As I cycled away from Trinity Old Field and into the sunset I reflected on the day. We had played a game of cricket on a beautiful spring day, on a great pitch in lovely surroundings. The opposition had been friendly the banter humorous and the game competitive without any nastiness. We lost, but that somehow seemed almost immaterial given everything else.
And a proper game of cricket it was: both teams batted for the full allotment of 40 overs and that is something that happens very rarely in our league (at least for games involving Coton).
Despite conjecture in the dressing room that we would be better off batting first so we didn't have to field in the hottest part of the day we won the toss and put Romsey in. Neil was still enjoying his US trip whilst Billy and Adam were off paintballing. Had they reconnoitred the pitch and decided that bowling was going to be a tough job? They were to be proved right. The two Dave S’s returned to the team with Rob McC and Jack dropping out.
Rob & George opened the bowling again. George bowled beautifully without taking a wicket and it was hard to understand just how he didn’t manage to do that. Rob bowled some good balls mixed in with some bad ones. At that pace and on as true a wicket as Trinity they were dealt with accordingly. We got to the first bowling changes without a wicket being down & Romsey making steady progress.
Dave Scotcher and Dave Simmons were the replacements. Scotch bowled a very tight spell and removed the first of the Romsey openers with 63 on the board thus breaking his 0 runs and 0 wickets for the season drought (he also got some runs later). “Other Dave” (for Dr Who fans, not "Other Dave" from “Silence in the Library” so I guess this is "Other Other Dave") was punished as much as Rob had been and was replaced by Richard. Richard leaked runs as the others had but removed the remaining opener and the #3. George and Rob returned to (in one case) put the pressure on and stem the runs and (in the other) donate over 50 runs in 4 overs to a now rampant Romsey. Two run outs earned us another bonus point.
The boundaries were short and you could have played snooker on the outfield but the sad fact is that George & Scotch conceded runs at about 2.8 per over whereas Rob, Richard and Dave Simmons went for over 8. Romsey amassed 222-6 in their 40 overs. As they left the field there were some mutterings about this not being enough (the previous week they had grabbed 273-1 on the same ground).
After tea, Gabriel and Will lead the charge in reply. Well, maybe not a charge, maybe more of a casual stroll along a canal bank stopping to chat to fishermen, lock keepers, bargees and other ramblers. Will departed for 9 and Alastair joined Gabriel. They proceeded to accumulate runs steadily against a variety of slow, very slow and very very slow bowling, Romsey having figured that taking any pace off the ball made scoring more difficult. They put on 84 for the 2nd wicket before Alastair was lured out of his ground and stumped. He stopped at the crease long enough to exchange pleasantries with his opposite number and compliment him on the stumping (they also had a long chat about face masks, but I am told that this is nothing to be concerned about).
Dave Simmons was also stumped before an exhausted Gabriel was run out 4 short of what would have been a well deserved 50. By this stage he was delirious & dehydrated from the heat and proceeded to wander around the ground looking for sand dunes and oases.
At 112-4 the base had been laid for a late innings thrash: could we make it? For a few overs it looked on. George smashed an enormous 6 and raced to 30 off 15 balls. Sam kept him company in a quickfire partnership before being run out for 10 trying a suicidal 2nd run. He fell victim to the old ploy of the fake wounded fielder. Up to that point he had trundled the ball in underarm but now with a whiff of run out in the air (and a shout of "he hasn't got an arm" in his ear) he managed to ping the ball in overarm: fast and straight. He didn’t even have the decency to feign a bad shoulder afterwards.
George went next ball, and with him our best hope of making the score. Andy and Pete both made double figures and Rob managed to find the only fielder within 50 yards with a top edge before Andy and Dave Scotcher saw out the 40 overs. We came up 36 short with 9 wickets down but there was general agreement that last season it may well have been 100 short with 20 overs remaining.
Putting the finishing touches to the report almost 2 weeks later we now know that all the matches were called off during our blank week leaving us in the relegation zone have won 1 and lost 3. This week we play Fen Ditton over whom we did the double last year. Let’s see what happens this time.
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4 comments:
We won the toss and elected to field! Reasons were entirely negative and temperature did not come into it!
The way George was bowling with that new ball it was the right decision. Rob got it moving too for a while too. We were unlucky not to get a few early witckets. That would have made big difference. We've got more bowling options this week. That should help enormously.
that's what comes of trying to write the report from memory a couple of weeks later!!!
There were a couple of dropped catches (not by me, for a change) which might have changed the game in the early overs. But however you look at it, this was a significant step up, even in defeat, from last season. Now to convert the improvement into wins...
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