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Tonight was one of the most frustrating games of indoor cricket I’ve played in a long time. It was the first time we have played at North Wollongong in our 4 seasons in the comp, and I never want to play there again. Every week we hear teams complain about it – the courts are poorly maintained and too small, the umpiring is terrible and the players are a pack of wankers. The 3rd one (barring a couple of exceptions) we knew, but we suspected the rest was just bitter teams.

I hate when an umpire 1. doesn’t know they rules of the game they are umpiring, and 2. deliberatly makes decisions in favour of the team they support (cheats).

There has only been one other centre we have played at that has had an umpire that cheats until now, and she did it both times we played there, blatantly. This frustrated us, but we know to expect it now.

After tonight, I would prefer to play there every week than ever play at North Gong with that umpire tonight. He gave 2 calls of ‘not out’ for the home team where the batsman was at least 1m out. AT LEAST. These were not close calls that went in their favour, these were blatant disregard for the spirit and rules of the game. It made our team angry. We are happy to accept that umpires make mistakes, and not every call goes your way – but when he is clearly basing his decisions on which team is batting, it is wrong. I suggested to a team mate that it is no wonder they make the semi’s every year playing half their games in front of this joker… A guy from the sideline said “yeah, but we’re ahead of you on the table”. I turned and told him “you were ahead of us last year… until we beat you  twice by 100 runs in the semi finals andwe finished second..”

Getting sledged by people from other teams pisses me off. It happened again later on, after bowling a great over, a guy from the sideline sledged the shit out of me. Normally I would flash him a smile and get on with it – but he was a guy that had attacked me before. I walked over to where he was sitting and asked “when do you bat? oh… that’s right, you’re not good enough to play top grade… oh well.. it’s probably more satisfying being the best player in 3rd grade.” He stuttered and had no comeback.

There were a few funny moments – a wanker from their team faced up to the first ball of the over, then missed it, turned to the umpire and asked how many left. I walked over and said “8 minus 1 and you can’t work it out yourself, that does explain a few things”.. He then tried to hit the ball at me and got out. Score 1 to us.

At the end of the game the umpire began to have words with our team (after the 4 nationally accredited umpires questioned the rule he made up). I got the shits, gave him a spray and left.

I am pissed off with cheaters, we lost the game, the umpiring was shit, I have a massive bruise on my leg, yet still – I can’t wait for next week… Am I a sucker for punishment? Yes… but fuck I love my cricket