GeekCricket - a very serious affair

For a few weeks now I’ve been following the GeekCricket Wiki, an initiative started by Rob Stokes and fellow Geeks, hoping that I’d get picked to play in Sunday’s game at the Wynberg Cricket Club.

At the time I was the 6th reserve but thanks to Easter holiday’s the guys started dropping like flies and I finally made it on the list. In all honesty I haven’t felt this excited about something in a long time and seeing as the last time I played a proper match was back in 1996 I was also extremely worried.

I’m sure many of you are giggling just at the idea of a geek cricket match and while I can’t blame you I have to warn you this was a very serious affair. We had 17 professional cricketers turn up, there were many geek cricket groupies, two photographers and dedicated media coverage and that’s not even taking into account all the young wannabe cricketers learning from the masters.

First ball was bowled at around 11am and the Kaapse Klopse were off to a flying start. I got picked for the Chevrolet Nashua Mercedes Supersport Nike Chargers and we managed to contain the Klopse to a formidable 145 all out. I didn’t think we stood a chance and after only making 5 runs myself I figured it was all over. In the end though the Chargers pulled off an historic win no thanks to our esteemed captain.

As you can imagine though geeks have no concept of stopping so we decided to have a second game – this time a short 10 over a side match. Needless to say we lost a few guys in the process so our nine a side game became a six a side game. At this stage the groupies had left and all that remained was the die hards of Wynberg Cricket Club.

It was our turn to bat and the Chargers put on a seemingly impossible total of 97 in our 10 overs. I had figured the batting aspect of my game out and was top scorer with 23 not out and this time I was convinced that Rob’s Klopse team had little chance of scoring 10 runs an over.

Things were going extremely well until I had to bowl. I think the Klopse needed around 35 runs to win and I got smashed for about 25 in my over. It was, without doubt, the most expensive over of the day and I had effectively lost the match for our team. I apologised after but somehow I doubt that I’ll get a chance to bowl next time in.

And so after two grueling matches the Klopse and Chargers were all square. After more than 10 years of not playing a real cricket game I have to say that 5 hours of action packed entertainment is just a little too much for my eroding body. I have little doubt that I’ll be struggling to walk the next couple days but hell it was all worth it.