World Bar CC v Barmy Army CC

Patchy rain and plenty of important VB breaks didn't distract the mighty Barmy Army Cricket Club as, under the captaincy of Barrie James, they won a match for the first time in their seven year history.

This was a 30 over encounter with wickets counting for nothing. Each team were allowed to send as many men into bat as they wanted and whoever got the most runs in the 30 overs was the winner.

The Barmies won the toss and after a few VBs for luck, they sent World Bar into bat. World Bar made a worthwhile 127-17, the stars being Simon Way, the 'boc ringer scoring 31 and S.Che from **** knows where scoring 25 not out.

Of course, we mustn't forget the creditable appearance of the VB barmaid, Liz, batting for over 10 minutes and scoring 3 not out, better than an amazing nine members of the World Bar team (and they call themselves proper cricketers!).

Bowling stars for the Barmy Army were Boots who took 3-17 off four overs, Thompson, who took 3-12 off 4 overs and the captain fantastic, Barrie James who took 2-22 off three overs despite giving away the only 6 of the game off the first ball he delivered.

After a quick VB and pizza break (we don't have tea in our gaff), the Barmies went into bat. With wickets tumbling like an out of control washing machine, the Barmies needed 28 runs from their last four overs for victory. Step up, Andrew Kennedy. A magnificent 21 not out, including 3 fours, gave the lads victory with two balls to spare.

Kennedy, along with Andy Milne, who was run out for 11, were the only 2 Barmies to get into double figures. The rest of the lads batted like drunken twats that they were, four of them being skittled out for no score.

But a wins a win, and this was very historic in more than one sense as after the match, Barrie James announced his retirement from cricket. An upset Barmy Army Chief Executive, Paul `Leafy' Burnham commented "This is a sad loss for cricket. In his honour, never again will Barrie's number 13 position be used again in a Barmy Army match. We will go straight from 12 to 14 in the future. I'm sorry, I just can't talk about it any more, I'm just going to have to get pissed."

Thanks must go out to the pissheads players from both sides, Sydney Boys School for providing the McKay Sports Ground for us, Carlton United Breweries for providing the VB and the barmaids, and to Dominoes Pizza for delivering 16 pizzas for the players to soak up all the VB.

After the match, everyone retired to the pub and got pissed. All's well that ends well.

Bowling O M R W Boots 4 0 17 3 (1w) Cheeky 4 0 21 0 (2w,2nb) Thompson 4 0 12 3 (2w) Knox 3 0 7 2 James 3 0 22 2 (2w,1nb) Taylor 3 1 7 2 (2w,1nb) Gomersall 2 0 9 0 Wood 2 0 4 1 (2w) Dazza 2 0 7 1 (2w) Gould 1 0 12 0 Steel 1 0 3 0 Ward 1 0 4 0

Barmy Army CC innings C. Thompson b. Lemarquand 3 "Caddick" b. Humphries 2 S. Bird b. Humphries 3 S. Taylor lbw b. Humphries 0 B. Emmo b. Lemarquand 5 J. Gould lbw b. Graham 4 R. Gomersall b. Humphries 0 A. Milne run out 11 S. Taylor b. Graham 5 Rob (Leeds) b. Brendan 8 J. Knox c. Humphries b. Lemarquand 6 Dazza run out 6 B. James b. Lemarquand 1 Nikki b. Surfer 3 Irani b. Crackers 2 J. Steele run out 1 D. Ward b. (unknown 1) 0 T. Graham c. (unknown) b. Crackers 6 S. Lovell b. Surfer 0 A. Kennedy not out 21 G. Thomas not out 2 Extras (b 11, lb 4, w 22, nb 5) 42 Total 131

Bowling O M R W Humphries 5 1 13 4 (1nb) Lemarquand 5 1 7 4 (2w) Graham 4 0 24 2 (5w) Taylor 2 0 16 0 (7w,1nb) Brendan 3 1 8 1 McClaine 2 0 2 0 "Surfer" 4.4 0 18 2 (1w,2nb) "Crackers" 2 0 5 2 (1nb) Unknown 1 1 2 1 Unknown 2 1 11 0 (4w) Unknown 3 1 10 0 (3w)