Howzat

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 24 May 2010 07:59
Sunday 23rd May

Trevor and Lesley went off white water rafting on one of the organised tours whilst Sarah and I chose to take a day off and get a few jobs done, however we were thwarted by a number of events.
Firstly, the man who had taken our life raft away for a service in Kemer appeared at the back of Serafina with the raft on a trolley. We were mightily relieved to see him as I had feared that he might not have factored in that it was a weekend when he had promised to bring us the raft before we left on the 24th. He helped me manhandle it into position in its bracket and we are now fit for a further 3 years.

The next setback of the day was when I discovered that Trevor had stitched me up with a very unwanted assignment. The local live-aboard community here in Alanya are very English and amongst all the activities they get up to, is to play cricket. They had challenged the EMYR to put up an international team to play a 20 over match against them and I had been volunteered to be captain. At the very last minute we managed to secure our 11th player and went around to the pitch. This was a large clear area of concrete where the boats are usually craned out and it had a green astroturf carpet laid out with stumps and bails and a boundary marked with a rope. They also had pads gloves and even a helmet laid out for us and I was more than a little concerned about what we had let ourselves in for when they confessed that we would be using a tennis ball for the game. There were two rows of chairs for the expected crowd as well as tables and umbrellas.

I lost the toss and they chose to bat first and so I had to find who in my team thought they could bowl. I had 6 volunteers so I rotated them through the innings only to find that none of them actually were too hot at bowling with a tennis ball. The home team posted a respectable 120 with several of their batsmen choosing to retire when they had scored too many runs individually. Our opening pairing of an American who had never seen cricket before and a South African lady turned out better than expected and they gave us a good start. The opposition ran through our batting gradually but good knocks from our Aussie and a couple of Brits brought us to tea with 103 runs with 8 overs and two wickets in hand. One batsman we had been relying on had hurt his knee whilst fielding so he went in with a Kiwi runner who has his entire arm in a huge plaster cast. Sadly this pairing was out first ball when he lofted a catch to the nearest fielder.

Tea was just wonderful. A thoroughly English affair with the scene straight from a village cricket match with endless plates of cakes and sandwiches, including egg and cucumber with the crusts removed. The French and Swedish spectators who were bemused by the game were struck dumb by this spectacle. I gave strict instructions to the number 9 and 10 batsmen at the crease that they were to take their time and win the match and do whatever they liked but not to get out as I was batting at 11. Two balls later I was striding to the wicket and along with another South African we plundered the remaining runs to win a famous victory! In the speeches afterwards I thanked them for the game and on behalf of the rally invited them to a return match which would be a floodlit game in Beirut. We then comfortably saw the home team off in the bar afterwards establishing something for all future rallies to try and emulate.

Trevor and Lesley returned from the white water rafting which they both said had been quite amazing and unbelievably good value for money. Sarah meanwhile had gone shopping after the cricket and had taken a bus into Alanya with a very unhelpful driver who dropped her off in the wrong place and she texted us to say she was totally lost and hoped to see us in a day or so.

In the evening there was another formal dinner with the added twist now of flags from all 17 nations represented on the rally being paraded. The usual live band struck up and dancing followed, but we were all a little bushed and retired to bed long before the end.