Question: How many (mostly middle aged) men does it take to host and play an international, indoor cricket tournament where the loudest sounds are not “how’s that?” or “run…wait…yes…no…yes” – but are rather sounds of American, South African, Scottish, English and other assorted dialects of laughter?

Answer: Roughly 27.

So it was on May 5th that Dollar Cricket Club hosted an international touring team from America. Comprised of American’s, South Africans, Scots, and a few others.

The weather was shocking and so plan “B” was put into place with Nichol Wheatley having organised a round robin of three games between three pre-selected, equally able teams, of mixed DCC players and visitors.

Team 1 – aptly named “Gresham’s To Setll Lege” was skipped by Adam Buchanan-Smith

Team 2 – aptly named “The Van Gones” was skippered by Nichol Wheatley

Team 3 – aptly named “El Constructors Del Pared” was skippered by Matty Wheatley

Game one saw a very spirited game between El Constructors and Gresham’s Lege kick off the tournament with a mandatory three behind square and five other attackers making runs difficult to find. However after a limited six overs El Constructors posted a credible 66 with all four visitors (Wayne, Kevin, Paul and Veasey) making a fair claim to a spot on the DCC first XI.

In came Gresham’s Lege with American Bree providing one of the highlights of the evening by meeting a full, straight ball beautifully…then dropping the bat…and running to where he thought 1st base should have been. Fantastic behaviour!

Craig “Craig Smith” Smith put in a good performance before retiring tired and Gresham’s Lege ended on a close 57 off 6.

Game two saw Gresham’s Lege open with a mixture of Americans and Scots. A tight six overs ended with Gresham’s posting 56, with notable performances from Martin Cocker, Craig Lowery and Chiefy. Scoring having only been limited by Digby’s excellent bowling.

Nichol Van Gone’s team step up and open with all four visitors. Clint and Rusty rode their luck but a middle order pairing of GBS and Toby took the Van Gones over the line with a score of 72 for 5 off 6 despite the best effort of Bree on the boundary who made three outstanding stops at pace…if only he’d had a mit it would have been three wickets.

Game three was a very tight game with all players now in their stride and getting accustomed to the rules and conditions.

El Constructors elected to bat first and some quality American bowling again from Digby limited the opening side to the evenings lowest score of 36 off 6. One or two run outs didn’t help the batting side’s cause!

Thinking the game was easy to win, the Van Gones opened slowly, and badly, and were 12 off 3 when some worried looks started to appear on Nichol’s face. Fortunately, Kevin Garneys threw away his wicket and Nichol threw GBS into the middle. Three overs later and with some further support from Burnside, the Van Gones slithered across the line with 45 off 6.

Having spent a good couple of hours laughing at (but mostly with) each other, all players retired to the clubhouse for beer, burgers and laughter in honour of hunger, drouth and friendship.