The Seagull Trophy
Ladies and gentlemen I am pleased to announce an exciting new competition designed to reward high cricketing intelligence with a unique and most prestigious prize.
At stake is the Seagull Trophy, a magnificent, hand-crafted ornament forged by bearded specialists in the workshops of Cornwall. This item, which I acquired from a high-class boutique during the winter, will be awarded to the person who most closely predicts what happens when the first delivery of the Bears' 2008 season is delivered in the championship match with Worcestershire at Edgbaston on April 16. I'll set the ball rolling with: "Leg-side delivery glanced to fine leg for a single."
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, show your cricketing nous. And, by the way, the decision of the judge (me, that is) is final. I'm not having a repeat of the Old Trafford fiasco last September when the lunch-score prediction contest was seized by an unruly faction of members who wantonly rewrote the rules for their own benefit.
Get your thinking caps on. The Seagull Trophy - and let me tell you it makes the crown jewels look like a bunch of pebbles - awaits the winner.
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Brian Halford
Brian Halford’s look at Edgbaston.
Outside off stump. Batsman comfortably leaves it alone.
Alan says it will be on April 17th as it will rain all day on the 16th. Bet Kim has a good one.
A wide. (off-side)
Edged into the wicketkeeper's gloves.
Comfortable single to wide mid-on.
An inswinging yorker, no wicket no sore.
It'll be a single to square peg. Is that a position? Silly game.
The bowler will get halfway through his run up then the batsman will pull away, distracted by a man in a green suit moving behind the bowler's arm.
Bouncer/Short-pirched delivery. Comfortably avoided by batsman.
The chant 'bring back Greatbatch' to reverberate around Edgbaston.
Westwood defends a half-volley.
The ball will be smashed for a mighty six straight over mid off.
In a surprise development the judge, whose decision is final, will say that this was virtually a "leg-side delivery glanced to fine leg for a single" and add the Sea Gull trophy to a cabinet already groaning under the weight of equally ill gotten awards.
Ian Westwood plays his favourite (& best shot), he shapes to leave a ball passing outside off stump but is decieved by late inswing and is distraught as his off and middle stumps are sent wheeling across the outfield.
Zondeki will deliver a ball harmlessly two feet outside off stump and Frost and Trott will applaud like it was the greatest ball in the history of cricket.
No Ball ;-)
Ladies and gentleman - four things.
1. Any attempt to tamper with proceedings, and I am thinking in particular of people in green suits here, will mean instant disqualification.
2. In the event of joint-winners (i.e: a no-ball which passes harmlessly outside off-stump to cries of "bring back Greatbatch") a tie-breaker will apply to the ninth ball after tea on the third day.
3. The esteemed judges bitterly resent any assertion that their interpretation of events will be less than honest. There will be no shady dealings, no moving of goalposts and, above all, no sudden trumping up of strange new rules out of the blue.
4. This competition is not open to anyone who has ever stroked a kangaroo.
A leg-bye.
Short ball outside off slashed away to third man for four.
Sadly I must withdraw my entry.
Mind you, not sure the kangaroo-stroking escapade was worth that sort of sacrifice.
Single to square leg, short leg runs back to field.
Middle stump knocked out of the ground by an underarm ball.
I won't see it.