“Good triumphs over Evil”

Day 1
Before we embark on this fairy tale story of good triumphing over evil, you must be warned that it is a long and highly amusing journey, so sit back and enjoy the highlights and a few lowlights of what was a truly amazing two days of cricket and two days of celebrations……..

…….Once upon a time on an oval far far away, well not that far away, actually at Grange CC, there were two teams readying themselves for combat in what was to be an epic struggle. The OSCA boys were primed for the big day and this was clearly evidenced by the amount of food, beverages and gear that we bought to the match, the skipper and the Pres resembled Mike and Mal as they off loaded “stuff” from the all terrain Astra. While the Para Hills team decided on a safety in numbers strategy and rolled out the entire football club, cricket club and any other half sober club stalwarts they could find for the traditional pre match pitch inspection.

Before a ball was bowled there were more cunning plans on the table than a Blackadder episode, with the OSCA skipper, aka Baldrick, raising a variety of extremely cunning ways to negate the effects of the rain, which was forecast to arrive on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, this team meeting nearly went into game time and the warm up was even shorter than usual. However, all these strategies mattered little as we lost the toss and the Para Hills captain had no hesitation in electing to bat on a pitch resembling Military Road.

The opening Hillbillies began cautiously before the aggressive Hartog got the momentum going Para Hills by continually charging down the wicket at Harvey “you are bowling pies” and trying to hit the ball to the Grange Jetty Kiosk. The score progressed to 0/55 at drinks. The partnership continued after drinks and with the growing support of bongos, horns, whistles and whatever other noisy instrument could be stolen from Cheap as Chips the Para Hills crowd started to find voice. Box took a liking to the OSCA bowling, especially the offerings of Andy “Go Crows” Fuller and scored freely square of the wicket. He was ably assisted by the OSCA fieldsman who appeared to have taken a lesson from Phil Tufnell as we grassed 3 or 4 chances in a frustrating first session. At tea on the fist day Para Hills were in a commanding position at 0/105 off 42 overs.

At the break Peter “Angry Pills” Harvey, explained quietly and eloquently…..not!... that our performance was not up to scratch and that we needed to lift our efforts. The mood was lightened by Andy “Dirty Sanchez” Cosh who decided to relax the boys with tales of events on a St Kilda tram and nights spent under the stars in the great Australian outback with nothing more than a swag and a female rouseabout.

The breakthrough came with Tom “I speak three languages” Bourne dismissing Hartog for 48, 5 overs after tea with the score on 114. OSCA had finally caught one! Maybe it was some inspiration from John “Stratco Neighbourhood Fencing” Clifford who, after dropping two chances earlier in the day, chased a ball down to deep point and threw himself face first into the deep point fence in a desperate attempt to save a boundary, or was it? We remain unsure if Bomber was actually trying to stop the ball or whether he was just paying penance for the earlier dropped catches, he was apparently heard yelling “Hail Mary” three times before throwing himself violently at the solid metal fence. The Para Hills spectators were clearly impressed by the effort because as Bomber lay motionless they continued to blow their horns and whistles, obviously in honour of this sacrificial act. Despite Nick “Brendan Jullian“ Kidman quickly donning the whites, a brave but dazed Bomber stopped the blood and walked back to mid on, but it was quickly pointed out he was actually fielding at cover point!

As the wickets started to fall the OSCA team managed to get some momentum and peg back the Hillbillies to a still strong position of 4/202 with 7 overs remaining. However, the OSCA fielding was not a reason for the fight back as Sean MacGregor obviously forgot to wipe his hands after applying liberal amounts of Vaseline to his chaff-affected groin during the tea break and dropped a catch that Al “Crazy” Hickinbotham would take in his sleep.

There were further drops by George “What a Vintage” Kidman who was busy daydreaming about the girls at Rymill Winery and Anthony “Star Jump” Tucker who ran two large figure eights before dropping a skied catch at mid on. Not to be out done by Bomber, James “Spear Tackle” Pascoe took a top edge beautifully on the forehead while keeping up to the express pace of Harvey in his 18th over.

Despite this diabolical fielding display we actually held some chances with Cosh and Fuller taking good catches and we managed some tight bowling as “Cheap Poles” Harvey & “Cab Sauv” Kidman restricted the scoring rate in the final overs as Para Hills lost 5/18 in the last 5 overs, to finish on a competitive 9/228. With the amount of hugging and backslapping going on after the innings the Hillbillies seemed sure they had already won……but as Geggsy reminded us all for the 13th time this season “its 80 overs v 80 overs” and day two had not yet begun.

“Robert” Harvey bowled 21 overs taking 4/61, “Nicole” Kidman 2/35 off 14 and Bourne “Identity” 2/52 off 16. Veteran Parsons “Nose” also sent down 17 overs conceding only 21 runs. The other wicket fell to the extremely part-time mediums of “Abductor” Cosh.

Day 2
The skipper was relieved when Sunday arrived and he had not received a call from the Grange curator and despite the overcast skies, the rain looked to be a long way off. A large and colourful crowd assembled for what promised to be an enthralling day’s cricket. There seemed to be more children than parents but with the Rev-head heaven Clipsal 500 on in town that was to be expected. A highlight for the assembled B grade was the early sighting of former Penorkil of the year winner, Mr “Tickets” Toomey, who incidentally has lost none of his charm, wit and good looks. It was a shame Mr Matz was not there to catch up on old times.

Para Hills bowlers began the day well with Clement claiming Anthony “Long Way Forward, But I Have Short Legs” Tucker LBW for 1 and when MacGregor (6) was “caught” down the leg side off some bowling that was best described as ‘Con the Fruiterer’ Para Hills were well on top with the score at 2/10 and a few heads were in hands.

Coming off a century in the semi-final and his body clock (if that’s what you call it) waking him up at 3.59am yet again, we were confident Angus “Hog a doodle doo” Hogben could again make some runs. He was joined by John “Yes, My Head’s Still Sore” Clifford and the pair proceeded to begin the fight back.

Clifford & Hogben were able to build a crucial partnership surviving until tea with the score on 2/108 after 44 overs. Bomber was assisted by some comical fielding at deep midwicket which saw the Para Hills Professional Pie Eater move Gazelle-like toward the approaching catch, however, he was unable to lay a hand on the ball and as he looked up to blame the sun (which was behind clouds in the opposite direction!) the ball crashed into the fence and fittingly came to rest next to the pool of blood left by Bomber the day before.

Shortly after tea, Clifford unluckily holed out at deep mid on to the 12th man (who could only be in the side for his cordial making skills) for a patient 40. Another 39 run partnership followed until Pascoe (23 off 35 balls) was dismissed after trying to smash a buffet ball for a 16, only to edge it to slip. Another yorker removed Andy Fuller (3) but with 7 overs remaining and Hogben & Cosh (12) still at the crease Old Scotch looked to be in sight of victory at 5/202.

Alas, as happens so often for OSCA, the game changed dramatically and we lost 3 for 1, when Angus “Three Spews” Hogben finally connected with a slog-sweep on his 12th attempt but only managed to top edge it to the keeper. ‘BigGuns’ was dismissed for a brilliant 104 (227 balls, 7x4’s & 1 huge 6), his second century on the trot only confirming his reputation as a big game player. Cosh and Kidman quickly followed trying to win the game in one ball and suddenly Para Hills were back in the driving seat as we still required 23 runs off 27 balls & 2 wickets in hand. Which according to, the obviously nervous, OSCA president was only 3 or 4 an over!

Harvey joined 45y.o. club legend Parso and they took the score to 219 before Harvey was clean bowled with 9 balls remaining and 10 runs still required for glory.

Fittingly Tom “Taxi!” Bourne in his first season with OSCA and our oldest player (sorry Harpo) Stephen “Still Not Sold On Melbourne Stories” Parsons joined forces for the final partnership. The pair scrambled 1 run & a leg bye off the penultimate over to leave the equation at 8 runs to win, 1 over to go & 9 wickets down.

The last over was to be bowled by former Para Hills captain Peter Box, having already taken 4 wickets of 23 overs in succession, while Parsons took strike. The first two deliveries were ‘darts’ with Parsons unable to score and the tension grew. The third ball was tossed up a bit and Parsons managed to get down the wicket & loft the ball deep into the inexplicably open spaces at deep mid off. As the deep mid on chased the ball in an attempt to cut off the boundary, that gunman on the grassy knoll struck again, as the fielder dived for the ball, his calf muscle exploded under the pressure and he fell and fumbled the ball over the line much to the delight of the OSCA crowd. As the fielder lay on the turf grasping his calf, it became apparent that had the fielder not ‘paddled’ the ball over the line Parso and Bourney may well have been able to run the eight runs required, as the Para Hills fielders were not too pleased by the events and just left him there to dig his own hole!.

After Parso’s first ‘boundary’ since the Flinders Uni match in January and a delay of five minutes or so it was back to the main game where we still required four to win off three. Parsons expertly worked a two (to deep mid-off who had now been moved back!) and then a single off the fifth delivery leaving the scores tied with one ball remaining in the season. It was at this stage three of OSCA’s more experienced players chose to raise the issue of the ‘one-short’ ‘Hogball’ had run earlier in the day, needless to say this only added to the drama!

Still on 0 not out, Bourne took strike to the off-spin of Box, luckily for OSCA Tom was brave enough to correct ‘Mr. Parsons’ at the mid pitch conference when Parso mentioned casually “1 off 2 balls shouldn’t be a problem” this quickly was revised to “1 ball, shit just hit it and run!!”.

The next 20 seconds felt like hours!! The ball was a straight one and Bourney squeezed the ball to short cover, the fielder at short cover was no Ricky Pointing and made the exercise of picking up the ball and throwing it to the bowler look like Nadia Comaneci on the Beam in ‘76, as he splayed himself on the ground to stop the ball and then attempted a back handed throw back to bowler. Meanwhile Bourne and Parso had set off for the winning run.

In the confusion and commotion, as the ball was travelling back to the bowlers end, the stumps were knocked out of the ground well before the ball had arrived and Bourne scrambled home. The Umpire was in the perfect position to make the correct call and Old Scotch were premiers by the narrowest of margins.

The players and supporters bolted onto the field, our illustrious scorer jumped on top of our number one ticket holder Kevin Rogers, wives, girlfriends and some players shed a tear, and in the presence of past OSCA premiership players such as Fuller, Heard, White, Leonard, Roberts, Tucker & Co. the reality of what was achieved set in.

So as the crowds dispersed, to the sounds of V8 engines and a yelling cry of “get in the car kid and shut up.….your Dad’s been drinking all day!”, we realised that an amazing GF was over. At various stages during the match both teams looked to be in a winning position. Some said it was karma after the pitch vandalism events of last year but in the end it was simply a case of “good triumphing over evil!”

The celebrations started and continued well into the night. Our sponsors, The Edinburgh, welcomed us with open arms, pouring many beers and strange tasting shots. We relived the dying moments of the game in the beer garden, Coshy played the role of team drunk and was perfect, as he fell into the shrubbery at short cover, while Tucky did star jump for joy and Bourney, well he played Bourney, although by this stage he could not hit an earth ball or even call “yes” for that single.

For all the details on the post match events, it is highly advisable to catch up with the premiership players, buy them a well deserved beer and listen to some highly amusing stories.

Well done boys another brilliant season on and off the field and we look forward to Premier grade in 06/07!!

Hast Luego!