Merstham 104-5 (12 overs) lost to Salfords 105-5 (10.4 overs)

The word 'gutsy' has never been more relevant, than when talking about our first indoor performance of 2009. It is also the perfect adjective to describe my team mates….To say we looked even remotely thin, would be both an in-truth and unfair to all those people currently trying to unsuccessfully detoxify.

I realise about this time every year, that I have a lot of empathy for the Captains at Salfords. Getting 6 blokes to play is hard enough, let alone 11. Fortunately, I had recruited 4 die-hards of the indoor format and 2 very disgruntled and slightly unwilling volunteers in Stevo and Britney.

The excuses had started early as is customary with the thought of playing any form of cricket in January. I won't hide the fact I get a real sense of achievement dragging Britney away from the quarter-finals of Masterchef. PB then pointed out that if he had been on Masterchef he'd have made 3 desserts. I'm not sure that's technically allowed, but is a novel idea. On his notion I'd like to start a petition for Sue Harvey to enter Masterchef in 2010. This way, we'd have a genuine excuse not to play cricket.

Dave had completed his pre-match warm up with 3 minutes of 'stationary jogging' on the Wii fit, although I'm not sure Brett had done any form of warm up. He'd either come straight from Liquid Envy, had a fight with some local thugs (these last two are essentially one and the same) or he'd actually been asleep all day and only just got up. Either way, we were ready to play….kind of.

I won the toss (1-0 up in the Tosser of the Year stakes) and after consulting my most senior player in Dave, we opted to bowl. It was a good call. Dave opened up and enticed their opener to hit a catch down my throat at mid-on. In truth, I was a little unprepared and possibly closed my eyes, but it's a catch in the scorebook and that's all that maters. More wickets followed as calm(ish) and tidy Salfords fielding was backed up a solid opening spell from Dave and Brett.

Good fielding from Britney enabled me to run out not one, but two of their batsmen at the bowlers end as Merstham struggled to come to terms with calling and running. These are two basics of the indoor game, but we're never ones to judge at Salfords. Besides, they were making us look really good!

Another run out followed as more confusion allowed Brett to field off his own bowling and launch the ball at the stumps. No one had a chance to utter a word as we were all taking cover from his throw, but the big fella hit with superb accuracy to run out their number 5. I always fear for PB when we play indoors, it's a ridiculous set-up as the keeper has very little room to react and Brett doesn't hold much back. Yet Peeeeebalicious as he is now commonly and lovingly referred to did not falter once in doing his usual sterling job. A born glove man.

I held back an over from Dave and Brett and decided to rewind 10-12 years. That's right kids, not since the time when Gazza has relatively sane, David Seaman's pony tail was cool, Michael Atherton's famous ball tampering incident or since I discovered girls weren't all that gross, have Steve Harrington and I bowled in tandem and boy did the crowd go wild…..by wild I meant laughed at how sweaty we were bowling 3 overs each. In fairness, we bowled ok, a few wides, the odd beamer and cramp in both my calves after bowling 3 deliveries aside, we kept the scoring rate down ok.

That left Brett and then Dave to finish off the innings. More calm fielding from Britney allowed me to execute another run out and despite a couple of dropped catches we were happy to restrict them to 104.

With cramp still affecting my athleticism (cough), I asked Britney and Brett to open. Both men got us off to a really good start, combined with some abject fielding, overthrows and numerous other random things that Merstham decided to do. When Britney was run out, we had 45 off 4 and we're looking good. I went in at 3 and Brett, looking rather tired now, went for a big heave and got bowled off his pads. That brought Stevo in. I tried my best to get the scoring ticking, but batting felt distinctly alien. Thanks to extras we were still up with the rate and when I eventually hit one and got caught we still had the game in our hands.

Stevo and Dave played some nice shots and got us closer, until Stevo went for a big shot to a ball in the slot and missed it, getting bowled. PB went in and his innings was short lived, given out for edging behind. He wasn't happy about it, which you could tell by the shake of the head, the raised eyebrows, cursing and by the way Dave's face looked, as he now realised he had to be the match winner.

Victory wasn't far away though, as he won unceremoniously from a wide ball. If I didn't know my team better I'd have thought we'd lost initially, but I then realised that's how Dave looks all the time.

As we assembled in the lobby of the sports centre afterwards, glowing at our workman like victory. I assessed the men I had just taken out to battle and I realised just how remarkable our achievement had been to win. Yet at the same time I wouldn't have swapped any of those men that fateful night. Born winners, all of them.

It was a satisfying conclusion to a Wednesday night in mid-January as the rain beat down, Nora from Rochdale made it through to the semis in Masterchef and Salfords won their opening encounter. Our off season training had obviously gone better than I had imagined and in essence we're top of the league!

Musky's Star ratings:

Musky (Cpt) 7 – A catch, 3 run outs, 3 overs, 3 runs and sore calves. Not complaining.

Britney 7 – Set the innings up great with a tidy knock. My best fielder.

Brett 7* – Bowled well, got a run out and scored the runs we needed early on. Big fella proved what an asset he is.

Stevo 7 – Tidy bowling display, valuable runs, good all round contribution from a man with the most professional tracksuit attire I've seen for ages.

Dave 7 – Reliable bowling and helped get us over the line with late runs. Let me know if you want to do that quiz next week.

PB 7 – His gloves were well fed. Unlucky with the bat. Contributed to a real team performance.