Emaar Eagles and the good ship Darjeeling – scribed by J Dot

Abandon hope all Ye who enter here………………….
Pirates don’t do Valentines aarrrrrrrrr they do Cricket arrrgg.
So the 11 lost souls forever condemned to Captain Davey Jones locker, decided to play the land lubber game of cricket avast.
By virtue of elimination Gul dog selected J.Dot to captn said team of scurvy dogs, hence fore he shall be known as Captain Hook, for his love of the short ball arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. (more on that later).
The opposition was late by process their cur dog of a Captain could not use his sextant and arrived late, some form of land device known as email was used as an excuse, but we made them have a choice of field or be keelhauled. They chose the former and Captain Hook armed his sailers with wooden swords known as bats. Avast ye sea scum, batten down the hatches as we will let loose Bilge Boy Blikkes to plunder and pillage the bowling attack!
Accompanying Bilge Boy was Brad “the Glacier” Wissink know for his exploits with Romanian Gypsies, Glacier is not deferring to his Ice cool temperament but his strike rate in said T20. So haul up the sails and make hast me lads as it gets stormy. Bilge Boy wielded his sword and took the Eagles to task, but was cheated of his wicket by ricochet from the keepers armour and was stumped for a quick 21 off 16, back to swabbing the deck for you Bilge Boy.
Meanwhile the Glacier was ebbing forward and steadily ensuring the scoreboard ticked over, Chris “Cut Throat” Neal joined the Glacier and started well until the natives captured him with the old playing back to a spinner ploy, bowled he was and for his crimes he was banished to the brig to think on his crimes, I ordered the cat o nine tails but a mutiny called for few lashings only. Jamie “Cabin Boy”  then upped the rate with a few lusty blows, and some cricket shots as well. However he let his Captain down by committing Hari Kari the Japanese pirate suicide.  Run out for 29 off 18. The Glacier kept advancing, the ice age cometh……
The ship was listing badly now, and it was inevitable that she would go down to Davy Jones locker with all crew aboard. Able seaman “Able”, chipped in with 10 bowled, by a sea urchin, and the Glacier was the bizarrely stumped after he ran from his crease after the keeper managed to finally keep a ball in his Krakken arms, this surprised the Glacier so much he went looking for mermaids somewhere about mid pitch and the krakken removed the bails, thus ending the ice age.
Still his 45 from 49 kept us afloat whilst others were floundering in the deeps. Arrrrrrrrr Avast ye.
This left 13 balls for Captain Hook to do something, hooking wasn’t it and he has his capstan removed trying to cut (the head off) a straighter delivery. So we rounded the cape of good hope and the Saffa’s joined with Viv “the Gentleman” Botha making a cameo 7 off 3 and Brian “Bosun” Williams not out on 8 with Tim “Tall Timber” Davy not out dead eye’s 0. So the good ship Darjeeling ran around for 156 off 20 and no treasure in sight, avast the wretched albatross of bad fortune!
As all good captains do, I rounded on the crew and blamed them, I also flogged them mercilessly and removed rum privileges. At the same time I looked at the stores and decided to open up with the big guns on deck. Unfortunately Greg “The Deserter” had deserted, we will find you and keelhaul you deserter.
The map to the rest of this story is missing just like our treasure, the scurvy dogs destroyed the evidence and we only have anecdotal tales of whoa and despair.
The Gentleman lived up to his name being very nice to almost blast the opposition out of the water with his big guns firing twin salvo’s arrrrrrrrrrrrr 2/21 from 4 ye scurvy lad, Cut Throat taking 2 behind point. Gul Dog bowled like a busted arse, and needed to have a rest on a desert island, after going for more than required, 0/26 from 3.
Krishna “Hare Rama” used all 6 of his arms to deceive the Eagles, but his navigation was off at times, leading to a 2/26 from 3, though I swear arrrrrrrr with a few more months at sea he will improve. Bosun was bowling well, using some sort of sling to catapult the ball down the wicket, when tragedy struck and he jammed his finger in the mechanism and had to have it amputated, at the elbow. bowling figures lost at sea.
Tall Timber was useful but one of the opposition took a liking to his offerings in his last over, again poor record keeping has left us with no answer to is he any good, he’s tall and offered the capt that he had a 4th in him.
I disagreed and sent him to the briny depths (third man).
Bilge Boy was asked to plunder some more and obliged even without a snickers, death bowling is his forte and he deliver some fatal blows as sharks sensed blood in the waters, and a feeding frenzy started. 2/million off 4
Capt Hook rolled his hook down at the death as well, had his wooden leg break on the second ball, and could then only bowl off 3 steps, Still entertaining and less runs than Cut throat…………arrrrrrrrrrrr
This left us with Cut Throat and 21 req, dishing up a compass wide first ball he tempted the gods with the reducing target, next ball despatched to the boundary  and it was suddenly all on, a 2 from the next ball leaving them with 14 req off 3, thanks Cut Throat…….still a third run out ensured victory for HMS Darjeeling. Arrrrrr
Other highlights, Jamie “Cabin Boy” slipping like bambi on ice due to no spikes,green grass and dew, he actually winded himself once……….Roger the cabin boy would be more useful arrrrrrr.
Viv the Gentleman also almost killing himself on the boundary trying to stop a ball.
The 3 way fake run out, 1 take shot at stumps with no one at the stumps miss by a nautical miles, 2 wait for batsman to try to steal a second run, 3 have the fielder who backed up the 1st throw hit stumps, Pirate win.
The hit it back to the bowler run out, 1 hit slow full toss straight back to bowler, 2 have the non striker batsman run the entire length of pitch, 3 easiest run outs ever.
Cameo appearance, Danny “Shoeless” Rees, fielded for 3 overs when the Bosun went for amputation.
So despite running aground on the rocks HMS Darjeeling was re-floated and plundered all and sundry, with wenches kidnapped for good measure and rum rations restored for all……..

Cookout Kings – words by Jon Houghton

10am – I woke up with a sense of anticipation. Was it because it was Valentine’s Day? Or perhaps I thought England might surprise everyone by beating the Aussies at the MCG? Nope, it was the world renowned Master Chef cook off taking place in the afternoon at the Dubai International Marine Club. I rolled out of bed with a rather strange looking women next me, could it be that on V Day I had finally found the love of my life? I dragged myself downstairs to see the Aussies absolutely smashing England in the cricket much to Kym’s amusement. It was while I watched yet another embarrassing English performance in Australia that I pondered asking the all-important question to my date. ‘Did we meet in Societe or Rock Bottom?’ Alas love can wait another day. Now onto the cooking competition…
12pm – Darjeeling were skippered by Nick Harvey with a supporting cast of Kym Harris, Andrew ‘Chef’ Mathews and Jon Houghton. We decided to meet early in Barasti in order to discuss cooking tactics. How could Kym, Nick and I look busy while our very own Chef prepared the meal? The first order of the day was the make sure we didn’t call Andrew by his nickname, especially in front of our nemesis – The Loose Cannons. If he were to be asked what his profession is he would simply reply with ‘I’m a car salesman and left arm pie chucker’.
BBQ2
2pm – We arrived at the scene of Darjeeling’s biggest challenge yet and after seeing what foods we would have to use Chef quietly tapped Nick on the shoulder…’We’ll win this.’  It was on. Having agreed upon the batting order, our role was simply to give as much of the strike to Chef.
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2.40pm – Chef took the lead cutting and marinating the steak with Nick ferociously chopping away while Kym and I stood by the BBQ discussing how to grill the perfect pepper (And asking Chef every two minutes if they were ready). To liven things up a bit I walked over to the Cannons’ cooking station and began recounting THAT infamous Sting night in Abu Dhabi, this obviously had an impact on Moxey’s concentration as he overcooked his steak. Darjeeling 1 Cannons 0. At this point my team mates called me back as I was tasked with the very important job of adding pepper onto our peppers, an easy task some might think but this was the make or break point of the competition so the pressure was on…As I tried applying the pepper disaster struck and I broke the shaker and covered our peppers with an entire bottle of corn pepper. Never has the caption of ‘You had one job’ applied more appropriately.
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3.20pm – The meals were cooked and ready to be judged. As we eagerly awaited the results, the Judge came back out and announced that our very own Darjeeling Cricket Club had won and qualified for the Final! (Winning a brand new Weber BBQ in the process).  We had finally extracted revenge on the Cannons for all those one sided games we have recently had against them. After taking a couple more parting shots at them we retired to the bar waiting for our 5.30pm final. Round 1 Man of the Match was Chef for a well-paced ton with invaluable contributions from Kym, Nick and I.
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5.30pm – Pissed. The final began with some of Darjeeling’s team members looking a little worse for wear. The ‘secret’ ingredients for the final were a Lamb shank, sweet potato and various fruits. After a five minute board meeting where Nick made numerous suggestions to Chef about what we should make, we unanimously agreed we would listen to what Chef said and follow his orders. As I don’t remember much of the next 40 minutes I’ll cut to the result. We lost to a team of Emirati men & women as we had apparently added too much salt and garlic…If only I was tasked with adding pepper again…Net result – Chef got a first baller and the game was as good as done after that. His hotel will be getting a letter from me complaining about his excessive use of garlic!
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6.15pm – A very enjoyable day with excellent support from Kym’s mum, Chef’s missus and non-other than Olly Higgens (When the F@%k are you back playing cricket?!). A great way to spend a Saturday afternoon with beverages, friends, laughs and pepper. As always thanks to Nick for organising it and Chef for winning us a free BBQ!

DCC v Omnicom – words by Simon "Schoolmaster" Cook

After winning the toss and choosing to bat, DCC made a terrific start with both Nathan and Jono scoring freely in the powerplay. With the loss of Nathan (for a breezy 30) and the field spread for the slower bowlers the scoring slowed slightly in the middle overs. Jono and Dannie picked up ones and twos until an over of 22 broke the shackles.
When Dannie was finally out ( his final score being 32 for 5), it was left to Jono and the middle order (Ben/Raj) to see DCC to a very competitive score of 174 of which Jono’s contribution was a fine 76.
In reply Omnicom were never really in with a shout. Dave and Rich opened the bowling and both picked up early wickets. All the bowlers were backed up well in the field with some excellent ground fielding and an enthusiastic keeper who picked up a couple of stumpings.
With Gully and myself brought on to relieve the openers, the required rate continued to climb with wickets falling at regular intervals. There were a few lusty blows which never threatened the Darjeeling win and Raj mopped up with 4 wickets. He narrowly missed out on a hatrick with a fine display of controlled, accurate bowling.
The game was finished in style with an excellent diving catch from Jamie and we were able to enjoy a slightly earlier beverage due to finishing the bout within the distance.
Another enjoyable victory. A lovely way to spend a beautiful afternoon .

DCC v Hard Hackers – penned by Viv Botha

Greetings all from your jolly tall safa
As I sat very early indeed at the Icc admiring its brilliant facilities my wife mentioned to me that  it was already 13h10 and the game is starting at 13h30 (according to my brilliant email reading) I started feeling a little drop of sweat brewing on my forehead… Had I got it all wrong are we playing at the 7s??? I did a quick 100m dash to the reception which resulted in me almost rupturing my spleen and had a quick chat with the receptionist ( and I did not swear I promise ) and he took 1 look at me and said yes Darjeeling are playing at 2pm, well I was relieved.
Now onto cricket, Captain Mike Tyson (Jono) still rushing with adrenalin from his 12 rounds in the ring with a lad the night before LOST the toss and we were put into field. Greg Moses opened the attack and bowled with some fire and aggression and was unlucky not to take a wicket but finished with 3-0-11. From the other end Viv had a go and bowled with the slightest amount of aggression and was quite polite in complimenting the batsmen on how he has the ability to play such unorthodox cricket strokes… ( well thats how I remembered it at least ) 4-1-28 good catch from Krish at covers. Blikkies then came into the attack with the drip still attached from the hospital and bowled a tight first over then the fever from his ebola took charge in the second and he fetched a straight drive 6 finishing with 2-0-15. Kesby the aussie spin destroyer bowled with some fine turn and restricted the hackers ending with 4-2-26, Sir Ash bowled a fine spell bamboozeling the batsmen ripping through them with brilliant figures of 3.5-3-27. Krish had the luck of the Irish with him and as they say s#%t takes wickets and he proceeded to take 2 quick wickets off full tosses and one which went down leg and got hit straight to Kesby at short fine leg however wickets are wickets. So the Hackers aka hard hitters were restricted by good bowling and brilliant fielding ( as there were only 2 drop catches which I think is a new record for DCC, jolly good show lads ) for a mere 128 all out in the 19th over.
Captain Jono Tyson opened the batting with a rather pale looking Blikkies, the fever got the better of him and he perished without troubling the scorers and just made it off the pitch where he rolled over and proceeded to almost cough up a lung ( get well soon mate ). In came Greg Moses who got a peach of a nut and got bowled for a uncharacteristic 6. Brad came in at 4 and batted around captain Jono who batted wonderfully and they put on a decent partnership until Jono took revenge on Brad for running him out when he was 16 years old hitting it onto the bowlers foot which hit the stumps at the other end running Brad out for a hard fought 15.  Jono however began to re-enact his previous night and started to slap the bowlers to all corners of the ground. Chris at square leg called a no ball as Hitters “spinner” chucked one which resulted in their Captain dropping his lip and walking off the field. We needed a diplomatic person here to save the day and none so other than the Cool headed Tall safa Viv to offer his skills at square leg and so the game continued. Jamie batting with some fine timing of the ball ticked the score board over until Jono decided to get bowled with a fine knock of 81 thus bringing Kirky to the crease who eased the last 3 runs needed off 2 balls. Jamie finishing on 11 not out.  DCC winning by 7 wickets. Some shook hands afterwards most went sulking off but we had a good laugh in the change rooms with some beverages and ended up at the  Els club for a few pints!
Ps… beware of the hand dryer in the ICC changeroom its the spawn of Satan….
Cheers
Viv ( the polite bowler )