It's Just Not Writing

No it isn't, it's cricket.

Not a lot happening on my writing front, or back, at the moment so I'll dribble about my normal life. For those of you who have been playing along at home, the team I'm playing for this year, ATCO B Grade (that would be in PDCA Grade 4 - confused yet?) is doing pretty good.

The season is played in two halves, on either side of Christmas. We play 14 games. We won five out of the first seven with only one of those losses being a complete aberration, the other was unfortunate and by less than 10 runs. We began the second half of the season in a comfortable third spot, but a fair bit behind the two front runners (due to our aberration).

We have currently worked our way through five and a half games of the remaining seven. One round was cancelled due to heat (points shared for everyone), we lost another game which we really shouldn't have, and then proceeded to win the next three, including beating the two teams sitting above us (in back-to-back games no less).

The game we are currently playing is half over. We play two day games (Saturday - Saturday) in which you are entitled to two innings per side if you can fit them in. Sixty five overs must be bowled in a day so if you can get the opposition out quickly enough, you have an opportunity to earn extra points. We have already gotten our opposition out and have passed their score. We're now looking for all those extra points to make up for lost ground due to the aberrations and mis-steps earlier in the season.

Since finishing on Saturday, I've discovered that second place has decided now was a good time for an aberration of their own and look to be going down to a side ranked well below them on the table. If they lose, we already have enough points from this game to slip into second spot. The race to finish top may not be over yet.

The pleasing thing, well, one of the pleasing things, is that I've not had my first choice team on the park for most of the season. We always seem to be two or three (or more) first choice players short. This has given me the wonderful (and yet horrible) task of picking a finals side from a large pool of players. Some people will be disappointed on missing out, and one or two may take umbrage with my final selections. Not a lot I can do about that, but some of those who have been asked to go away and prove themselves during the season have done (or are doing) what's asked of them. Others are (possibly) taking their selection for granted - they may be in for a very rude shock if performances don't pick up.

Whichever way it goes, people will be disappointed and I'll be sorry to be the one to cause that. I've rethought my finals team three times in the last week. I've given up trying to second guess how it'll end up. It's a much harder job than trying to select stories for an anthology.

We have three weeks of the regular season left to play. We finish of the current game this coming Saturday and then play the last minor round game the two Saturdays after that (against the team who handed us our aberration). March 20th is the beginning of Semi-Final weekend. For finals, we play Saturday/Sunday. A whole game over one weekend! Not good for those of us on the wrong side of 40. If we win, we do it again the following weekend in the Grand Final, once more on Saturday and Sunday. After that, I'm ready to curl into a foetal position and forget about the world for a week.

So wish us luck, cross any and all anatomy bits capable of such an action, and prepare yourself for more confusing posts on a sport many of you overseas readers have no idea about and even less interest in - but stay true--April is not far away and I hear the muse has already begun the homeward journey...