Cricket na Biscuit

One of my favourite cricket sayings of all time was something I heard uttered by Cliff "Bendel" Edebiri. He said, "Bros, dis cricket na biscuit o, e fit break at anytime". Over and over again I am reminded of the veracity of this statement, and today was one of those days.

After 8 overs of our innings against the Ibadan Metropolitan Cricket Club, we had scored over 80 runs, Tunde Adeoye was on the verge of bringing up his half-century, and Obo was wondering whether we should bat our full 45 overs, or just declare once we were tired of batting. Then Tunde made the mistake of smashing the ball into the long grass, from which it was never recovered. A combination of ball change and bowler change turned the innings completely on its head. Both openers departed in the space of three balls, and Roland and Obo found runs harder to find than Nigerian Satellites in space. A futher 30-odd runs were chiselled out in the next 15 or so overs, before Roland played his first shot in anger and departed to a sharp catch, and no one else was able to get in. 168 all out meant that we had used 28 more overs and all our wickets to double the score we had after 8 overs, truly an innings of two halves.

Michael started well with the ball, picking up a wicket in his first over, and although the next wicket was a little while coming, the batsmen never really settled. Femi Oduyebo was his miserly self, and Femi "Lala" Olayiwole picked up 2 wickets (and lost his car) on his return to the cricket field. Obo came on to befuddle the late order, and Friday Udoh ended proceedings with two wickets in two balls to close the IMCC innnings at 77. On paper, an easy win, but one from which we need to take some valuable lessons.

Show Logo!

Fegocowosa Cricket Club opened the 2008/9 league season with a comprehensive 8-wicket victory over Indo-Pakistan CC on Sunday 16 November 2008 at the TBS Cricket Oval.

Although the opening bowling was inconsistent from the Law Court end, Femi Oduyebo kept things tight from the Pavilion end, and the introduction of Old soldier "Fire" Edebor and young gun Biodun Abioye saw things turn in favour of the Delta boys at they picked up 5 wickets between them. In the end Indo-Pakistan squeezed to 120 before Oduyebo returned to bring their innings to a close.

A couple of early wickets gave Indo-Pakistan a sniff of victory, but the old firm of Roland Ilube and Uthe Ogbimi came together to "show logo" for Fegocowosa with an unbroken century partnership, with Uthe bringing up his half-century in the process.

Na so we see am o, next week na another challenge...

League start postponed

The start of the CCC league has been postponed by one week due to "circumstances beyond our control". What these circumstances are, and who actually controls them, are not clear at this stage. We hope that these pesky circumstances will be back under control in time for us to open our league season with a tough game against Indo-Pakistan CC, who are coming down from Division 1, and will certainly be keen to return like the proverbial yo-yo at the first attempt.

Our spirits have been buoyed however, by the first appearance at training of Obo "rasta" Omoigui. Age may have slowed his bowling a little, but experience is often much more dangerous than athleticism, and he still hits a cricket ball as hard as anyone in the country...I have the bruises to prove it