Match Report vs Tintern
31 May 2009 @ Tintern (Skipper & report Jonny F)
Tintern, beautiful Tintern. Could it get any better than
this? A beautiful hot sunny day, with deep blue skies and
not a cloud in sight; a beautiful and leisurely drive through
the picturesque Monmouthshire countryside; the village itself,
charming, quaint and beautiful; the setting, incomparable
with the Abbey in the background, standing majestic and beautiful;
the pitch, rough as a badger’s arse and sprinkled with
rabbit shit; the changing facilities … well, closed
– so instead, we used the stiflingly hot shed/shack
that looks like it’s about to fall down at any moment.
Nothing’s perfect, I guess.
It really was boiling hot so on winning the toss, we decided
to bat first. The skipper & Pablo opened up with Paul
continuing his recent spate of good form and looking in good
touch, but the partnership was short lived as JF was caught
in the gully for 4 off one that bounced and looped up off
the shoulder of the bat. Steveo came in at three and after
playing a lovely straight-batted on drive for 4, reverted
to type a couple of balls later and cross-batted one to point
off the top edge for an easy catch.
This brought the newly christened Mojam to the crease. He
and Paul batted very well, adding 30-odd and at 55-2 off 14
overs we looked well set to get a half decent score. Unfortunately,
Mo was then bowled for 16 by one that stayed low before Jeff
C spooned up another easy catch after adding just a single.
Moments afterwards, disaster struck when the free-scoring
Pablo (28) smacked a long hop straight to square leg where
the fielder took a good catch – the ball was travelling
and he held on very well to be fair.
55-2 had suddenly become 63-5 so a bit of rebuilding was
needed. Akbari went out to the middle accompanied by the sound
of the captain’s voice offering friendly advice: “Just
play straight Ash - if you get out playing across the line,
I’ll kick your arse!!”. Fortunately, no arse-kicking
was needed as Ash and Richie both played very responsibly
for the next 10 overs or so, adding a further 27 runs.
It was about this time that Tintern brought on Ellis, an
innocuous looking slow bowler, from the Abbey end. He didn’t
look like much, but he ended up with four wickets and pretty
much turned the game on its head. First to go was Richie (11)
caught on the midwicket boundary trying to up the rate. Ash
was bowled (NOT playing across the line) for a determined
14 and Ed Stewart came and went without troubling the scorers.
Andy Hood added 9 runs before being bowled at the other end
by a horrible delivery that stayed low and glanced off the
pads before hitting the stumps. Iain Warwick became Ellis’s
final victim, also bowled off his pads for 3, leaving Andy
F stranded at the other end and the Casuals 109 all out with
over 6 overs left in the innings.
It was a truly horrible batting display with two mini-collapses
(the aforementioned 55-2 becoming 63-5 and then 90-5 becoming
92-8, then 103-9, then 109 all out) and we committed the cardinal
sin of not using up all the overs. In fact, we finished so
early that tea wasn’t ready, so we had to go back out
and field for 10 overs before taking tea.
P Stephens caught 28
J Furnham caught 4
S O’reilly caught 5
Mo Jamal bowled 16
J Clapham caught 1
Ash Akbari bowled 14
R Holliday caught 11
Es Stewart bowled 0
I Warwick bowled 3
Andy Hood bowled 9
A Furnham not out 0
We desperately needed wickets and Winkie almost obliged first
ball as Ellis edged one past keeper JF’s shoulder. Unperturbed,
Andy stormed in and got an lbw decision with the final ball
of the over. Curiously, Ellis is listed as scoring 0 in the
book, so the umpire must have given byes off the first ball
– now that would have been interesting had it gone to
hand!
Jeff Clapham opened from the other end and after a wayward
first over, settled into his usual metronomic line & length.
His second over was a wicket maiden and with Andy H continuing
his excellent spell, at tea Tintern were 30-2 off 10 overs.
I loved the roast potatoes but they were bloody hot! –
it might have been an idea to provide something to pick them
up with. I wonder, do they have forks in Tintern?
After tea, Iain ‘Dion’ Warwick kept the pressure
on with 4 tight overs whilst Ed the Cheese bowled three overs
from the other end. He only bowled 4 bad balls but all of
them went to the boundary, so Pablo came on from the Abbey
end whilst Mojam replaced Iain.
At 70-2, Tintern were cruising it, but Mo made a breakthrough
with his second ball. A couple of overs later, Pablo bowled
their number 5 (79-4) taking him on to 299 wickets. Next over,
Mojam bowled their number 6 (80-5) and in the very next over
Pablo got his 300th wicket for the club, thanks to a smart
catch by Richie at square leg and the score 80-6. Wicket numbers
301 and 302 came a couple of overs later, one a caught &
bowled which Paul didn’t see until very late and one
caught by Ash at mid on.
After 28 overs they were 93-8 and with 12 overs to get the
17 runs needed, we were never going to restrict them, so we
went for the jugular. Paul finished his spell without any
further success whilst Andy Hood came back for his last three
overs and bowled brilliantly (3 maidens) but without any luck,
in spite of finding the edge a few times.
With just 7 needed to win, Jeff replaced Pablo conceding a
boundary and a single and off the very first ball of Mojam’s
next over, their skipper turned one that bounced down to fine
leg and they ran the two which gave Tintern the victory.
As we left the field, I felt an odd mixture of pride and
frustration. After batting so miserably, we made Tintern fight
all the way to the end for their victory. The bowling was
superb and the fielding was good (even though we dropped a
couple of tough chances as usual), so we could all walk off
with our heads held high. There was just this frustration
knowing that we should have scored at least another 50 runs
and that even another 20 would have won us the game. It seems
to be the theme of the 2009 season so far.
Andy Hood 8-3-11-1
Jeff Clapham 6-1-23-1
Iain Warwick 4-1-10-0
Ed Stewart 3-0-23-0
Paul Stephens 8-2-20-4
Mo Jamal 5.1-0-17-2
Congratulations to Pablo on reaching 300 wickets (plus 2).
A tremendous achievement mate – keep ‘em coming!
[Milestones]
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