Rastrick Gentlemen Spoofers recorded the first victory of their hotly anticipated 2021 campaign with a solid performance against C N Tax at Lascelles Hall.

Following a despicable on-line smear campaign of sporting disinformation and fake news, cruelly designed to remove him from the side and effectively end his career, the long serving 3rd reserve wicketkeeper batsman Mark Edley had declared himself unavailable for the fixture. The devastating impact of being stabbed in the back by a lifelong friend has yet to fully manifest and Edley took the sensible decision to distance himself from his evil and deluded snake of an assailant.

With a talentless but cold and calculating viper in the nest, it left hapless Captain Marcus Haigh with a huge challenge to motivate his troops in such deeply sickening circumstances.

In other team news, the Spoofers were lifted by the availability of the Robin Lambert for this away fixture. Lambert’s record breaking head, which is genuinely planet-sized, means he has to carefully plan his trips to avoid bridges and he’s also been warned on several occasions by the aviation authorities about driving his specially adapted vehicle under any major flight paths. This Correspondent has also been advised that he is prohibited from going closer than 30 miles to the coast to avoid the risk of his gargantuan noggin permanently changing tidal patterns and playing havoc with shipping forecasts. You wouldn’t want to be trawling Dogger Bank when Lambert is in Blackpool sucking a stick of rock and trying to find the world’s biggest Kiss Me Quick hat. Last time he went there, they tried building the world’s biggest Rollercoaster on his expansive forehead.

Anyway, bowling first the Spoofers made an erratic start but managed to restrict the flow of boundaries. The reptilian keeper, Robert Hionsssssssss0 managed to further alienate his colleagues by criticising them at every opportunity whilst simultaneously fumbling the ball and spouting dog dirt at every opportunity. A tidy opening spell from our favourite purveyor of literary filth, Bongo Roebuck, was in no way complimented by a seemingly blindfolded Joe Senior, who slung down 7 wides in an effort to beat the all-time Spoofers record. He fell short by over 30. Amateur.

Tommy Four Toes took the first wicket with a neck high delivery which was caught on Planet Lambert at point. Well, point was the epicentre of the catch but in truth his cranium spanned several fielding positions. The square leg Umpire called a no-ball but after being told ‘No it wasn’t’ by one or two of the Spoofers, the batsmen was strangely (and some might say harshly) given out.

After that, it was a tale of run-out opportunities as C N Tax tried to press the accelerator. A lightning pick up and pin-point accurate throw from Paul Shaw managed to conjure up a run out from nowhere, but sadly his less-gifted team mates were unable to replicate this genuine piece of sporting magic. Tom Bowen missed twice from probably no more than 2 feet but the best effort of all came from Captain Haigh: Receiving the ball next to the stumps with the batsman around 17 yards short, a clearly confused Haigh manage to run past the stumps and throw the ball AWAY from the target. It was impossible not to flip the bails off and it would have been a much better outcome for the Spoofers and the game in general, if he had thrown the ball, right hard, into his own face before immediately retiring from all formats.

Other highlights in the field included a filthy career ending leg-breaking tackle from Delaney on the boundary edge to prevent a boundary and a similarly outstanding effort from Tommy Camel Toe, who used one of his newly installed extendable bionic toes to stop one with his boot in spite of being 20 yards away.

C N Tax managed to close on 97/4 off their 10 overs, with a wicket each for Jordan Taylor and Tommy Dromedary.

With roly-poly veteran Jason Middleton having injured his knee during the fielding effort, the signs weren’t good as Middleton attempted to repair the injury with sellotape and a lollipop stick before deciding to drop down the order. This opened the door for Bobby the Boa Constrictor Hions to somehow slither his way into opening the batting, in spite of a Spoofers track record representing the statistical equivalent of a giant skid mark.

Having failed in the first game, questions have to be asked of the Captain’s decision making capabilities to open with Hions. Hions showed his versatility by using both edges of his pristine bat to score fortunate singles, before a third edge found the gloves of his opposite number. This was one of the worst innings in the history of cricket at all levels across the globe. The dismal performance takes Hions’ run tally for the season to 6 after 5 completed innings. The man has been stinking out cricket fields and stabbing team mates in the back for decades now. Just how bad, both as a human and a batsman, is it possible to be without getting demoted to a more appropriate batting position?

On the positive side, Hions’ pathetic departure paved the way for last week’s batting hero, Robin Lambert, to enter the fray. Looking like a half-built Death Star with pads on, the humongous headed hitman started to flay the ball to all parts, sharing in a productive partnership with the returning Tom Bowen.

Lambert ended on 36 not out and Bowen was unbeaten on 40 as the pair chased down the victory target with over 2 overs left, to see the Spoofers through to their first victory of the season.

However, the on-field success enjoyed by Captain Haigh has been soured by the off-field controversies which took a further twist after the game when Robert Hionsssss0 announced his decision to hand back the Spoofers gloves due to ‘underestimating the complexities of Spoofer stumping’. Without the gloves, there is absolutely nothing left on his cricketing CV and surely Haigh will be unable to select Hions for future matches if more capable cricketers and/or better humans are available.

The next few weeks will be crucial in setting the future direction of Haigh’s promising career in cricket captaincy. Already there are on-line conspiracy theories suggesting that Marcus H is actually the fourth man ‘H’ - the near mythical head of a criminal gang hell-bent on destroying village sport. Only time will tell whether the Spoofer’s Snake is also part of this same diabolical enterprise, having embedded himself across several local teams since being groomed in the early 1970s.

In the world of the Spoofers, you have to believe that anything is possible.