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Casuals vs Llanvapley 21 August 2005 @ Llanvapley
(Match Report - J Furnham)

A beautiful hot sunny day, the lovely setting of Llanvapley, a fine-looking outfield, a straw-coloured pitch and the prospect of a fabulous afternoon’s cricket ahead. What more could 10 bright and early Casuals wish for on a Sunday?
“Our 11th player, our kit bag and a game of 40 over a side cricket instead of Mickey Mouse timed crap,” would have been my answer, but we know that when we arrange the fixture. I just didn’t fancy the prospect of chasing the ball around a field for nearly 50 overs and then only having 35 overs to chase down the total: so I had no hesitation in deciding to bat first, especially as Dan was still driving around the Monmouthshire countryside with our kit bag! (4 coin tosses in a row for the Casuals – is this a record, Statto?)
Easy and John F opened and somehow managed to string a useful 56 partnership together in somewhat alien conditions – ie a pitch with a bit of bounce in it - in spite of not getting a run off the bat until about the 4th over, lots of playing and missing and only using the edge of the bat to score with!
Still, I would have settled for our 44-0 after 10 overs. Then, after seeing off one of the opening bowlers, Easy (17) popped one up to point off a 12-year-old kid, and just to show it was no fluke, JF (streaky 23) was out a few balls later to a carbon copy dismissal with the score on 58-2.
With Ed and Goughy together at the crease, I felt sure that the runs would flow, but their partnership was cut short when TH (7) had a swish and was bowled by their left-arm spinner (who bowled 13 overs in a row). 74-3.
Even so, I was still reasonably happy with 80-3 off 20 overs, but rather than pushing on, our innings seemed to stall. We only managed 21 runs in the next 10 overs and we just could not get any momentum going. Shaky was run out for 8 going for a second run; Stevo knocked a sweet single and a four before being adjudged caught behind.
The next 10 overs weren’t much better – we lost 4 wickets and only added 38 runs. Goughy (23) walked after the thinnest of nicks to the keeper; Foxy (1) called Paul for a run but was sent back and couldn’t recover his ground; Andy F pinged a straight 4 first ball, but soon fell LBW for 6; David H was bowled without scoring. Only Paul stuck around for any length of time, but even he couldn’t get the scoreboard moving quickly.
So with time running out and 9 wickets down, Dan (who had only just managed to find the ground) entered the fray and proceeded to show the rest of us how it should have been done. Several lusty blows (so that’s why they call him ‘Shagger’), including one giant 6, helped us up to a score of 156 before he was caught on the long-on boundary for 22, leaving Pablo 21 not out.

If I’m honest, I didn’t think 156 was enough to defend, so I was thinking of sending Paul and Dan back out after tea to use up a couple of overs and try and get us up to about 180. Dan’s dismissal off the last ball before tea made it a moot point and probably saved me from swiftly becoming the most unpopular man in Llanvapley!

I don’t really know how to describe the second innings – you had to see it to believe how unlucky we were.
We needed early wickets and Ed obliged by bowling one of the openers with the score on 12. This brought their number 3 in – the same left arm spinner who bowled 13 overs in our innings – it must be real fun for some of the other players in their side!! He was a good batsman and mixed some very good shots with a fair bit of playing and missing against both Dan and Ed. While he was in, the scoreboard kept ticking over but he eventually holed out to mid off, caught nicely by Andy F off TH.
Paul replaced Dan and bowled an excellent spell, taking a wicket in his first over, caught by Shaky at mid on. He could have had a couple more and had a definite caught behind turned down (remember, Stevo was given out, correctly in my opinion, but it was much less obvious than this one).
Andy F also bowled a decent spell without any luck and had a very good LBW shout turned down when the umpire’s finger twitched, came up to his hip and then went back down when he realised he was about to give his skipper out (remember, Andy himself was given out LBW – is there a pattern developing here?).
David H and Foxy bowled well for the last couple of overs and Dave did get a wicket, smartly caught by Andy F at deep point off a full toss – ironic when you consider all the good balls that didn’t get wickets!
Foxy should also have had a stumping, but guess what? – it wasn’t given. In fact there were a couple of stumpings and run outs that weren’t given, much to Goughy’s annoyance.

The truth is, we didn’t get enough runs and they got them with about 3 overs to spare, but I have never seen a fielding team with so much bad luck in one innings. Apart from the aforementioned umpiring discrepancies, we probably created enough chances to take about 20 wickets – the number of edges or false shots that went over fielders or fell in front of them or into space was unbelievable! Only 3 went to hand (4 counting Goughy’s!) and we held on to all of them.
Aaah, on another day what might have been …

Llanvapley win by 6 wickets.

The bowling figures don’t reflect the true story, but for the sake of completeness:
Dan 7-0-34-0 (well bowled, very unlucky)
Ed 8-0-30-2 (well bowled)
Paul 6-0-23-1 (well bowled, unlucky)
Andy F 4-0-26-0 (well bowled, unlucky)
Foxy 4-0-20-0 (well bowled, unlucky)
David H 3-0-18-1 (well bowled, unlucky)

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