Match Report vs Cardiff
Indians 25/05/23 @ Wenvoe (Skipper Luvvers, report
Rhys)
A gorgeous almost-summer eve awaited us as The Cazh aimed
to continue their decent start to the season with a win over
The Cardiff Indians at Wenvoe International Cricket Ground.
Captain Luvvers - fresh off a restful week of 2 rounds of
golf and a game of cricket - was called up to replace Dave
W at short notice. The leg injury certainly isn’t preventing
our skipper’s ‘tossing’ ability, and another
win with the coin meant Alex & Rhys were padding up to
take advantage of a nice dry Wenvoe wicket (for once…!)
Some well-placed singles, coupled with the usual quick running
from the pair got The Cazh off to a decent start; with 40
runs coming from the first 5 overs. Including our only SIX
of the day when a quick leg bye turned into 5 more, with the
first of many ‘buzzers’ from our opposition.
The partnership of 66 was ended when Rhys came down the track
to a wider, shorter delivery; missing, and being bowled off
his pads. To quote a Steve-O phrase from the second innings,
“Great idea, shit execution”.
This brought Jack to the crease, and he continued in the
same vein – picking up singles and progressing the score
along nicely. The Cazh passing 100 in the 12th over. The pair
were assisted with some more fielding errors which included
FIVE penalty runs after the ball struck the keeper’s
helmet.
Alex raced on to 47 before a sequence of better bowling meant
the run rate slowed temporarily. Cazh 133-1 off 16, still
a great position to push on the last 4 overs. Rob came to
the crease once Alex finally crossed the line for an excellent
53*.
Jack knew The Cazh had some good batting left in reserve
(plus Steve-O) so upped a gear and swung for a few. A great
square drive followed by a cover drive (see video on WhatsApp)
were consolidated by some good length deliveries which were
proving difficult to hit. Jack was finally dismissed by a
great catch at Deep Cover, the catcher overcoming the low
sun in his eyes to parry the ball up and take the rebound.
(See the second video on WhatsApp!)
Steve-O waltzed to the crease, and true to form attempted
to take guard despite being at the non-striker’s end.
When he finally got on strike, a beautiful cover drive (read:
smash) was enough to take his strike-rate above 100 when he
was finally bowled (after facing 5 balls for the bettors amongst
you).
Rob was joined at the crease by Luvvers who aimed to deal
in boundaries only due to his injury. A quickish single off
his first ball wasn’t in the plan – but it did
mean the score ticked past 160 with some decent ‘death’
bowling restricting The Cazh to 5/6 an over at the end.
A cracking effort and an above par score of 161 to defend.
Helped by the second highest scorer of the day, our friend
Mr X. Tras (39).
A HEATH 53 ret.
JR DAVIES 20
J BEAUMONT 30
R OWENS 12*
S O’REILLY 6
G LOVERIDGE 3*
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After a slow innings turnaround, The Cazh opened with the
usual Lewis/Day pairing - the first couple of overs were low
scoring with Goff picking up a wicket maiden - bringing their
best batsman to the crease. Batsman 1 was quick to score 10
from Dan’s second over before getting dismissed –
holing one out to Alex at cover. Cardiff Indians 12-2 and
it looked like we could be in for a quick finish.
Their number 3 was keen to prove us wrong however, as he
continued to push a few boundaries here and there, keeping
the score ticking along, albeit behind the required run rate
of ~8. Dan skittled their number 4 batsman and after four
overs each from our openers the score looked good from our
perspective: 46-3 (compared to Cazh’s 67-1).
First change brought DT to the crease and after a few boundary
‘looseners’, he managed to find that difficult
length to bat against. At the other end Maxi was finding the
length more difficult to nail down and a few overs went for
10+ runs after some well-timed hooks and cuts from their #3
aided by some uncharacteristic fielding errors from our opening
batters!
Maxi’s persistence was rewarded however with a strange
dismissal, after #3 batsman was caught from a no-ball. For
some reason their #5 had joined him at the striker’s
end – presumably to have a chat about the nice weather
we were having – and after realising the umpire had
given a no-ball, Maxi ran him out with a bit of ‘coaxing’
from the rest of the team!
With a new batsman walking to the crease, Steve-O was quick
to tell DT that he was bowling against a left hander and to
go round the wicket. Great advice, apart from one minor issue:
the batter was right-handed. And easy mistake to make…
Cue DT bowling three wides before realising his biggest mistake
of all: trusting Steve-O. A quick glance at the batter’s
stance was enough for DT to come back over the wicket and
dismiss the newcomer with the first legal ball of the over.
Caught in extra cover by Rhys.
With 16 overs down the score was 110-5. A required run rate
of 13 an over seemingly out of reach for our opposition.
Steve-O and Rob saw off the last 4 overs with no real danger
of us losing the match, especially after batsman #3 retired
on the same score as Alex. Steve-O was particularly miserly
in his bowling, conceding only singles as the opposition struggled
to get the ball off the square. Rob plugged away in the usual
fashion but was rather surprised when a wide was called against
him despite the ball being no more than a foot away from off
stump! He needn’t have worried, as Jim was there to
produce a stumping from the very next ball.
The final ball of the innings produced a carbon copy stumping
for Rob with neat glovework behind the sticks. 141-7 was a
decent effort by our opposition, but they never really looked
like getting there.
D LEWIS 4-0-21-2
G DAY 4-1-22-1
D THOMAS 4-0-22-1
M CULLEN 4-0-42-0
S O’REILLY 2-0-9-0
R OWENS 2-0-23-2
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