A cautionary tale if ever there was one...Excessive intake will inevitably take its toll - read on...

10 of us arrived at the ground out in Rockaway, there having been a slight miscommunication during the week. I thought the look of concern on some faces was due to the lack of an 11th player. Little did I know. Apparently Faisal, rather than being tucked up in bed as usual at 9pm, had been out carousing ending up at an infamous curry house of dubious quality at 4am. Not the best preperation for a game of cricket, but nothing that many of us have not done before.

However, by the time Faisal was getting ready to bat, clearly the 4am Saag Paneer was starting to ferment nicely in the Siddiqui system. The usual "you'll be in the runs today" type comments were predictably trotted out much to the amusement of the assembled. Never a truer word.

Faisal had clearly underestimated the amount of effort required to traverse the 22 yards between wickets at pace, for the quick singles were being refused and the grimmace on his face was deepening by the minute. Never in my cricketing career have aI seen a batsman retire in such a desperate situation, but that is what Faisal had to do, managing to squeeze out between clenched teeth "I just can't bat any more - Haseeb; get me to the nearest McDonalds". More of the sparkling wit: "touching the cloth", "Mr Turtle Head" etc etc. Pads were hastily discarded and one can safely assume that teeth were not the only things tightly clenched.

Brave lad that he is, Faisal returned to carry on batting, taking us to a below par 171 all out with a fine knock of 45 from Lakshmanan. Unfortunately the curry house was of the dubious nature, and the early morning vindaloo with garlic naan became a real pain in the ass...repeatedly coming back to bite him in the bum as it were.

Fortunately Mark bowled extremely fast at the start of their innings taking 4 wickets in his first 2 overs, and although they got close, we won by 20 runs. Runs, of course, were now the main afternoon entertainment, Faisal spending about half his time at fine leg, the other half at deep (ankle deep) fine leg, developing an rather intimate relationship with a tree stump. One could see his sunhat bobbing merrily up and down in the bushes, and at an increased frequency as Mark, fielding perrilously nearby, threw stones at the man on the throne. Uday was most concerned by the fact that the entire time that Faisal did spend on the field of play, he was holding his trousers at the waist. It "relieved the pressure" apparently. Faisal did execute a brilliant run out in one of his brief moments inside the boundary, but nobody wanted to shake his hand.

Mark reminded me this morning of the description of Indonesian cuisine in one of the famous literary entries of the CUCC annals "A Night in Jakarta": ".....enough hot food to keep my ringpiece winking like an Italian disco lizard"

Presumably this also applies to 6th St in Manhattan.

I'm sure we all wish Faisal the best in his recovery, and I did get a plaintif Email this morning asking: "Just thought you might (in the match report), at least try to be kind." Naturally, wouldn't want to be unkind to anybody. I'm sure that next time we go out to Far Rockaway, there will be a large tree where once there were bushes, a fitting tribute indeed.

Scorecard to follow

Ed

PS does anybody know the correct entry in the scorebook? Retired Hurt just doesn't sound quite right...