Pirates of the St Lawrence versus Rolls Royce Aviators
Sunday 29 September 2013
By Neville Cardus (channelling through Prashant Bhawalkar)

Pirates of the St Lawrence entered their match against Rolls Royce Aviators in a spirit of unbridled optimism. After all, they had convincingly won the previous two encounters between the two sides. So what if they had established a pattern of embarrassing collapses and defeats over the course of the 2013 season? So what, also, if the Aviators’ selection committee had opted for the smart option and discarded their usual squad of natural bunnies to include a number of premier league players?

By contrast, the Pirates decided to use this match to experiment with their vast reserves of untapped talent. It was almost believed by the home team selectors that this match would be a formality and that even an inexperienced Pirates squad would easily withstand and overcome the best that the visitors had to offer. And it almost did, thanks to the inspired captaincy of new skipper Vadnerkar.

The details of what happened next are too tiresome to recount. Needless to say, the Pirates, batting first, found themselves in the now-familiar situation of 8/51. 28 of these came off Sajid’s forceful blade — a Horatius-like stand against the rampaging legions of Lars Porsena. In the end, however, the mounting pressure to increase the scoring rate ended even his valiant innings. He was caught in the deep, perhaps the only fitting means of dismissal for the invincible and seemingly invulnerable.

The dismissal brought to the crease, Bhawalkar and Grant, two known Bunnies. Only the previous evening, the two had seen a Chris Martin batting video and entered the match inspired by what they had seen. Taking great care to emulate some of the moves they had learnt through this viewing, they held on to score 27 runs, before Bhawalkar was dismissed for a career-best 13 in an attempt to imitate Viv Richards and hit the seemingly benign Ashok out of the ground. The lesson to be learnt from this is that if you wish to advance from the Chris Martin school of batting, the next logical step is Courtney Walsh.

By this time, the score had reached 78, and there was optimism in Pirates ranks that they would reach 100. And reach it, they did, thanks to a 30-run partnership between Grant and Mendhurwar. In addition, they had avoided being bowled out in their 35 overs.

The optimism of a new captain can be infectious and so it proved with the Pirates reducing the visitors to 3/16, thanks to inspired bowling by Bhawalkar and Grant. Grant terrorized Mahon with a series of bouncers before castling him — playing with his food, as it were. His second victim was Avinash, who proved unequal to the searing pace off the wicket as he edged to wicketkeeper Singh to be dismissed for 1. Bhawalkar had the dangerous Hassan caught behind to become only the second Pirate to reach 50 career wickets. When Paul fell to Mendhurwar, shortly afterwards, the match appeared to be headed for a cliffhanger.

However, the ship was shortly steadied by the dangerous Ro and the reliable Vinod, who combined class and power to share a 55-run partnership. Ro was accounted for Vadnerkar, and when Ashok fell to Sajid shortly afterwards for a duck, the possibility of a Pirates victory was once again resurrected. However, Vinod and Julian held out to ensure a first Aviators’ victory with six overs to spare.

Pirates of the St Lawrence versus Rolls Royce Aviators
Sunday 29 September 2013
The Candy Fields, Mont-Saint-Hilaire
Match type: 35 overs per side
Weather conditions: Not recorded
Result: Rolls Royce Aviators won by 4 wickets runs

Pirates of the St Lawrence Innings

Extras 25 (Byes 5, Leg Byes 2, No Balls 0, Wides 17)
Total 108 for 9 in 35 overs

FoW (1-1, 2-4, 3-13, 4-38, 5-48, 6-48, 7-48, 8-51, 9-78, 10-108)

Rolls Royce Aviators Innings

Extras 28 (Byes 4, Leg Byes 1, No Balls 1, Wides 22)
Total 109 for 6 in 29.2 overs

FoW (1-5, 2-12, 3-16, 4-37, 5-92, 6-94)