MATCH REPORTS 2013   (Click on the match to go directly to report)

Nepotists v Highgate                       Report by Steve Werren             Sun, 28 Apr 2013

Nepotists v Harrow St. Mary's       Report by Steve Werren             Sun, 05 May 2013

Nepotists v Hampton Wick              Report by Steve Werren             Sun, 12 May 2013

Nepotists v Northwood                    Report by Steve Werren              Sun, 19 May 2013

Nepotists v Kew                               Report by Steve Werren              Sun, 26 May 2013

Nepotists v Ealing Three Bridges   Report by Steve Werren              Sun, 02 Jun 2013

Nepotists v Hampstead                    Report by Steve Werren              Sun, 09 Jun 2013

Nepotists v Harrow Weald               Report by Steve Werren              Sun, 16 Jun 2013

Nepotists v British Airways             Report by Colin 'Bomber Dale      Sun, 23 Jun 2013

Nepotists v Acton                             Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 30 Jun 2013

Nepotists v Barnes                           Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 07 Jul 2013

Nepotists v Teddington                    Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 14 Jul 2013

Nepotists v Amersham                     Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 21 Jul 2013

Nepotists v Langleybury                  Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 28 Jul 2013

Nepotists v Wembley                       Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 04 Aug 2013

Nepotists v Hornsey                        Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 11 Aug 2013

ISIS Tournament, Oxford                Report by Roly Monk & Bomber Dale   17/18 Aug 2013

Nepotists v Shepperton                    Report by Steve Werren               Mon, 26 Aug 2013

Nepotists v Hillingdon Manor          Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 01 Sep 2013
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Nepotists v Highgate                        Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 28 Apr 2013

THREE NEPOTISTS 'WORLD RECORDS' FALL IN FIRST GAME OF SEASON

When the Nepo players selected for the game against Highgate arose from their slumber on Sun morning, little did they realise that they were going to be involved in one of the all-time historic Nepo matches later that day. They probably looked out of their kitchen window (or kennel) and noticed how clear it was outside, complete with bright blue sky and 6 foot and tubing waves rolling down the Thames. Next they would have opened the back door to take in this glorious spring day, and promptly had a heart attack when the 9° temperature belted them straight in the face with only their jocks on.

I assume they would have all checked the compulsory Nepotists temperature implants in their arms (or their backsides for the kennel dwellers), to see if this was just a bad dream. Unfortunately it wasn't, but still at least three of the players turned up to the game without jumpers! Luckily the skies clouded over later in the day and the temperature rose to a balmy 11°C.

The Nepo's went through their usual pre match ritual of half an hour of 'Dodge Ball' using cricket balls, carving knives and autographed photo's of Roly Monk, to get warmed up and prime their reflexes for the game. After the two skippers discussed the relative strengths of their playing squad, with both blatantly lying to convince the other skipper to let them bat first so as to supposedly make a game out of it, the coin came down in the Nepotists corner - bat.

The Nepo's had spent the past 3 weeks in gruelling net mode at Lords, with the main batsmen getting extra net time to have them in peak condition for this first match. So after 4 balls of the first over, the Nepo's were down 2 wickets with only 1 run on the board - money well spent! (Note: Nilesh Thacker and Shahna Khan because of their first ball ducks have now been issued invoices for their share of the wasted net hire.)

Ashish Nagre coming in at number 4 to face the 'hat trick', obviously hadn't planned on being in that early, as he still had his pyjamas on and was on the other side of the ground trying to flog off 'fire damaged' Roly Monk photos to the throngs of local walkers who had stopped to watch the hat trick ball. A quick rush back to the pavilion and Ash was out on the pitch. Obviously confused by the situation and not realising it was a hat trick ball promptly hit the first 2 balls he faced for 6's. The Nepo's were now ahead of the required run rate.

Highgate's momentum had suddenly been taken away from them by Ash who continued to go berserk with the bat, showing no respect for some very good bowling and hitting 6's at will, sometimes using Roly's photo as a bat just to really demoralise the oppo. Regular opener Carl Hoar, watching at the other end, thought this looked like a bit of fun, so decided to get in on the act as well.

Anyway, 23 overs later, Carl (121 runs) and Ashish (also 121 runs) had put on a 213 run partnership with an average run rate of 9.3 runs per over, which is quite a feat for that many consecutive overs. This is now a new 3rd wicket 'Nepotists World Record', beating the previous record of 203 runs set by Bruce Jackson (128) and Nigel Farmer (82no) at Frensham way back in 1998. (All your records are slowly being whittled away Jacko, maybe time for a comeback mate?)

When Ashish was first out after facing only 63 balls for his 121 (which included twelve 6's and six 4's), Paul McCubbin was next in. Being from Sydney, and therefore a very compassionate person, Paul was obviously feeling sorry for the Highgate fielders, and in a sign of solidarity with Nilesh and Shahna, decided to throw his wicket away and get a duck as well. When Carl was finally out after facing 94 balls for his 121 (including six 6's and eleven 4's), we were left with a score book that read like this for the first 5 batsmen: 121, 0, 0, 121, 0. So as you can see, it really was a team effort with the bat.

The Nepotists finally ended their innings on 344-8, which produced the second 'Nepotists World Record' of the match. That being the 'highest score' ever by a Nepotist eleven.

There were a couple of controversies during the match. As the 'Nepotists World Record' for any partnership of 236 runs was being approached by Carl and Ash, Lukey Sparrow started to go into a cold sweat. Having been part of that 'World Record' partnership a few years ago at South Hampstead, (Match report from 2010), Sparrow realised that just maybe his name will no longer be on the Nepo honours board and thus won't be able to keep directing his Waving the Flag followers to the Nepo website to convince them he's an unbelievable batsman.

So Sparrow made a business decision to give at least one of these upstarts out LBW. He gathered the Highgate oppo around him at the drinks break, and said "anywhere guys, if it hits either batsmen anywhere between his head and big toe - appeal!!" So Sparrow stood there waiting with all eleven fingers twitching, ready to pronounce either batsmen dead on arrival if anyone from the oppo so much as farted. But alas, Carl and Ash kept middling the ball much to Sparrow's disdain, but fortunately for him Ash sky'd one and was 'out', which sent Sparrow cart wheeling around the ground, and he shall duly be reported at the next Nepo 'Anti Cart Wheeling Around the Ground' committee meeting, if we ever decide to start one.

There was another slight controversy during the big partnership from Carl and Ash, not from the cricketing end, but from the various tennis courts that surround the Highgate ground. The elderly patrons on the courts were in constant fear for their lives with balls flying over the boundary virtually every over and missing them only by inches on occasions, and almost causing coronaries when the ball smashed into their tennis pavilions like a meteor storm. Screams (and abuse) were not uncommon throughout the day. We came to an agreement, and both Highgate and the Nepo's offered their cricket helmets and some other protective attire to the tennis players for the rest of the afternoon; hence making them all look a bit bizarre, but kept them off our back for the rest of the game. (Click here to see a great photo of the tennis players wearing the new style Nepo cricket helmets and body protection.)

Anyway, the Nepo's polished off the Highgate batsmen in quick time for just 93 runs in 21.2 overs, resulting in the third 'Nepotist World Record' of the game, the 'highest ever winning margin' by a Nepotist team of 251 runs.

All the Nepo bowlers got amongst the wickets and picked up at least 2 wickets each, but Shahna Khan in a desperate attempt to redeem himself from his earlier first ball duck, picked up 4 wickets for only 13 runs off 4.2 overs, while bowling blindfolded and being spun around before each over in an attempt to get him back amongst the wickets - which apparently worked. This produced his best figures in over 2 years, so it has been decided that next week Shahna will bowl with a cement mixer strapped to his left leg and we'll have our twelfth man throw rocks at him as he runs in to bowl. Note to Shahna, you still have to pay for the net hire!

In reality, there wasn't much between the two teams strength wise. It was simply Carl and Ash taking the game away from them. The Highgate first six batsmen (which included two Sat first team players), were every bit as good as our first six, and in all fairness they gave it a go and played their shots. But it was always going to be a tall order chasing down a score like that; and they also had four top notch bowlers as well. The big difference, besides Carl and Ash making mince meat of every ball they faced, was that the Nepo's held all but one of their catches (5), and Highgate dropped probably around 7 or 8 catches, along with a couple of easy missed stumpings, although their keeper had a terrific game other than that.

So all in all, combined with a scrumptious Thai food 'tea' and a few beers after the game, a very satisfying start to the season for Nepotists 2013.

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Nepotists v Harrow St. Mary's        Report by Steve Werren          Sun, 05 May 2013

NEPOTISTS BREAK 'TEAM HIGHEST SCORE' WORLD RECORD FOR SECOND WEEK RUNNING

Against Harrow St. Mary's yesterday the Nepotists unbelievably broke the 'Team Highest Score' World Record they had set just the previous week against Highgate. The general consensus after last week's match was that the 8-344 total from that game would take a lot of beating and stand for many years to come. Well obviously not, as the all conquering Nepotists this week knocked up 6-353 off their allotted 40 overs, with all the batsmen getting amongst the runs this time. Likewise the Nepo bowlers comfortably bowled out the Harrow St. Mary's batmen for just 142. So that's two weeks in a row now the Nepo's have won by more than 200 runs. What's going on! Click here to see the winning Nepotists team wearing their new before/after match leisure range courtesy of Bent Banani.

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Nepotists v Hampton Wick              Report by Steve Werren          Sun, 12 May 2013

NEPOTISTS MAKE IT 3 WINS FROM 3 GAMES, BUT THE WEATHER 'SUCKS'

The Nepotists continued their winning ways with a comfortable win against Hampton Wick on a bleak afternoon in West London. Most of the players were considering the virtues of snooker as a summer pastime when they arrived at the ground with the surrounding skyline looking like a scene from the disaster film 'The Day After Tomorrow' after the Earth had been completely destroyed and was now being re-inhabited by the Troglodytes with their dumbest member, Bomber Dale, voted in as imperious leader.

Losing the toss for the first time this season, the Nepo's were put into the field, and with the oppo skipper not realising that with the forecast even worse for later in the day, meant they would bare the brunt of the bad conditions; so the Nepo skipper decided it was a good toss to let them win.

The Nepo's went about there usual business, sending off faxes, erecting aerials, cleaning toilets, collecting dole cheques, installing colostomy tubes up old peoples behinds, and selling themselves on street corners, until it was time for the match to start. With the Hampton Wick team at the ground thinking it was a 1pm start, the Nepo's were ready to go right on 2pm. After all, that was the start time on the Nepo website, so it must be right. With the Nepo's buoyed by big wins the previous two weeks, confidence was at an all time high, and knew that the oppo had to score in excess of 800 runs to at least make a game of it. Unfortunately Hampton Wick fell 648 runs short of that target and were only able to amass 152 runs for the loss of 8 wickets off their 40 overs, (yes it was slow), which was never going to be enough against the strong Nepo batting line up.

Lunch was delayed because of the light drizzle which had started to fall just before the end of the Hampton Wick innings, so the Nepo's spent the extra time 'Twittering' each other and pruning their Monopoly skills, which has resulted in NepotistsCC now being the proud owners of Hampton Wick Cricket Club and nearby Bushy Park, (including all the deer and other vermin). The whole site will be relocated to Mayfair to keep us in the right street on the Monopoly board for the next game, and garner us greater rental returns. Three hotels which were won during the tea break, have already been erected as part of the deal, and all that is needed now is to win 75 earth removal companies to complete the takeover.

When the game finally resumed the match was reduced to 37 overs using Hampton Wick's Duckworth/Hitler system, which caused a little concern and trepidation amongst our Jewish members as they chewed on their pork and bacon sanga's. Although we never thought to ask the oppo skipper what our new target was, we just figured that when they started walking off the pitch offering hand shakes, we had won.

It was difficult conditions to bat in with light drizzle falling and the oppo using distraction tactics by having Cheryl Cole 'pole dance' at square leg in the nude, with her continually singing out of tune before each ball was bowled. This was probably in response to the Nepo's using their own diversionary tactics during the Hampton Wick innings, where we enlisted the use of a local miniature dog to invade the field for 10 minutes when it looked like the oppo batsmen may have been getting on top. This seemed to work for the Nepo's, as straight after the groundkeeper had come onto the field and shot the dog with a makeshift emergency spear made from a ball point pen and a toothpick, attached to a condom for stability, (it really was a small dog), Hampton Wick lost a wicket the very next ball.

Not only did we gain a fortuitous wicket, but Brett Schwim in an attempt to lure the dog off the pitch went into his famous 'Irish Jig' routine to coax the pooch away from the centre, but unwittingly won this year's final of 'Dancing With The Dogs', which Cheryl Cole happened to be judging in the arena next to the Hampton Wick ground at the time, where all her old school friends who she doesn't talk to anymore, were contestants.

So the Nepo's comfortably chased down the oppo score in less than 30 overs with no great urgency compared to the previous two weeks, and with everyone volunteering to bat at number 11 to avoid going out into the dodgy weather, it really was one of those afternoons.

After the match it was quite an astonishing NACA gathering. As is usual each week, the whole team virtually gets nominated, and with the skipper only having a memory retention level of precisely 20.3 secs, (similar to his 'Wise Guy' cousin from Chicago, Freddie 'the Fish' Von Schnapperhead), it's not uncommon for him to mistakenly ask for votes for players who weren't nominated. Which is exactly what happened when he asked for votes for Carl Hoar. This was immediately followed by a cry from Carl protesting that he hadn't been nominated, which was promptly followed by hands flying up off peoples arms to vote for an obvious disrespect for traditional Nepotists logic, resulting in Carl donning the lime green and magenta jacket for the first time this season. (Photo)

So that's three wins from three games now for the mighty Nepotists. The question is how long can it last?

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Nepotists v Northwood                    Report by Steve Werren              Sun, 19 May 2013

NEPOTISTS 4 FROM 4, AND FINALLY THE SUN COMES OUT

The Nepo's completed their fourth big win on the trot on Sunday, this time against Northwood, and are certainly full speed ahead at the moment, but still eagerly awaiting the eventual crash. With the Nepo's fielding basically the same squad as last season, and several from the year before, maybe that's the secret (ie) having a regular team each week over a reasonable period of time. Either way, we're not complaining.

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Nepotists v Kew              Report by Steve Werren          Sun, 26 May 2013

NEPOTISTS CHALK UP 2 VICTORIES IN ONE DAY AT KEW, BUT ONLY ONE WAS CRICKET

Under glorious blue skies in the lush surrounds of Kew Green the Nepotists marched on by winning their 5th game in a row on Sunday. This now puts us into World Record territory once again. That being the 32 year old record for most consecutive wins, which currently stands at 7 games in a row skippered by Steve Jones way back in season 1981. The Nepo's had a crack at this in 2011, and fell one game short. But this year it will be an even harder road to at least equal this record, as the next two matches are against new fixture entrant Ealing Three Bridges who look very handy, and our 7th game will be against the powerful Premier League club of Hampstead, who are normally one of our strongest oppo.

So back to the Kew game. With the England v Barbarians rugby match on at Twickenham just down the road from Kew, all roads leading to the ground were at a standstill, which meant that only 4 Nepo's were in attendance at starting time. It took the Werren van exactly one hour to go the last 2 miles into Kew, but was a pleasant journey none-the-less with Lukey Sparrow regaling stories of his planned Antarctic Expedition to introduce his Bent Banani range of lightweight summer shirts to the massive Polar Bear market down there. This distracted us momentarily from the other action along the main road with people hacking each other up using kitchen knives and meat cleavers, which has become a popular 'craz' over here in the last week or so.

The Nepo's won the toss and decided to bat. With Kew having their two Sat 1st team opening bowlers in attendance, it meant scoring was difficult against these guys, and kept the normally free flowing Nepo batsman pinned down for long periods of time. But in the end the Nepo's put on a respectable score of 6-226 with Carl Hoar once again leading the way with 65, and Mick Stout getting back to his brutal best with 52.

During the 'tea' break as the Nepo's lazed about outside the pavilion with their sanga's and tea taking in the scenic surroundings of the bustling Kew Gardens area, we believe we witnessed another Nepo World Record, which was the most mongrel dogs trying to 'hump' groomed French Poodles without offering a glass of wine first, but verification is required.

After 'tea' the Nepo's hadn't planned on the two Sat 1st team players also being high order 1st team batsmen as well - hate all rounder's - for the oppo anyway. These two guys, along with another big hitter, had the Nepo bowlers in trouble for most of the innings, but the Nepo's subscribed to the theory that if you bowl on the stumps and they miss, you're out baby. This worked well as the Nepo's knocked the stumps down 7 times in the Kew innings, with Mick Stout doing the double and picking up 3 wickets for just 7 runs.

In the end the Nepo's won comfortably and bowled out Kew for 163 runs in 28 overs, but it didn't really reflect the true state of the game, as most of the Nepo players after about the 10th over were pretty sure we were going to lose with the three Kew batsmen tearing us apart in patches. If they'd stayed in for another 5 overs, it would 'curtains for the Nepo's. But 3 wickets in 5 balls changed it all and 10 minutes later the game was over. Gotta love cricket!

But the real fun was after the match with Kew challenging us to a game of what they call 'Stumps'. A type of dinking game where you skull a beer, run about 15m, hold on to a stump and twirl around 10 times. At this point, your head is now in a spin, similar to listening to ex Nepo Mark 'Transport' Minehan explain the 850 different varieties of 'craft' beer available at his Melbourne city pub The Royal Standard, and how each one can be brewed meticulously to an individual brain cell if requested. After the contestants do the spin thing, they then attempt to run back to the starting point, and tag the next person.

So we threw our top three contenders into the ring who we thought would have the best chance of winning. They were debutant Ben Evans (NZ) as history tells us this game suits Kiwi's, then Shahna Khan (Ind) who doesn't drink, and finally opening bowler James Cully (NZ) who is too tall to reach down to the stumps with his head. It resulted in a second decisive victory for the Nepo's against Kew on the same day - so does that make it 6 wins in a row? You can view the 2 minute video of this momentous event here

Also after the game there was a special trophy presentation by the skipper to Nilesh Naidu for winning the Nepo Club Championship last year. Click here for photo's.

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Nepotists v Ealing Three Bridges              Report by Steve Werren          Sun, 02 Jun 2013

MORE 'WORLD RECORDS' TUMBLE AS NEPOTISTS MAKE IT 6 WINS IN A ROW

The Nepo's completed another demolition job on Sun, this time against Ealing Three Bridges on a sun soaked afternoon at Harrow. Batting first the Nepo's chalked up 3-334 off their 40 overs and fell just 19 runs short of the 'Team Highest Score' World Record set earlier in the season. Three Bridges after a positive start to chase down the runs, were eventually bowled out for 125 off 28.3 overs. This makes it 6 wins in a row, and leaves the current team just one victory short of equalling the 'Most Wins In A Row' World Record set in 1981. The Nepo's have now scored more than 300 runs and also won by more than 200 runs in half their games played this season.

Brett Schwim (Zim), the regular opening bowler for the Nepo's was promoted 2 places up the batting order to number 4. Well maybe not promoted, but more due to the fact that there were only 4 batsmen present at the start. Brett didn't fail to take his opportunity, and not only cracked his first 50 for the Nepo's, but also his first 100, and almost his first 150, eventually being out caught for 139 runs off only 59 balls (12 x 6's and 10 x 4's) by a great diving catch off the top of the Eiffel Tower, which was one of the more unusual dismissals for a Nepotists, resulting in an unfortunate first death of the season for an opposition player.

In one of the most brutal batting performances seen in Nepotists colours, since um... last seasons Final at Oxford by um... the same batsmen, Brett displayed his full array of classical stroke play, bash - over the boundary, bang - over the boundary, and then finally his special, wallop - over the boundary. One particular shot taking out the nearby six storey car park at Harrow St George's Shopping Centre. Unfortunately for Brett, the Three Bridges liability insurance only covers replacement of the buckets from the car wash guys, so Brett will have to fork out for the rest of the rebuild, which his Zimbabwean dollars should easily cover.

In an interview later with Nepotists.com, Brett was asked why he preferred not to play the classical cricketing shots like 'cuts' and 'paddles', etc, replying that "they only go for 4's", which says it all. This is now a new Nepotists World Record for 'Fastest Century', taking only 42 balls.

Along the way Brett also equalled Bruce Jackson's 'Most Runs In An Over' World Record of 30 runs taken off a single over which the great Jacko achieved against Ham and Petersham in 2000. Brett matched this record by plundering 5 x 6's off one over against Three Bridges on Sun - the 'dot' ball took out all three stumps at the bowlers end!

Not to be forgotten were two other outstanding innings. Carl Hoar (Eng) batted through the innings for a team steadying score of 81no amongst a squad of Twenty20 specialists, and Shahna Kahn was almost as brutal as Brett slashing the Three Bridges Sat 1st team speed bowler for 51 runs in quick time. The wickets were shared by nine Nepo's bowlers with Ashish Nagre (Ind) and Nilesh Naidu (NZ) each picking up 3 wickets.

With the Three Bridges 'tea' being rated as the best for many years, it certainly is a fixture to be kept on the books. Surprisingly Brett Schwim won the NACA. Well done again lads.

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Nepotists v Hampstead                   Report by Steve Werren          Sun, 09 Jun 2013

DREAM OF AN UNDEFEATED SEASON OVER FOR THE NEPO'S

The Nepotists bubble was finally burst yesterday, going down in a low scoring match to an expected strong Hampstead side. The Nepo's could only muster 175 runs before being bowled out for the first time this season in the 39th over against the relentless pressure provided by the seemingly endless barrage of top notch Hampstead bowlers that just kept coming and coming and coming at each bowling change. Mick Stout (Eng) playing a more restrained role this week top scored with 41 valuable runs before deciding to run himself out off a dropped catch, and was well supported by Hoar (Eng) 26, Thacker (Ind) 22 and McCubbin (Aus) 22, with all these guys holding the innings together while facing some very testing bowling.

The Nepo's, not prepared to go meekly and give up their World Record chase of 7 victories in a row, had an unbelievable start by having the Hampstead top order in all sorts of disarray at 3 wickets down for just 5 runs after 4 overs, and were being torn apart by the Nepo openers Brett Schwim (Zim) and James Culley (NZ). Unfortunately the next two batsmen in for Hampstead were the usual 'professionals' that seem to turn up at these sort of games, who put on a stand of well over 100 runs and basically took the game away from the Nepo's. In a surprisingly tight finish, including a hat-trick attempt by Brett Schwim, and 2 late wickets in an over from Damien Waterman (Aus), the Nepo's fell just 3 wickets short of victory with Hampstead finishing on 7-179 off 31 .4 overs. What the Nepo's would have done for another 20 runs on the board! Guess we'll just have to win the next 7 games. So Hampstead proved why they're the second top cricket club in London, but the part time Nepo's gave them a real run for their money. Middlesex Premier League

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Nepotists v Harrow Weald               Report by Steve Werren          Sun, 16 Jun 2013

AFTER MATCH DRAMA AT CURRY HOUSE OVERSHADOWS 7 WICKET INDIVIDUAL HAUL

Mick Stout's remarkable bowling performance of 7-33 took a back seat yesterday at North Wembley with possibly the worst crises in Nepotists history occurring at the players favourite curry house the 'Karahi King', when wait... can you believe this.... they ran out of rice!! This is the first time we believe in man's known history that an Indian restaurant has ever run out of rice, considering that it normally makes up about half the dishes they serve. An emergency meeting of the Nepo hierarchy was convened to try to resolve the situation which was preventing the usual food fight that generally erupts at these events. After all it's not that easy to fling a poppadom accurately across the table with a spoon.

With only a quick trip required to the Tesco supermarket across the road, surely within 15 minutes the missiles could be back on the menu. But alas, Tesco rice isn't up to the 'Top 10 London Curry House' ranking that Karahi King currently holds from 'Time Out' magazine, so we would have to wait for the next delivery to arrive from Mumbai if we wanted their quality rice. With most of the guys having to work over the next week, it didn't really seem practical to wait around for the rice to arrive, so in an unprecedented move which we believe may be the first for any Nepotists team (I could be wrong though), a second NACA vote was held on the same day with only one person being nominated. Yes you guessed it, the Karahi King head chef!

It was a slam dunk win for Patel 'Floppy Disc' Patel from the Bangalore inner city suburb of 'Birdy Num Num', which saw him proudly wearing the slick lime, green and magenta jacket behind the open wok-arena that allows the patrons to view the cooking. Tears of joy (or humiliation) flowed from Patel's eye's as he was paraded around the room to the 'Father's Day' full house crowd with standing ovations the order of the day. So although the rice crises wasn't averted, awarding an honorary Nepo NACA should ensure lot's of fluffy pilau rice on our next visit, after we serve out our 6 months ban.

Back to the cricket. Well not back to it, cause it hasn't really been mentioned yet. Earlier in the day the Nepo's arrived at Harrow Weald's ground to the dulcet tones of pitter patter rain falling on the skippers now shiny head, which delayed the start of the match by 30 mins. But with the sun now shining all was set up for another classic battle against Harrow Weald. In one on the easiest toss wins for the skipper where the coin wasn't even tossed, somehow we ended up batting. We're still not sure what happened, but when we saw the oppo team walking out onto the field, we just padded up and went with flow. Maybe that's their thing - who knows?

The wicket, looking very dodgy after the morning's light rain and with bright sunshine beating down, meant that runs were going to be hard to come by (like rice). The Nepo's got off to a pretty slow start with the ball popping up off the soft spongy pitch, sometimes even going straight through the middle of the wicket and coming out in front of the clubhouse, much to the disdain of the oppo wicket keeper who had the bye's credited to him. With wickets falling cheaply, opener Nilesh Thacker (Ind) was able to hold it together long enough to put on 58 valuable runs, backed up by a solid 35 runs under difficult conditions from fellow opener Carl Hoar (Eng).

But the Nepo's were going down like flies, and when Steve Werren (Aus) went in for only his second dig of the season after his brilliant 2 not out off 4 balls against Hampstead the previous week, the Nepo's were reeling at 8-136 and in big trouble. But some great running between wickets from 2nd match'er Ben Evans (NZ), who was determined to run on the last ball of every over regardless, to give the skipper the strike, made for some very entertaining face planting from the energetic young Kiwi for the grey squirrels in the crowd who regularly follow the Nepo's, to view. When the skipper was eventually out for 49 runs after thinking he already had his half century and believed the player's deliberately didn't clap the milestone as he so often does to them, the Nepo's finished on a respectable 202 runs all out off 37.3 overs, which was reasonably satisfactory considering the condition of the wicket. Ben Evans finished on an impressive 0 not out.

After 'tea' the Harrow Weald batsmen, like the Nepo's earlier, were struggling to come to grips with the 'popping' wicket and after 10 overs were only 0-20. But with the oppo 'big gun' Shahid Afridi (yes, that's his real name), who took the Nepo bowlers apart last year to win the match, yet to bat, the game was still in the balance. Then on comes Mick Stout (Eng) at first change to throw down his dipping 'in swingers'. In a never before seen bowling strategy, which we believe is a first for a Nepo bowler, Mick actually asked to be taken off after being carted for his first two overs, with the self evaluation of his own bowling being "this is crap".

This had the skipper pleading with the baritone singing guru to stay on as there were only 5 regular bowlers in attendance. After the suggestion that he take the pace off the ball, suddenly it all went right. The next 2 overs yielded 4 wickets, with Mick eventually ending up with figures of 7-33 off his 8 overs, including 2 bowled, 4 caught and 1 stumped - quite exceptional. (This now puts Mick at the top of the bowling averages and well in contention for the Nepo's highest award, the Club Champion, which is very tight with just one good score or a few wickets separating the top 5. Click here to view current standings.) In the end the Nepotists were able to bowl out Harrow Weald for 138 to go 7 wins from 8 games played, and made the samosa's that evening taste a little bit better.

Mick Stout's 7-33 off 8 overs are the best figures in 9 years since Bomber Dale's 7-45 off 12.2 overs against Valley End in 2004, and also now makes the Top 10 bowling figures in Nepotists history by an individual bowler.

Note: The table above is not the Top 10 bowling figures per se, but the best figures from individual bowlers. Some of theses bowlers may also have had several 6 or 7 wicket hauls for example, but until the scorecards are compiled from 1980 to 1999 those figures are unknown at this stage. It does however include complete bowling figures from 2000 to 2013.

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Nepotists v British Airways             Report by Colin 'Bomber Dale      Sun, 23 Jun 2013

RECORDS, RECORDS AND RECORDS!

Another  great day in the history of the NCC, and another long-standing Gay Victorian record tumbles…

Now read on:

Yet another win to the Nepo machine, in a lack-lustre match at the amazing, but bloody windy Concorde Club, somewhere in west London, near some large airport, near the A312.

Anyway, it was a pretty boring game. We batted first. We were boring. They batted second. They were even more boring and never looked likely. They did not even hit yours truly (LPK) out of the park. But then there was THAT one over. But more of that later.

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Let’s turn back the clock 13 years, to happier times. Labour was in power in the UK. The Aussies held every sporting cup there was in the world (except football). And the Bombers won the AFL premiership. Yes, the year 2000. Sydney Olympics, lots of sport. Lots of glory to the good people of the world. And then there was the famous Ham and Petersham game. This was probably the most satisfying win I have been involved in with Nepotists CC.

Typical stinking hot day in s-w London and the Nepos rocked up to the beautiful ground in the middle of Ham Common, typically hung over to the max. We batted and lost loads of wickets for f-all. Three ducks and only a handful of Nepos reaching double figures in what I felt was turning out to be a truly embarrassing match. THAT MAN Dick Sutton (big red nose and all) did his best with 41 painful runs. Cripes, we even needed 18 runs from Darren Moulds, to try to avoid embarrassment. Well, that is what the scorecard says, 18 to big Guts. I can’t believe it.

But we still had that stalwart opener Bruce Jackson at the crease …

It was a time game. So we had batted for ever for just 135. Last over was called before donuts and tea. The infamous H&P player “blood nut” had got 5 for f-all  (think of an even uglier P. Collingwood). It was embarrassing. Awful.

Then, what I rate (still) as the greatest over in Nepo history. Jacko, who had plodded to 59, suddenly let loose (we were 9 wickets down).

6. 4. 6. 6. 4. 4. This over was the work of pure genius. Still the best batting I have seen – under the circumstances – in 20+ years of Nepotism.

Well, that certainly totally F-ED blood nut’s figures. And a buoyed Nepo group went into the best tea in history. Records continued to fall as the big Guts Darren Moulds’ tea eating performance, consuming 12 sandwiches, 6 cakes and 14 donuts. Fair dinkum.

Guts opened the bowling. Came in from his long run and broke down under the weight of a newly expanded mid-rift and bowled lolli pops. You seriously had to be there to believe it.

Anyway a famous victory was won by the NCC. My best win ever, just beating some of our great tussles against Budleigh Salterton. Kiwi duo of Alex Trlin (3 wkts) and Hamish O’Hara (2 wkts), did the early damage. Then yours truly picked up four, including blood nut and blood nut’s brother. Nepo cricket never got any better!

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So back to last Sunday.

Werren has somehow seemed to recruit the last white “when we were Rhodesia” Zimbabwean to leave Africa, to the mighty NCC team.  A bloody huge strapping lad of a bloke, straight off the farm, called Brett Schwim. With the wind blowing 35 knots from the west, only a knuckle-head Zim could go out to bat with a ridiculous straw hat on. No probs for Schwim. He played and missed. Smashed a couple of much needed 4s. But nothing prepared us for the 18^th over.

With Nepos seriously in need of fast runs, a little round young bloke bowled his first ball to Schwim. With your correspondent, standing at square leg (umpiring) the swat shot gave me whiplash and I tried in vain to follow the ball as it went over my head. I immediately declared that shot the longest hit in Nepo history. With the wind, it cleared a pretty long boundary by about 35 metres, but then, having another field to roll onto, it stopped, seriously about 300-350 metres from the middle. I think it ended up in Essex.

This seemed to snap the Zimbo into action. The next ball hit the trees going up about 120 metres from the bat. The next similar. The 4^th ball was a mis-timed swot, that ended up over long on for 6. So we had 6. 6. 6. 6.

Then 2 (choke), followed by 6 = 32. And that my friend, is another Nepo World Record for 'Most Runs off a Single Over'.

It really was an amazing over. Congrats to Brett, who is a very nice, unassuming country lad. He can also hit a ball a fair way. We just need the perfect 36 from him now. It was brilliant.

As stated, under the circumstances, Jacko’s 30 was the best Nepo batting over I have seen. We were only 135-odd. It had been embarrassing. Then the stroke of genius that led us to a wonderful, wonderful victory.

I have been very lucky enough to witness two of the greatest overs in the history of the greatest team the world as ever seen.

- Colin "BOMBER" Dale. LPK. 1999 Nepo of the Year

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Nepotists v Acton                             Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 30 Jun 2013

IS THIS REALLY SUNDAY CRICKET?

The Nepo's went to down in a thrilling last over finish during their first ever game against Acton CC yesterday in a spiteful match that will probably spell the end of the fixture. In the incredible surrounds of 'The Park Club', which included a 25m swimming pool, indoor tennis centre, a top line bar and restaurant, gymnasium etc, the Nepo's notched up a score of 9-247 off their 40 overs on a chopped up pitch, which would normally win most matches thanks in large part to a magnificent 111 runs from Shahna Khan who belted the ball to all parts of the ground, putting the Acton bowlers in total disarray throughout the day.

Unfortunately for the Nepo's the downfall this season is going to be our website. With all the oppo teams checking the Nepo website before each match and reading our results and match reports this season, means that they end up putting out extremely strong teams against us, instead of regular Sunday teams. Acton in this instance had five Saturday 1st team players in their squad, plus two others who have played 1st team cricket at some stage during the current season, which makes it very difficult to get an early break. But the Nepo's still went ball for ball with them, only losing by a whisker in the last over with just a few balls remaining, and putting up an incredible fight back after the top order batsmen were dismissed.

The Nepo's these days are used to playing against one or two Sat 1st team players each week, as that seems to be the norm now against the strong opposition clubs we play, but five plus 1st teamers is pushing the boundaries of the spirit of Sunday cricket, and really puts the pressure on the Nepo's to play a faultless game to be competitive. To date the current team has come up trumps in virtually every challenge put forward to them, but alas not this week.

It was like playing a Cup final with Acton constantly arguing amongst themselves, sledging our batsmen, complaining about umpiring decisions, giving verbal's back to our bowlers when they were dismissed, and generally behaving in an unsporting manner for Sunday cricket. It was a full on 'League' mentality considering this is meant to be a 'friendly'. At one point one of the Nepo batsmen had to step back four times on one ball with the chuntering coming in thick and fast from behind the wicket each time the bowler was running in. In another instance one of the Acton bowlers asked the Nepo skipper, who was umpiring at the time, what score Shahna was on when he was nearing his century, and then deliberately stepped down the wicket to tell Shahna he was on 94, although I had asked the bowler not to tell him - need I say more?

It would have been easy for the Nepo's to respond in kind and do the same back to them, but instead chose to be what we are (ie) Nepotists. We did what we normally do and only sledged ourselves (not them), clapped the oppo batsmen as they came in, and congratulated their batsmen when they got a good score. The NACA pink wig flowed around the field and generally we didn't lower ourselves down to their level.

At the end of the game I believe the Acton players felt a bit silly after watching the Nepo's stay above the fray and have fun, unlike the pressure they had put on themselves. It would have been great to just hold them off for those last few balls and show how a bunch of hack cricketers can take on and beat the might of the so called professional teams.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that opposition clubs should play our way just because we want them to, but each club make it's own choice as to what sort of match they want, and this is not one of them for us. So we will keep booking fixtures against clubs who want to play with a 'like minded' attitude.

The Nepo's play against many 'Middlesex County League' teams, but none of them carry on like this because of the respect we have garnered over the past 30+ years, and they always enjoy playing us with the relaxed atmosphere we bring to all our matches. As is typical of teams like Acton, the Nepo's drank in the bar for three hours after the game by themselves. The facilities on show may have been world class, but this type of cricket is not what Nepotists CC is all about. RIP Acton.

After the game the Nepo's also toasted their lanky Kiwi opening bowler James Culley, who was finishing off his three season stint with the greatest team in the world yesterday before his overseas military posting to Germany then onto Afghanistan in the coming weeks. Stay safe over there mate, and we'll keep your Nepo shirt in the kit for your return in a couple of years. You'll be missed buddy.

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Nepotists v Barnes                           Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 07 Jul 2013

RUNS, RUNS AND MORE RUNS

In a rip roaring afternoon with temperatures touching 30°, the match against Barnes on Sunday went as predicted and was an absolute run fest with more than 600 runs being scored in the game. In a remarkable days cricket on a true pitch and lightning fast outfield, the Nepo's batted first and clocked up their 4th score of over 300 this season ending on 7-325 runs off their 40 overs. Opener Carl Hoar (Eng) hit a magnificent 100 not out and was then promptly given a 'Red Card' by the skipper to retire so others could have a bat. Shahna Khan (Ind) and Brett Schwim (Zim) set the tone for the innings with brutal knocks of 68 and 69 runs respectively off only 2 overs, which completely demoralised the oppo and broke the Nepo World Record for 'Most Runs Scored off 2 Overs' being 137 runs, so well done guys.

The Nepo's then expecting a comfortable win after tea were driven right to the end with Barnes taking up the challenge and going run for run with the Nepo's and only being bowled out in the last over for exactly 300 runs, which was a credit to the Barnes guys for making such a great game of it. Nilesh Naidu (NZ) in a tight bowling spell picked up three valuable wickets towards the end which slowed down the Barnes run rate just when the Nepo's were starting to get a bit concerned.

625 runs in the game was only just short of the Nepo World Record for 'Highest Aggregate Score in a Match' of 636 runs set in one of the all time classic matches skippered by Daisy Atkinson (Aus) in 2008. Those who played in that game will never forget it, with the Nepo's hitting up 7-319 off their 40 overs, only to be almost chased down by Streatham & Marlborough who needed 4 off the last ball to win, finishing on 1-317 off precisely 40 overs - what a game! (Scorecard from 2008)

As the scores from the Wimbledon final were being broadcast around the ground throughout the afternoon, loud roars and nods of approval were coming from the English contingent on both teams, boasting support and claiming as their very own that great Scotsman Andy Murray who famously said in and interview that he would "support whoever England were playing against". (Report)

After the match the Barnes boys also went jug for jug with the Nepo's with the proceedings only finishing when the barman kicked us all out at 10:30pm. So a great day in the sun played against the most amiable opposition we meet all season. If only all our games were like this.

Current World Records, click here

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Nepotists v Teddington                    Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 14 Jul 2013

BRETT SCHWIM'S MATE CRACKS HIS MAIDEN TON

The Nepotists defeated Teddington yesterday for only the second time in their history thanks largely to a chanceless 132 runs from opener Damian Tambling (Zim) playing in only his third match for the Nepo's. So Damian has now been rewarded with being known by his first name, instead of being referred to as 'Brett Schwim's Zimbabwean Mate'. It was an innings of class built upon by steadily seeing off the new bowlers, then as his Zimbo compatriot does, went mental and started throwing the bat at everything, including belting the oppo umpire over the boundary for a marvellous six when he charged a little bit too far down the wicket. The umpire was declared '6 and out cold'. The service will be held this Tuesday by the Deacon of Bushy Park, the Right Rev 'Big Ears' Deer if anyone is interested.

With talk of the Ashes match which finished earlier in the day being taboo at threat of fielding at 'long on' from both ends on a very hot day, the Nepo's chalked up another big score of 6-289 off their 40 overs and felt very comfortable in the jock strap area going into Tea. After Tea with all the Nepo bowlers keeping a tight line the Teddington boys were still in the game needing only 10 runs an over off the last 10 overs, which was very doable on an extremely fast dry outfield which has been the norm the last few weeks with the hot conditions here in the UK. Luckily a couple of fluke vital wickets helped stem the tide when two of Teddington's star batsman became disorientated when trying to run four, losing their direction and eventually crashing into the clubhouse and being dragged off to hospital. It was an unfortunate incident which could reflect badly on the Nepo's if word gets out we were the one's who put up the 'Run This Way' signs to the side of the wicket.

In the end the bowlers were able to slow the run flow and restrict Teddington to 7-204 off their 40 overs, which gives the Nepo's a 10-2 win loss-ratio this season and still going strong.

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Nepotists v Amersham                    Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 21 Jul 2013

NEPO LEGEND RON ELLIOT ROLLS BACK THE YEARS IN AMERSHAM THRILLER

The Nepo's went down in another thriller yesterday against Amersham in match very reminiscent of the Hampstead loss 6 weeks ago. Amersham showed why they are leading the 1st Division of the Thames Valley League with four Sat 1st team players in their team, but the Nepo's didn't mind that as they were a good bunch of blokes who stuck around after the match to top off an enjoyable afternoon.

This is the first game the Nepo's have played outside the M25 for several years, not including Oxford Tour. The Young Guns in the Werren van on the way to the ground were being mesmerised by how different everything looks outside London, with rolling hills, beautiful farm lands, trees, well maintained gardens, drug dealers and strippers on every corner, and a reasonable murder rate of 50% per capita for the area. Apparently relationships don't end very well around here. Yessiree Bob, this is the place to live.

With the Nepo's winning the toss for the 6th week in a row and deciding to serve first from the Bastille end, then realising that there were no tennis courts in sight and they were not in France, and with a cricket ground with stumps already set up, thought that might be a better option. Batting first, it all went horribly wrong and the lime green and magenta could only muster 169 all out off 37.2 overs. Only one's to trouble the scorers were Paul McCubbin (Aus) with 44 runs and Carl Hoar (Eng), 42 runs. Another strange anomaly was that every Nepo wicket was out 'caught'.

Assuming it would be a quick defeat after Tea, the Nepo's had already instructed the bar lady to start pouring a couple of jugs in anticipation of being back in the clubhouse in quick order. But then the Nepo bowlers struck some brutal blows early in the Amersham innings to have them reeling at 5-35 after just 6 overs - the Nepo's were back in the game. But like the Hampstead game, two of the 1st team batsmen took it away with a partnership of 115 runs in the middle order. Chris Ellegard, playing his first game this season produced his best figures ever for the Nepo's with 4-22 off 6 overs, quite impressive to be in such good form on your first game back.

With the game moving away from the Nepo's that man Ron Elliot (Scot), rolling back the years, was brought on to bowl and promptly removed both the 1st team batsmen with cracking deliveries and showed why he still holds two Nepo World Records, producing figures of 2-9 runs off only 3 overs, which was good enough to win him the NACA after the game, also costing him two jugs of beer which we were able to convince him was the new Nepo rule this year for taking 2 wickets for 9 runs off 3 overs. This ranks alongside the Nepo website 'sale' prank on Ron several years back.

With Amersham 8 wickets down, needing 4 runs to win and only two tail enders at the crease, the Nepo's felt they had a good chance to snatch an unlikely victory. But an edge through slips brought up the runs required and sent the good guys to only their 3rd loss of the season with Amersham ending up on 8-170 off 37.2 overs - great game.

Along the way another Nepo World Record was broken by the skipper Steve Werren (Aus), breaking his own wicket keeping record of 'Most Dismissals in a Season' which now stands at 23 (15 catches, 8 stumpings), with still 7 games to play. This shows how good the bowling has been this year to produce that many chances behind the stumps - makes it easy.

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Nepotists v Langleybury                  Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 28 Jul 2013

ROLY MONK'S WORLD RECORD FINALLY GOES BY THE WAYSIDE

The Nepotists have finally achieved one the main goals they set out to do at the start of the season, and that was to get Roly Monk's name off the Nepo World Record's list. Well I can report it has well and truly been deleted from Nepotists history - and with change. In another thriller at Langleybury yesterday the Nepotists 6th wicket partnership record of 144* runs set by Roly Monk (Eng) 84no & Mick Berdon (Aus) 50no in 2005 at Barnes was wiped from living memory by an incredible match winning partnership of 192 runs by Damian Tambling (Zim) 123 & Paul McCubbin (Aus) 61. Sorry Micky B. you have to be lumped in with this, but you knew the risk involved batting with Mr Monkey.

I know I've used the term a lot this season, but it really was another cracking match. With heavy overnight rain on an uncovered wicket and with the sun now shining, the pitch was always going to be dodgy, but the Nepo's still decided to bat first. This looked like a bad decision by the skipper when the first 5 wickets went down with only 51 runs on the board after 11 overs. But in true Nepotists style this season, a couple of players in the team have always produced the goods when needed. Damian Tambling (Zim) in only his fifth match for the Nepo's cracked his second ton in three weeks, carving 123 runs off the dejected Langleybury bowlers and now tops the batting stats, averaging 70.3 runs. Paul McCubbin (Aus) was equally impressive with the bat belting up a chanceless 61 runs, and is now his highest score for the Nepo's. Before this partnership the oppo were debating the merits of whether it was worthwhile playing what seemed like an ordinary Nepotists team when 5 wickets were down, and were discussing whether we should play 2 x Twenty20 matches, anticipating an early finish.

5-51 to 6-243 is quite a big leap as far as game changing partnerships go, considering we were eventually all out for 248 with one ball to spare. Team effort, ahh... not quite; bringing back memories of our first match against Highgate. We possibly think another World Record may have been set with three first ball ducks on the Nepo score sheet along with a second ball duck just to be sure. So the Nepo's went into Tea counting themselves rather lucky.

After a tremendous Tea which included sausage rolls, chicken a salad wraps, T-Bone steaks, large portions of Chateaubriand and an endless supply of Dom Perignon, the Nepo's felt pretty confident heading out to defend 248, with 200 runs initially thought to be a good score to defend on this wicket. But the Langleybury boys had different plans and although falling behind the run rate and at one stage needing 10 runs an over with 14 overs left, this building up to 12 runs an over with 10 overs to go, got to the last over needing just 21 runs to win. With a small boundary, quick outfield and two Sat 1st team top order batsmen at the crease, who had plundered the Nepo bowling in the previous 10 overs, 21 runs was not a particularly big ask for these guys. With the Nepo's pulling out their rarely used 'Crash Tackle The Batsmen to Restrict Them To Singles' strategy, along with the 'Throw Sand In The Batsmen's Face At Time Of Delivery' methodology, were able to restrict Langleybury to 8-235 off their 40 overs and win by 13 runs. Damian Tambling did the double, topping the bowling figures with 2-29 off 8 overs, backed up by his fellow Zimbo head Brett Schwim who also helped himself to a couple of wickets.

After match beers entailed the Nepo's trying to convince the oppo that we really were a great batting side, quoting all our big wins this season, and were not just a two man team. But with the first five batsmen only getting 51 runs between them, and all getting out to some very ordinary shots, was always going to be a hard sell.

On another unfortunate note, the Nepo's have lost their great clubman Lukey Sparrow for the rest of the season after a gallant swan dive in the outfield to stop a boundary resulted in a dislocated shoulder and every muscle in his right arm being torn; provoking memories of a similar incident with Mark 'Transport' Minehan several years back at Barnes. As Buddy Hayes has suggested, there's possibly a new range of Bent Banani floral arm slings in the offing. The Nepo's paid a visit to Watford hospital after the match where Sparrow was now an inmate, to present the great man with the NACA jacket and pint of lager which he'd paid for. Unfortunately this didn't go down very well with the hospital staff - oh well.

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Nepotists v Wembley                  Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 04 Aug 2013

REBELLION AGAINST NEPOTISTS SKIPPER AT WEMBLEY

The Nepotists skipper Steve Werren (Aus) can consider himself very lucky at having avoided the NACA jacket and hat yesterday against Wembley. With a bit of a double shuffle, vote rigging, and palm greasing, the skipper was able to somehow offload the jacket to Nilesh Thacker's 10 year old son Jay Thacker, who was filling in for a last minute pullout from the team. Of course Jay was convinced he'd won the man of the match award, and who were we to tell him otherwise.

Why was the skipper lucky you ask? Well it all happened about three quarters of the way through the first innings with Wembley batting after winning the toss. The skipper enquired as to how many overs Mick Stout had bowled, as we believed he'd already completed his allotted 8 overs, only for the scorer to yell back "who cares he can bowl as many as he likes". We thought this a bit of an odd response, so we spent the next 5 minutes on the pitch trying to figure out who had bowled what. Convinced that Mick had bowled his 8 overs we once again enquired, this time to the oppo skipper. His response was "it doesn't matter how many overs he bowls, this is a Time Game, we play proper cricket here".

The Nepo skipper immediately went into a cold sweat knowing the reaction of the Nepo players that was about to be unleashed on him. "A f*cking Time Game, you're kidding" was the first response from one of the players. The skipper then slowly turned around and went into a regulation 'Stump Through The Head Protection Stance' while all manner of happenings were going on throughout the field. Two of the players heads spontaneously exploded, resulting in a feeding frenzy from two of the other players who completely devoured the rest of their bodies. We were now two short plus two who couldn't move. Other players were openly weeping, with several on their knees banging the pitch asking "why, why". One player pulled out a shovel he just happen to have in his pocket and attempted to dig up the pitch in protest, but fortunately he was able to be restrained by a stun gun one of the other players luckily had in his pocket

The skipper had spent years getting rid of 'Time Games' over the past several seasons, as he had always struggled to find enough players to put a team out for this kind of match, so decided to go on the defensive. He attempted to explain to the remaining players who weren't already incapacitated or cannibalised, the virtue's of the 'Time Game', as most of the players had never played this type of match before and didn't understand how it worked. So trying to make it simple, the skipper said basically what happens is the team batting first usually declares after 135 overs, and we get 15 overs to chase down the runs, and most of the games end in a draw, but we were going to make a game of it and play it as if it was a 40 over match. There will be no draws on the Nepotists results table any more. Emboldened with confidence from the skippers inspiring words, the remaining 'headed' players decided to continue the match with an understanding that we were going to forget the 'Time Game' protocols and go flat out for the win at all costs.

Needless to say, the match ended in a draw.

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Nepotists v Hornsey                          Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 11 Aug 2013

THE THRILLER LIKE IT WAS IN MANILLA

In probably the most exciting finish since the Final at Oxford two years ago, the match against Hornsey went down to the final ball. With Hornsey 4 runs behind leading into that last ball, needing a boundary to tie, or 6 to win, with their overseas professional facing, and the Nepo's needing to restrict them to only 3 runs for victory; Chris Ellegard (as he did at Oxford two years ago) bowled a blinding delivery to restrict that last ball to zilch runs, and another Middlesex Premier League club bites the dust at the hands of the lime, green and magenta. Definitely a moment to savour.

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ISIS Tournament, Oxford                Reports by Roly Monk & Bomber Dale   17-18 Aug 2013

TOUR DIARY         (Saturday Report by Andrew 'Roly' Monk)

It is never easy to win any kind of trophy (just ask an Australian) but it is even harder to retain it as all the other competitors are gunning for you. This was the situation the Nepo's found themselves in last year at the prestigious ISIS Trophy, class told and they managed to prevail. Surely a third straight victory was not going to be possible? Surely the cricketing gods would not smile again on the men in Lime green and Magenta? These questions had played on skipper Werren’s mind as he surveyed the availability for ISIS 2013. Selection was going to be crucial if the Nepo trophy cabinet was to remain the antithesis to Old Mother Hubbards bone store.

Dark clouds were gathering in the distance as the draw was made on Saturday. Nine Bar were the unlucky side destined to face the mighty Nepo's on Match Day One. They had sensibly arrived in Oxford the night before for acclimatisation training, but they seemed to have misjudged the fluid levels and become over refreshed. Werren immediately sniffed an opportunity and inserted the men from Leicestershire. They were a little taken aback by being sniffed and inserted and decided to bat instead.

The dark clouds were threatening imminent precipitation, Duckworth Lewis may be required to split the sides, though radar analysis suggested two hours of dry weather ahead. Nepo's would have to bowl Nine Bar out quickly and get ahead of the run rate. Obviously this was going to be a job for the specialist bowlers. However, in a masterstroke of tactical planning, Steve had failed to select a strike bowler who could tell the time as Stuart Broad look-a-like, James Culley, had not yet arrived. So Werren tossed the ball to veteran lollipop purveyor, Bomber Dale! Inevitably Nine Bar were 8-1 off the first over with Damian Tambling taking the high ball at mid-off. Not an easy catch as the skied moo to leg swirled in the now strengthening wind; Tambling swayed one way, then the next. Spun around and staggered forward to hold it. Interestingly he would replicate many of these moves later in the evening!

Nine Bar moved through the early overs with no great dramas to be 51-1 off ten. Shahna Khan, Tambling and the recently arrived 'Stuart' Culley, struggling to find a length on the low bouncing Brasenose College surface. Bomber Dale decided not to trust the bounce and bowled full bunger lollipops to keep the legside fielders warm. The Nine Bar number three was looking classy despite calling for the nurofen after running a three!

Then the game was turned on its head in five balls.

Culley ripped out the obdurate opener’s off stump which brought the skipper to the crease. He shuffled across his stumps and was sent packing LBW first ball. In came the rather rotund and lippy No. 5 on a hat-trick. His brother was umpiring. Culley brought one back to smash into the back pad. The fielders roared & the sibling’s finger lifted. The batsman seemed to want to review it, at least I presume “You f*cking what?!” was a signal for DRS? The umpires call was upheld and Big James had his first ISIS Trophy hat-trick.

Two balls later Damian struck with an in-swinging Yorker and the score was 51-5. Werren then did what generations of Nepo skippers had done through the years and turned to the fat spinner. Roly Monk hobbled to the crease, the new bunny looped one out to Carl at Cow; 60-6. Then the migraine proved too much for the classy No. 3 and he returned one to Monk to depart for a jug avoiding 46. Now Roly was on a hat-trick, but past experience of the price of jugs in this university town meant he wisely bowled the third ball down the leg-side. Another LBW decision gave Dale his second wicket, though replays suggested the ball may not have reached the stumps. The final nail in the Nine Bar coffin was rammed home by Dale as he clung on to a high ball off Monk. Ron Elliott would have been proud as Bomber juggled the chance, fell to the ground and eventually controlled the ball against his thigh with his elbow. All-out for 89.

Carl Hoar and Nilesh Thacker sauntered out to open the NCC innings. Talk was of beer matches and ten wicket wins before lunch, but this is a cruel unpredictable game and soon Tim Hardy was on his way to the middle with Nilesh another LBW victim. Tim did not last long, one ball, unluckily missing a straight one. Ash Nagre in on a hat-trick, huge appeal! Not out the verdict. Two for two soon became 3-2 as Carl was cleaned up by the quick. Ash could not hold on and also went to the quick bowler who had also batted. Bomber Dale had to think long and hard about three LBW appeals during his stint as umpire. However, he consulted the Keith Scott Book of Umpiring and decided the batsman gets the benefit of the doubt – if he is wearing Lime Green & Magenta. 36-4 at lunch.

Lunch was a rushed affair as the atmosphere was now moist and drizzle threatened. Extraordinarily the Post Modernists had also had a hat-trick in the other semi and looked in a favourable position against Neville Holt.

The post lunch session saw few alarms as Shahna Khan, Damian Tambling and Roly Monk got NCC into a winning position. However, with the scores level Monk sensed a way to preserve his own average and damage Dale’s. He retired hurt bringing the lollipop king out to face the quick. Sadly Bomber hit the winning run to finish undefeated and take the Nepo's to within touching distance of ISIS Trophy immortality.

Damian Tambling wore Red Velvet for being.... Damian Tambling, a coup for Niles Naidu who had been plotting this for months.

Now that the final spot had been secured, Werren desperately sensed he needed to keep his team out of the bar for as long as possible. As it was only three o’clock a 15 over per side contest was arranged. This was played in now freezing conditions with rain and wind testing individuals to the limit. Especially tested were Nilesh Thacker and Tim Hardy who both managed to register their second golden ducks of the day. Tim again unlucky to miss a straight one!

Nine Bar took the game to the final over but it was the Nepo's who took home the spoils yet again.

Over on the other pitch Post Modernists were snatching defeat from the jaws of victory to gift Neville Holt their first ever appearance in an ISIS final. Nepo's would have to be on top form on the ‘morrow to make it three on the bounce.

The evening followed a familiar path; BBQ and beers in the Queen’s College pavilion, Werren in fine voice on the guitar and then oblivion in the Oxford bars. Oblivion came early for a couple of Nepo's much to the amusement of several legends who had now joined in the celebrations. Young Shahna and NACA’d Tambling learnt all about the golf ball and Mr Freeze whilst Mrs Culley became the first female in living memory to be Mrs Freeze’d.

Wisely Bomber Dale slid off early to bed in the Southern Cross. He had never been selected for an ISIS final and this was going to be his sporting Everest. He knew he would have a major role to play in the final and his skipper would need him fit to ride into battle. Sadly, he would not be riding into battle on his Sir Wiggo Carbon Fibre bike. A low life criminal stole it from outside the Southern Cross the next morning as Bomber was oiling his jock strap prior to the big game. This sort of criminal targeting of high profile sportsmen aims to break their focus and is a cowardly act. Police are convinced it was a Neville Holt fan and investigations continue. A spokesman for Thames Valley said “As Mr Dale is friends with Keith Scott he can stick his bike up his arse!”

However, the big question on nobodies lips that Sunday morning was ‘would Bomber still be OK to bowl?’

Roly

Semi Final

Beer Match

SATURDAY NIGHT OXFORD CARNAGE LEADS TO ISIS GLORY FOR THE NEPOTISTS           (Sunday Report by Colin “Bomber” Dale)

“Winning trophies is all about preparation …” Darren Lehmann.

Inspired by this leading visionary coach, our prophetic and maniacal leader Steve Werren predicted he had the perfect preparation for glory to the world’s leading touring cricket side.

Delving into his massive archive of past matches, stats and touring tales of the Nepotists, there seemed to be a few re-occurring successful ingredient patterns for Nepo tour success: Alcohol, nightclubs, golf balls, late night hotel key crisis, little or no sleep and more alcohol.

So on Saturday night in Oxford, Werren lead the pre-final preparation as the golf ball flew from pint to pint. Shahna Khan was soon under his spell, lying prostrate after a record 2 half pints during Stevie’s gig. NACA winner Damian Tambling was thrilling the adoring and gorgeous cook, dancing topless to our entertainer’s gay set. Soon Oxford nightclub bouncers were working overtime as preparations moved onto the town centre. Naturally there was the 3 to 4am hotel entrance crisis as a desperate Shahna Khan rung his entire address book to find out where Nilesh Thacker had taken off with the key.

A few hours later Werren lead the suitably under-the-weather Nepo's out to face Neville Holt in the Final to test his theory. And what a masterstroke it turned out to be. In just over 2 hours of near perfect bowling and fielding, the ISIS was virtually certain to back in the lime, green and magenta locker.

Kiwi Chris Ellegard, who missed the Oxford carnage the night before, was also suitably under the weather, being crook all night, in bed with a virus, leprosy and the plague - unfortunate. But proved to be perfect for a withering opening spell and was virtually unplayable with 5 out of 6 balls every over beating the bat. Zimbo Tambling (shirt on) was equally destructive at the other end. The opposition thought they had weathered the opening storm, but first change bowlers Khan and Nagre maintained the pressure and kept the run scoring to less than 3 an over for the first 30 overs.

Then Nilesh Thacker came in with the killer blow. The big lad somehow taking a miracle one hander off his own bowling. Next ball Sanjay Thakker took possibly the catch of the season with an absolute screamer, one handed catch in the gully, bringing up yet another hat trick ball. Still fired up by red bull and vodka, Khan’s direct hit run out from side on at mid-off was a beauty – and Neville Holt were virtually gone. After a standard lollipop from yours truly was plucked out of the air by Khan, the opposition virtually threw in the towel, calling for an early lunch at 8 down with only 78 on the board. It was then left to Nilesh Naidu to mop up the crumbs and have Nevill Holt back in the pavilion all out for only 110 runs.

No repeat of Saturday’s top order meltdown, as the ever reliable pair of Sanjay Thakker (55*) and Carl Hoar (53*) lead the mighty Nepotists to a crushing 10 wicket win.

Werren declared it one of the best fielding performances he has been involved in and thanked our sponsors, John Smiths Brewery, Fosters, Red Bull, Johnny Walker and the Last Flange Nightclub (Oxford Chapter), before tossing the ISIS Trophy in the bin (fair dinkum) after receiving it from organiser Stephen Woods, claiming the Nepo's had to unfortunately reject the trophy as the engraving costs were sending the club broke.

Bomber

Click here to view photo's of the Oxford weekend.

Final

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Nepotists v Shepperton                    Report by Steve Werren               Mon, 26 Aug 2013

NEPOTISTS REGAIN HOLGATE TROPHY

Nepotists CC regained the Holgate Trophy at Shepperton yesterday for the first time since 2007 in a match that all at the ground thought was over at tea. In a game very reminiscent of the last ball thriller at Hornsey two weeks earlier, (except for the last ball thriller and different opposition and different day), the Nepo's could only muster 159 runs all out in 37 overs, batting on a difficult wicket which had been flooded during the previous two days rain. With the ground now bathed in glorious sunshine, it was ideal conditions to bowl in, which produced the Nepo's lowest score of the season. Except for Carl Hoar (Eng) 50 runs, and Shahna Khan (Ind) 27 runs, no-one else really bothered to trouble the scorers except for the 'lap dancers' who were working the nearby river banks and mistakenly thought Mr Rik was playing in the game.

But as has happened throughout this season, if the batsmen fail (which is rare), the bowlers come to the rescue (and vice versa), which is exactly what happened. In a real demolition job on the oppo, (which included three Sat 1st team batsmen), the Nepo's were back in the bar before 5pm celebrating bowling Shepperton out for only 95 runs in 28 overs. After being softened up by the Nepo openers Brett Schwim (Zim) and Shahna Khan (Ind), Damian Tambling (Zim) bowled 8 unplayable overs, producing the second best figures of the season with 5-16, and turned the game on it's head.

As always, the Shepperton lads were as hospitable as ever and helped the Nepo's bask in their glory well into the evening before both teams went out onto the pitch at 11pm to celebrated the traditional way international cricketers do at the Oval after winning trophies!

So that's two cups in two weeks. What's next for the lime green and magenta? (Photo's to follow)

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Nepotists v Hillingdon Manor          Report by Steve Werren               Sun, 01 Sep 2013

MORE 'WORLD RECORDS' TUMBLE IN LAST GAME OF SEASON

The Nepo's finished off the year in style at Hillingdon Manor on Sunday with a big win, which included smashing at least four Nepo World Records as follows:

1) TEAM HIGHEST SCORE: 4-355 off 40 overs (Previous record: 6-353 off 40 overs, May 2013)
This is the third time this season the current team has broken this record.

2) MOST SUCCESSFUL SEASON: Win rate: 81%, Played: 21: Won: 17, Lost: 3, Drawn: 1
(Previous record: Win Rate of 76%, 1992)

3) HIGHEST 'CLUB CHAMPION' POINTS: 984 Pts, Shahna Kahn (Ind)
(Previous record: 977 pts, Carl Hoar (Eng), 2009)

4) MOST WINS IN A SEASON: 17 wins
(Previous record: 16 wins, 1992)

As predicted in the pre match email, if the star studded Nepo lineup all fired it was going to spell trouble for Hillingdon Manor. And that's exactly what happened. With big scores the order of the day including a majestic 112 runs off only 66 balls from Shahna Khan (Ind) securing the 'Club Champion' award in his final game for the Nepotists, beating Carl Hoar (Eng) who fought him all the way with his third personal century of the season, ending on 100 runs not out, before being 'red carded' and dragged off the field for the second time this season to give others a bat.

Big scores were also recorded from Nilesh Thacker (Ind) with 51 not out, before he was also 'red carded', and Damian Tambling (Zim) with 45 not out off only 17 balls, meant the Nepo's were able to chase down the World Record 'Team Highest Score' for the third time this season, going past the previous best of 353 on the very last ball of their innings, including 120 runs off the last 10 overs - exciting stuff to watch. The Nepo's ended on 4-355 off their 40 overs with three players being retired 'not out'.

With a match winning score already posted, the interest in the game now turned to the battle for the 'Most Wickets' bowling award. Before the game there were four players in the running, Brett Schwim (Zim) with 20 wickets, Mick Stout (Eng) 19 wickets, Shahna Khan 19 wickets and James Culley (NZ) 19 wickets. With James away on his Tour of Duty, and with Shahna only being given a few overs to bowl because he had a good bat in the first innings with so many bowlers available, it got down to Mick Stout and Brett Schwim to battle it out.

Mick who normally bowls first change and Brett who normally opens, swapped positions with Mick taking the new ball. In a contrasting spell of tight late inswing bowling and unplayable darts, combined with full tossers and long hops seemed to work as Mick ended up with figures of 4-45 off his 6 overs, and certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons with him now on 23 wickets and looking the favourite to take the converted title. Brett came on first change and was told he would only get to bowl 6 overs as Mick had done. After his first two overs of normal super quick stuff, and with the batsmen digging in, it was looking unlikely that Brett would get the breakthrough to at least get the three wickets to equal Mick's tally.

So in a desperate attempt to get those vital wickets, Brett decided to bowl leg spin, although nobody even knew he could do this, probably he didn't know it either, but surprised everybody with 'Warnie' type turn! Well the change of action brought immediate results with Brett picking up 3 wickets in the next few overs and bringing him equal with Mick. Now into his final over and with just two balls left in his spell, needing just one wicket to win the trophy outright, Brett did exactly what Nilesh Naidu (NZ) did last year at the same ground and took two wickets with his last 2 balls to wrestle the title away from Mick, ending with career best Nepo figures of 5-18 off his 6 overs, and is now on a 'hat trick' first ball next season.

Hillingdon Manor started their innings with the unenviable task of chasing down a virtually unchaseable score, and gave it a go for a while, but eventually folded under pressure from the unrelenting Nepo bowlers, and were dismissed for 113 runs in 23 overs, giving the Nepo's a another victory of over 200 runs for the 4th time this season. So well done guys for another thrilling climax to the summer.

There was possibly another Nepo World Record broken yesterday as well, but will need verification from the Nepo Legends who played in the pre 2000 era. That being the 'Most Runs off a Single Ball' (7 runs to Damian Tambling - all run, and bloody funny!) Can someone verify this please before we claim it?

The after match end of season dinner was well attended with 16 players and WAGS regaling stories of their individual exploits throughout the season, and debating the biggest highlight, which ended in a drawn decision. A special presentation was also made to Nilesh Naidu (NZ) and Shahna Khan (Ind) for their loyal service to the 'greatest team in the world' over the past five and three years respectively. I'm sure they will leave these shores with memories that will last a lifetime, as we will also cherish the memories they have given us. Good luck in the future guys and stay in touch.

And so draws to an end a quite incredible Nepotists season, one that is unlikely to ever be repeated. Even the players are at a loss as to explain the phenomenal results achieved this year. I believe having a consistent team with 8 or 9 regular players available each week was the secret, allowing us to keep the same batting and bowling line up week after week, and with most of the team now living permanently in the UK, bodes well for the future. Another proud memory for the team is the unusual number of Nepo World Records broken throughout the season. (See table below) There are normally several seasons between just a single World Record, but Nepotists 2013 broke an amazing 20 World Records this year, with possibly still more pending when all the season stats are tabulated over the coming weeks.

One thing we do know, is that all the oppo teams will be adding even more Sat 1st team players to face the Nepo's next year to put us back in to what they perceive as our rightful place.

So enjoy the winter guys and see you at the AGM later in the year or next April at nets. I can confirm Nepotists CC is alive and kicking and lives to fight another day.

Click here to see the final season stats.

Yours in Nepotism
Steve

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