The Gorokhovskaya incident
Maybe it was the late hour of the scheduled match. Maybe it was the letdown after the Stamps great victory. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Sunday night offered another opportunity for members of the Mighty Glenmore to work on their indoor game, the comraderie, or their ability to hit the ceiling of the indoor field.
The details are a bit fuzzy a day later; the statistics aren't on hand but the gist of it remains. I, for one, blame the continuing tradition of Team Robertson and their shoddy captaining. Bobby G, played the captain's role well and flew the nest of responsible captaining and chose to show some cajones that are more often lobbed onto the roulette tables in Vegas. Sadly, it was a similar outcome for most. Captain Gajendera decided that he would start off the batting battery with the handsomest pair going out first and letting the most qualified (some would say) bringing up the tail to continue the adage 'save the best for last'.
Some may have thought that Team Robertson couldn't have done worse than last match; this was obviously the reason for Capt. Darts to be missing in action, never being one to see others succeed where he has failed. While the opening pair decided on a different strategy than Darshan's Great Plan of smashing the ball as high as possible, the result was nearly the same. Nitin and BJ tried to steer the shoddy sloop in an appropriate direction but were left dazzled by a maiden wicket from Ruwan and solid bowling by Assad. This writer disagrees that a maiden over is unheard of and deserving of high praise only because Team Robertson has come up with a -20 in an over, which according to my maths is at least 3 times better than a maiden.
The steadying of the ship never came. Captain Bobby came and went with what could only be described as a Captain's Innings of a 0 score—quite the accomplishment for the woeful Robertsons. Wasim the Adventurous lived up to his new nickname by offsetting Bobby's good effort by losing three wickets.
Wasim momentarily thought that the ceiling was in play for his three overs despite having the same rules as everyone else. Ajay, a newcomer this time, wasn't ready for the calamity of Mr. Altaf's batting and running, losing wickets and living up to his name as well!
Not even the normally steady handedness of Sherjan and Storey arrived. There was an awful lot of talk about centuries and tons made by these two during the season after the match on Sunday but they obviously mistook three digit runs for the 3 digit, gaining the Woeful Robertsons some sort of dignity being the only positive pairing on the evening. A shambolic batting performance by Team Robertson eclipsed the shipwreck of the previous match. Robbo will surely rue the day that a) he put his name on the team and b) thought that the previous mark of -23 was the worst that it could get. A mightyless -56 is not better than -23 last time I checked. If there was a highlight, it would be that Team Smith didn't achieve a three digit victory, as long as one doesn't count the negative as a digit place.
Team Smith, or Team Without Sportsmanship, or Team We've Never Heard of the Spirit of the game was debating on declaring without even facing—a sure sign of cowardice if there ever was, if not a blatant disregardance of the Spirit. Yes, I may have made up the word disregardance. The only thing that Captain Smith was concerned with was ensuring that his 100% win rate stayed the same, cheating be damned! Since the unoriginality of Team Smith leaves the writer incapable of remembering the batting order, I'll turn to the notes and try to remember the feeling of the order. After the first ball, I
believe the score was 3 to let's not remember. Marcus the Kiwi Newbie opened up and played clean shots along the ground, a strategy that has evaded Team Robertson's upper echelon. Reinhardt joined him in a fine display of unGlenmore-like batting. They ended up being the only unbroken partnership of the day. Surely, the rest of us could pick up some tips from these two! And 34!!! I just looked at the total of these two. That can't be right; it's a good thing that GCC is a very exclusive club and that the bar is high for admittance!
Ruwan and Adit came up next and despite losing three wickets between them came up Aces in Robertson's book, scoring an even 0.
Tony and Asad did a sufficient job by adding to the Team Smith Totals. Tony, in an rare display of concentrating traded his chirping for batting and scored a respectable 5. Asad, not to be outdone, scored 11 to add to his solid bowling.
And when the Captain strode to the wicket with Shahid, his only concern was that the lead of 80 runs not be undone in the 18 bowls left. One would think that nearly impossible but Capt Smith knew better and was showing clearly signs of strain when he lost his wicket twice in the first over giving Team Robertson whatever glimpse of hope one gets being -56! Captain Smith, keen to impress the inlaws lost his wicket a record four times in the match. I'm not sure if that was the type of impressing he was wishing for! And Shahid, partnering Jonathan came through with 13 n.o.
The highlight of the match, however, was none other then the diminutive, garrulous one. Keeping wicket with his brown shoes, Tony who couldn't envelop anything in his gloves pregame came up with an absolutely smashing catch. A wideward ball, touched ever so slightly by the righthanded batsman deflecting the ball to the keeper's left. But Tony, channeling some sort of Nadia Comeneci dived deftly, nearly acrobatically on purpose, grasping the ball in his left glove as if it was a chalice to his glove's stem. Maybe calling it a Gorokhovskaya would have been better! All that was missing was his wine-glass bric-a-brac around the wrist. It was an unfortunate touch by the batsman only because this will give the verbose keeper an unlimited supply of gab to recall at the darts when Tony and Captain Robertson are whiling away the dark winter nights, or when he's sitting on the sidelines or keeping wicket just like Sunday. The one brings up great moments in cricket history while the other drinks to forget his rudderless team.
Special thanks to John and Heather for bringing the in-laws and the other player's families. I'm not sure who was there but there were children and wives. News must be spreading fast and loose, similar to Team Robertson's shot selection! No thanks, however, for Mr. and Mrs. Moran since now the other colonies might know the talents of Canadian indoor cricketers.