. Peter scythes through both openers, at 47/2 Falken have eaten a double counter punch from a rampaging Botham-esk Peter. Benan sensing Falken are on the ropes joins the carnage and his probing line has the Falken number 3 caught by Shahabaz, Falken are 52/3 after 8.5 overs.

Aliens have the wind in our sails, heads are lifted, bellies are in, chests are out, blood is in the water!

Standing at square leg I had this confident hue about our prospects of maintaining the momentum and suffocating Falken into not scoring further runs. That hue dulled when we all slowly started running out of puff and we desperately needed Maria Sharpova to give us some of her Meldonium to perk us up. Aliens were battling to stem the tide with Falkens 4 and 5 batsmen keeping their scoreboard ticking over at a good pace. Damon produced an excellent run out to take Falken to 104/4. A last minute riposte was on the cards we all thought! The spirit of Liverpool in Istanbul 2005 was calling to us!

If our warm up was any suggestion that we were a team that knew which end of the bat to hold in some vain attempt to put the opposition off their game, it didn’t work and that cock tease spirit of Liverpool from Istanbul in 2005 left us. We could not stop the wind leaving our sails and our good ship falling adrift in the waters of the sea of losing. And though we lost very admirably Falken got home with a total of 127/4 of 18 overs. To our credit we fought as best we could and always kept trying to stay within a sniff.

We are tied to cricket. And when we go back cricket, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.

John F. Kennedy