Fen Ditton do the double

Let’s start on a positive note. The weather was great. It was downhill after that I’m afraid to say. Well, actually it wasn’t all bad. There were some excellent performances. Unfortunately 2 of the best were from 2 Fen Ditton batsmen.
Fen Ditton turned up with what they described as a “bowling line-up”. Hmm. If only we’d got to see more of their batting line-up we might be able to comment further on this.

We batted first and Gabriel opened with Dave. After a few overs it didn’t look like the bowling would be very threatening. Dave got his head down to have a look at the bowling and reached 1 when he got his head down again and charged down the other end for a quick leg bye. Gabriel hadn’t heard a call of “yes” and stayed there whilst awaiting the result of a very optimistic lbw appeal. Ross played a very fine shot but straight at the cover point fielder who gratefully took the catch. Meanwhile Gabriel was doing what he has been doing most of the season by holding the top order together and putting away bad balls until he missed a straight to be LBW to their spinner.

Richard looked like he was going to continue his good recent run of form but then gave their irritatingly accurate spinner a return catch for 10. At the half way stage we were 52-4 and needed a George special, which he, along with a considerable amount of help from the middle order, provided. Adam played sensibly for his 13 and then Jack came in, had a look, then carted the bowling to cow corner very effectively, albeit briefly for his 16. Not wishing to devalue George’s innings, then came the most entertaining one from Andy. Andy’s first 6 scoring strokes were all hit for four. We were wondering why he didn’t try harder to give George the strike, so he showed us. His last 4 scoring strokes were all singles taking him to 28 in the penultimate over. It was around then that disaster struck when George dived to make his ground taking a quick 2. Pulling a muscle in an area which made volunteers to rub it better somewhat thin on the ground (it was either the dive or the applauding of Andy’s innings which caused the injury) George did enough damage to prevent him from either running or bowling.

This was probably the decisive point of the match. We would have been better off George being run out for 4 less and having him available to bowl, not that George’s batting average agrees with this. Neil had a legitimate heave and got himself bowled in the same over. That left George and Scotch to hobble a few off the last over with George being 73 not out at the end with a total of 177 for 8. That made the last 20 overs worth 125. Is the batting order upside down?

Tea was prepared, delivered and cling filmed by Gabriel. The sandwiches were very neatly arranged in straight rows with a very even distribution of fillings making choosing the ones with the most tuna quite tricky or pointless depending on your point of view. The many weeks of rolling and mowing the pitch have clearly contributed some useful, neat sandwich making skills.

Adam found himself in the unusual position of wicket-keeper in Alastair’s absence and he made a good job of it too with the occasional wide ball and a few keeping low. Ross opened and was quickly into an accurate spell where Fen Ditton found it difficult to score. Neil bowled some excellent deliveries, but probably suffered from having to bowl in tandem with the accurate Ross, so their skipper/keeper who batted at number 6 in the away game had a go at Neil and put away a few boundaries. Ross bowled through his 10 overs and got their skipper out lbw eventually, but not before he had made a handy 19. As far as success went that was it for us. Richard and Scotch bowled 9 overs for 51 and 7 overs for 34 respectively. The Fen Ditton batsmen found enough singles and the occasional boundary so that the pressure was never really on. Adam took the pads off and handed them to George who managed to creak into a kneeling position long enough to put them on and take over behind the stumps so that Adam could bowl in tandem with Jack until Fen Ditton reached their target.

Being a bit slower than Fen Ditton at getting a match report done (and scoring runs and taking wickets, as it turns out) I can now reveal from their match report that the 68 not out by their opener, James, is his first score in double figures for Fen Ditton and the 62 not out by H is his first 50. Oh dear. We would rather they got their records against someone else in future please. Not this year though – please lose your last 6 matches, Fen Ditton.

From our relative positions in the league and on paper we should probably have done better in this fixture. The high points were the batting of Andy, Jack, Adam and George (although he must work on his diving without pulling muscles) and the bowling of Ross and the first attempt behind the stumps for Adam. Another high point is the praise of our pitch from the opposition. And so on to Balsham…..