A farce, but at least it was close

Welcome to the world of the Popped Collars for 2013.

For this week, rather than listing numbers and looking up stats, I'm going to do a match report on our first match of the year, played last Friday. It was certainly one worth remembering. Firstly, because it marked the end of our 13 (or 14) match winning streak. Secondly, the blatant cheating of one of the Gold Diggers players, and the incredible level of incompetence from the umpire turned the game into a bit of a joke.

But at least the scoreline made the ending exciting.

And... even if you were at the game, this blog has a cracking surprise twist that you won't see coming. Stick around.


Even before the game there was confusion regarding who was playing and who wasn't. In the end, Rajit (henceforth known as Sanjit Jr), got a mate to come along at the very last minute to give us a full team.

Popped Collars batted first, and Gareth watched from the sidelines in disgust as one of the Gold Diggers bowled a full over of huge front-foot no-balls (he actually had his entire foot over the crease on several occasions) without being called. Brad - who was batting at the time, said he wasn't going to bother pointing it out, since he was bowling wides on most deliveries anyway. He later went back on that statement, saying that in hindsight, he should have bothered.

In the second skin, Gareth and X were robbed of runs, simply through the umpire either:

• not calling the correct score for the shot that was played
• (for example - Gareth hitting the back net, and given one run)
• writing the correct score on the card, but adding a different number to the live scoreboard
• (as evidenced by the fact that the scorecard doesn't add up to what we were shown during the game
• or - most frustratingly - calling out one score, but recording something different
• (such as the wide faced by Xavier - and announced by the umpire - given as a dot ball)

Then there was the run out. Gareth played a lovely straight drive, the bowler stuck his foot out, and the ball hit the stumps. There was an appeal, and the umpire gave it not out.
"It hit my foot" the bowler said, pointing to his boot, "It hit my foot" he repeated. The umpire caved in to the pressure and gave the wicket.

As the batters were walking off, the bowler in this incident held the door for them, all the while beginning this conversation with the departing batters:
"That run out wasn't out."
"What?"
"The run out, it didn't hit my foot."
"Then why the f*** did you say it was?!?"
"That's just how we do it!"

Fine, appeal for a wicket that may not be out - umpires make some wrong decisions, and good luck to you if you can get one. And yes, umpires can be pressured into giving a certain decision. And, also okay - especially at this level of sport - umpires can ask and listen to a player's take on what happened if they are unsure (this happens often enough when balls may or may not have rolled onto the back net).

But... a player appealing and blatantly lying to the umpire... really??

And then revealing it to the opposing team... ... REALLY??!?!?!?!

Anyway, the Popped Collars were fired up.
Plots were devised. There was to be loud appealing and celebrating at the slightest chance of a wicket. The line "That's just how we do it" was to be used as often as possible. We also wondered if we could call up Rian and Evan to come and bowl at them. Fake an injury to someone else - the umpire probably wouldn't know that the fill-ins aren't allowed to bowl.

It seems it's actually quite hard to appeal loudly or launch into celebration when you know something is probably not out. After so many years, the instict is there to act according to the situation. Anyway, we got a few in out favour, including at least one seven-turned-run-out. Possibly two - at least one of their batsman thought he had been shafted twice.

Brad did well to keep a straight face and say "I don't know" when the Gold Diggers argued a seven had gone through his hand, rather than him slapping it away for 1-run as the umpire gave it. (I claim that this is not hypocritical to my comment of 4 paragraphs ago, because the umpire never asked Brad what happened - he just gave it 1 run and moved on.)

The fielding let us down in the first skin, but a few things in our favour early in the second, including some glorious bowling from Sanjit Jr's mate, meant the game was on.

Ironically, Mr-it-hit-my-foot hit a straight drive back into the stumps himself, and the Popped Collars went up as one, for one of the great appeals of our time.
"It's off Rajit's foot!"
"It was! It hit my foot!"... and so on.
By the time we finished appealing, there a few fielders struggling to keep a straight face.

Not out.

Eventually, it came down to the last ball with scores level at 85 runs each. Such a scenario will always to be hard to defend unless the batsman misses the ball all together. It was poked away for a two (four with the double-score) and the Gold Diggers were victorious 89-85.

And after...
Unsurprisingly, there was a comment after the game that umpire, given his quality during the match, may have things wrong on the scorecard. I wasn't going to be surprised to find an error or two, but hopefully it wouldn't change the result.

Well, I did find some errors, and they did change the result - but here's the twist I said you wouldn't see coming...

The result has changed from "Gold Diggers win" to "I don't know who won".

The ladder on the Kaleen Indoor Sports website has not been updated yet. I would not be at all surprised if that is because the competition coordinator can't actually work out the result of this match!

Bear with me, I'll try not to confuse you too much, but it's going to be hard... because even I'm a bit confused.

The scorecard shows us having scored either 85 or 95. It looks like the ump has added it up to be 95 and then half-heartedly changed it later to show 85 (presumably to match the score shown on the board during the game). The other team have a score of 91 (which ALSO doesn't match their 89 shown to us on the board!).

If you read our score as 95... WE WIN!

If you read our score as 85... WE LOSE!

If one wants to check whether our score was 85 or 95, you can add up each batsman's score the get a total. In that case, we have 95 runs, and the other team has 88 (yet ANOTHER different number)... WE WIN!

But the Popped Collars have awesome stats - we record ball-by-ball statistics, so the entire scorecard goes into the stats database. When you put it in ball-by-ball, we actually have 85 again! The umpire seems to have forgotten the minus-10 for last-ball wickets (but has HAS doubled the non-wicket scores on last balls - and didn't forget to put them on the scoreboard). The other team still has 88. Now... WE LOSE!

Now for the real icing on the cake. The umpire has written the TEAM NAMES in the wrong way around. Brad, Sanjit, "Hex", Gareth, Rajit and Ganesh batted first - they are the Gold Diggers. The other six blokes are the Popped Collars, and batted second!!! So now, to anyone who doesn't know the players names, and didn't watch the match this will... SWITCH THE RESULT!!

The final result (i.e. "this was the final score" and "this team won") has not been explicitly written in the appropriate section on the scorecard. Therefore, the final result - as listed in the competition results on the website - is going to depend on:

• whether our total is read as being 85 or 95
• if they are unsure of the 85/95 issue, whether they go back to check by adding up
• if so, what part of the scorecard they use to check the 85/95 issue
• and once all that is done, the outcome they get will be reversed due to the switched team-names

The score issue in summary

• One of the teams will be given a score of either 85 or 95
• The other of the teams will be given either 88, 89 or 91
• Those scores could be assigned to the two team either way around
• We therefore have about a 50/50 chance of being awarded this win on the competition website
• The official Popped Collars stats will show us losing 85-88, because that is what the ball-by-ball numbers (as written on the scorecard) give, and that's how my stats get entered.