Played at Wadham College ground, Oxford

Plenty of pictures (here...) but where are the words? It was a tie - on 260. See pathetic excuses below. However, we have come across a letter from Darren Tempany to home which includes a few lines on the match. The source (Philip Barrass) cannot be revealed. We reproduce the letter here:

Darren Tempany,
Down under with the Poms,
Summer (so they say!) 2010 

Dear Bruce,

STREWTH! I gotta tell you about playing cricket with the Poms! I tell ya, if this lot are any measure of the bunch creeping down our way for the Ashes we’ll we’ll have ‘em stuffed, trussed and spitting over the barby before they’ve got their tiny little boxes damp!

Look, don’t tell the lads, but the lot I’m playing for are called (get this!) the Old Fallopians! Now, I wasn’t quite sure what a Fallopian was, so I gave it the old google tickle. Holy SHIT! Why don’t they just call themselves the Old C*nts (that should get it through your spam filter) and have done with it? Actually they’re not a bad bunch, for Poms, but they certainly are OLD – wrinkled like a dingo’s dong between shags, most of ‘em.

Anyway, I’ve played for them a few times, mostly getting beaten up by other groups of Poms who have the good sense to select a few Asian boys and the occasional Oz or Kiwi (I know! Even the Kiwis look good beside this lot!). They play mostly on bits of plastic and grass you wouldn’t keep your sheep on, so I was well chuggered when I saw this last place. It was in Oxford – yes, that one, where the men have receding chins and dicks to match, and the women all float around in dresses that might as well be made of mosquito netting for all the good they do covering up their little Alice Springs and their twin Ayers Rocks, if you see which way my boomerang’s swinging.

So, we pitch up and find this rip-ding-dung of a pitch, and the outfield like the fur on a sheila’s tousch. We were playing a bunch called the Mermaids. Christ knows why – they all had legs and nothing in their trousers like tails, if you get me! So you want to hear about the game, right? Well, our captain, who goes by the name of SMALLman (ripper! I’m not even going to say it, but we shared a dressing room!), lost the toss and the Mermaids batted. Our guys bowled a mix of average to absolutely laughable – one guy with a beard below his knees had to be carried to the crease each time he bowled! And he was one of the best. But, call a piece of crap a turd, these Mermaids did alright, and their skinny speccy one had the balls to hit my bowling for a boundary or two – box off to you, mate!

Well, we had a smackeroo of a lunch, with none of those pooftahs’ sandwiches for the gumless with all the hard bits to chew cut off. Not exactly a 4-pounder Skippy steak off the barbie, but better than eating your lunch all over again after the 14^th Fosters tinny. So, pretty soon it was our turn to have a bat. We opened with the bonza-named Rafe SMALLman and my mate Dave. He’s a lovely guy (come on! He’s a mate! I don’t play another fella’s didgeridoo!), but he batted like somebody trying to hit a jumpin’ redback  with a dunny brush – didn’t want to get too close to it!  I got in at four, and tried to keep the Poms with me but they didn’t seem to know the bat handle from a wallaby’s wanger.

Still, it was a nice day – the poms seemed to think it was hot but they’ve never had their hairy little trouser pouches turned into crispy prawn balls by the Bondi sun! So, I bashed it about a bit for fun – their guys tried to catch a couple, but it just bounced off them as they flapped around like kookaburras with a dingo’s teeth in their backsides. Well, you won’t believe this, but I started to realise that we could win this if one of our poms worked out which way to face for more than an over. A guy called Bare-arse (no, really! Love those poms, ay?) came out. Can you believe this guy? He didn’t bring any cricket shoes so I leant him a pair, and these Poms have feet in proportion to their Sheila-botherers, so he came flapping out like Coco the friggin’ clown!  I told him what to do, and he managed for a bit (well, until he had to hit the ball), then went for a run with his bat held up like a poncing umbrella and ran himself out.

No probs, he said, Director of Cricket in next. “Director of shagging WHAT?” I quipped. This was going to be bonzer ripping fair dinkum. “Look, mate,” I said to him, “you may be director of cricket, but you’re still a pom so you’ll be as welcome as a blind mullet stuck in my budgie-smugglers if you get out now, so just keep still and let it hit you if you have to.” Holy platypus crap! The guy took guard, then hopped up and down like a kangaroo in a 4x4’s headlights, raced down the pitch at the first ball, missed it by the width of a saltie’s open mouth, and just kept running back to the pavilion. Jees! If I hadn’t been wearing a borrowed pommie-sized box I’d have peed myself dry laughing!

So, who do you think they sent in to help me push the Old C*nts over the line? Only Ben friggin’ Gunn, the bloke they carried to the bowling crease in a chair! Right, I thought, I’m not going to get any singles here unless the fielder has a stroke when the ball gets to him, so I’ll just have to bash the bastard out of the park myself! Damned nearly made it, too, and Benn Gunn did OK, hobbling up and down like Jake the Peg with his wooden leg, crutch and cricket bat. The match ended tied, which seemed to please the poms but felt like shagging a Sheila with tights on to me.

Then we all went to get completely blasted at the bar. I was as dry as a granny possum’s pussy, and couldn’t wait to get a few dozen tinnies inside me and find a nice little pom Sheila to share the taste with.  But they don’t seem to do things like that here, despite what you see on Police, Camera, F*ck-All-Happens. We went to a place down by the billabong and managed two drinks each. TWO! That’s not enough to get your piss over the seat! The place was full of students poncing around on the billabong in boats they tried to push with dirty great sticks – I thought they were fishing for catfish or trying to squash a few cane toads at first. Couldn’t believe they actually expected to get anywhere in those boats, and most of them were too feeble to hold the frigging sticks!

So there you go, Dad. Having a ripping time over here, but can’t wait to get back down under and have a beer with a few real blokes again. Oh, and if anyone asks, don’t tell them the name of the team.

Your mate, 

Darren.

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Those match report excuses in full:

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Some of us are busy, sir. Some of us are considering the right angle for the words, and the right time to edit and publish photographs. Some of us do not have the score books.
All will come.
- Philip Barrass

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Did Darren say he didn’t want to go for the last and suicidal and winning run, because he wanted to protect his average?
- David Sultanti

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Surely John Shaw should take some of the blame for not taking the last run.

However, my lasting image of that ball will be how Darren hit it to the worst fielder on the pitch, who, in his desperation not to let it go over the boudary, fell on the ball, as his teammates watched in horror as it looked like the ball may stick in his belly long enough for the third run to be taken. Alas, the nifty fielders were quick enough to excavate the ball and send it in before John Shaw realised that one more run would win the game!

- Rafe Smallman

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Negotiations are taking place for the advance on the book rights. It is expected that the winning publisher will be made public before the end of the year.

- Philip Barrass

Bailing out: Mark Venables misses the leg ball                                                    Photo: Philip Barrass