2022

The first act of the 7th edition of Boxing Day Tonk stated at Tiny Triumph’s for the IPL style auction between the Craig “the Work Horse” Wilson and Zane “the Show Pony” McAlpine.

*Captain Fantastic (L) and some guy called Zane (R)*

After a delayed start due to the Watson family Christmas overrunning (sorry everyone), vice captains form the tier 2 pool were selected; Narly for the Work Horses and du Chats for the Show Ponies.

The initial bids were a little gun shy as the brains trust from each team got their heads around the bid format, what a median player price was, the Upton switch-a-roo card and waiting for the marquee players to be drawn.

The excitement built as the pool of players reduced down to 6, with the highly sought after Danimal and Liam still available but the Upton switch-a-roo card also lurking, waiting to be drawn. Danimal was drawn and purchased by the Show Ponies for a small fortune but Zane and du Chats were left sweating – will the Upton card make an appearance on the next draw? It didn’t and it was then Craig and Narly’s turn to sweat if Liam will remain in their squad? They too were safe and big money was thrown around for the remaining tier 3 players including a mighty $3.3 M for Spencer.

*Narly went with cutting edge technology for the auction.*

The second act of BDT VII also heavily featured Tiny Triumphs, as the Devonport Sea Swimmers Club had an early morning dip on the 26th before a planned quiet Champagne brunch at Tiny’s.

Innocent photos with fully clothed smiling swimming club members started being published on the BDT VII chat, but as the regularity of the photographic updates increased, the regularity of the photos content reduced and culminated in a Clarence Street Streak captured in full motion picture during (what has become an unfortunate trademark of the 22/23 “summer”) a 1 in 100 year flash flooding rain event.

Narly promptly instructed the faint of heart that the “shower” would pass and to assemble at the Double D.

How it started… how it ended.

The third act of BDT VII started with said rain event still in progress and the BDT squads sheltering under the club, competing for space with Craig’s detachable portable kitchen. As the rain turned to drizzle the pitch and field were marked up but there was still no sign of the swim club members Zane and Tom. Zane arrived eventually (and thankfully intact) on his bicycle and soon after the toss was held, won by Craig who elected to bat. The traditional team photo was taken, but Tom Slade was still nowhere to be seen.

*Tonk CEO job description: Must be largely ignorant of weather conditions*

The Work Horse innings opened up with Haz and Lindsay, where they navigated an unexpected opening bowling pairing of Upton and Spencer before BDT debutant Kerry claimed Lindsey as the first wicket of the day in the 3rd over.

This brought the highly sought after Liam (the $4m man) to the crease for the Work Horses, where both he and Haz played positively and set a solid foundation, both batting through to retirement.

Dave and Ryan both got starts and were building on the start nicely until Zane staggered his way to the bowling crease and executed the most unorthodox but effective bowling plan seen in the seven years of BDT:

W 1 4 X – Dave caught, Monty takes strike; 4 . NB 4W X – Monty bowled.

With the Work Horses at risk of collapse, and losing key wickets, Ryan and Eelco went about steading the ship, but not without controversy – Danimal stumped Eelco like an anonymous caller tipping off an AT Parking Warden about a loitering Swim Series Pussy wagon outside his residence.

In the end, Eelco was given a beverage to inhale and was allowed to continue his innings until being bowled by Sam Steel.

That brought Nelson to the crease to accelerate the innings, but after two 6’s, du Chats put an end to that, with a lovely ball clipping the top of off stump.

With his team in trouble, Craig played a magnificent captain’s knock to bat through to retirement, with Ryan also partnering him and getting to 25.

At some point during the captains knock, a heavily intoxicated Tom Slade turned up from the cricket net side of the ground. After a quick pep talk to remind Tom how to hold the bat, Narly and Tom faced the last 2 overs with Narly farming the strike as much as he could, finishing not out on 5, and Tom not out on 0.

At the close of the innings, the scorecard read 211, with 212 the target for the Show Ponies.

*Ball 1 of BDT VII: Showponies being Showponies…*

*Workhorses’ $4,000,000 man plays a $2.50 shot…*

The Show Ponies opened up their batting innings with Kerry and Sam Tuck, whilst the Work Horses opened up with ironic combination of a semi-conscious Slade and anaesthetist Dr Lindsay Gray.

Kerry retired on 28 with 7 scoring shots, crucifying his inebriated Hostile Witness team mate, who recorded an Albrecht in his second over (0-38).

Sam and Hamish continued the assault until Captain Courageous Craig took the wicket of Tuck whilst Hamish retired on 27.

Steelo and Karl were the next partnership to launch for the Show Ponies until Ryan had Steelo caught out. Karl batted through to retirement to 27 but not before he narrowly missed Slade’s face in the slips.

With fire power in the shed Ritchie and du Chats came to the crease to advance the Show Pony cause, but were out cheaply - Ritchie bowled around his legs to Nelson’s O ball, and du Chats for a Tonk duck to Liam, caught off a rank full toss by Rumball at square leg. Was this the turning point for the Work Horses?

Danimal got off the mark in his traditional style creaming a couple of 6’s, then consolidating with a picket fence before launching a final massive blow to finish on a 30.

Spencer, the $3.3 million dollar man played his strongest BDT innings since Short v Tall, and was going nicely until some tidy glove work by Haz had him stumped.

Spencer quickly reached into his back pocket to produce his Devonport Diggers Male Prostitution collective employment agreement and claimed he should be treated the same as his co-work Eelco and have immunity from stumpings. Haz wasn’t convinced Spencer and Eelco were of quite equal status, but in the spirited of BDT, a refreshment was run out to Spencer and he continued his innings.

Scott came in and played a classic Michael Bevan innings, getting the Show Ponies to within striking distance of the required total – 9 runs with 1 over remaining.

Ryan bowled Spencer for ball 1, to bring none other than Zane “the Big Show(pony)” to the crease.

Balls 2 and 3 were wild air swings for nought.

Ball 4 was a clean strike for a 6 over Ryan’s head. 3 to win off 2.

Ball 5 – dot.

For ball 6, all Work Horse fielders were moved to the boundary, Zane played another lofted straight drive, Nelson intercepted it from the boundary but instead of risking throwing the ball to Ryan, ran it back in, in which time the ever aware Scott had returned for 2… a tie!

Narly ruled that there would be no super over – the boat race would be the tie breaker.

The fourth and final act of BDT VII closed with the boat race. Team Work Horse had a cunning Team NZ-esque plan to use torpedoes (after analysis of the Deed of Gift) but that was met with protests from Team Show Pony on the grounds that ‘it wasn’t fair’.

Millsy satellite phoned in from Saffa land and started the race off before complete chaos ensued… nothing for certain can really be reported from the boat race except that 22 beers were deleted with the high efficiency and proficiency that is expected from the men of BDT. The Deed for 2023 will need to be updated to accommodate the high performance drinking ability.

So, in the end it was tie. BDT was the winner on the day, with promotion of digital scoring a close second.

Thanks to all that contributed to the day being a success - organising, equipment, BBQing, scoring, umpiring, captains, player and most importantly attitude.

Now we all get to wait with anticipation for BDT VIII and ponder what will the team selection be?

2021