Match Report vs Lisvane
15 August 2010@ St Mellons (Skipper Jam, report Shakey)
Jam had the honour of being captain for the day on his 250th
appearance for the Casuals. This was also our first match
at St Mellons since August 2002 when we enjoyed an easy win
over Highways Hurricanes and four players survived to take
the field – Jam, Stevo, Shakes and Dave.
Amid the heat and glaring sunshine we discovered the old
entrance to the ground through the golf club had gone and
rolled up into an adjacent business park. Had the Mexican
jail which doubled up as a changing room been demolished?
Thankfully yes. The toilets worked, a white picket fence
surrounded the shorter boundaries, a heavy roller chugged
away on the square and three fat cazh could fit in the new
showers – progress indeed.
Jam and Ed opened but after biffing a good cut to the boundary
Ed was caught at point in the first over (4). Quiet cricket
ensued as the Lisvane openers alternated between bowling very
straight or a little wide so that sundries allowed the rate
to tick along. After a pleasing push through extra cover for
four JR was the next to depart bowled (5) to leave us 21-2
off 5.
The new partnership of Jam and Kim took a grip of the game
for the next 45 minutes, scoring freely while never quite
being in total control. Kim was dropped twice and found it
hard work apart from some nice clips to leg, and Jam patiently
waited for the opportunity to deploy his trademark lofted
straight drive. The electronic scoreboard began to race along
as we reached 92-2 off 18 with a minimum target of 180 firmly
in our sights on a quick outfield.
The introduction of two promising Lisvane youngsters, combined
age 30, abruptly halted the flow of runs and we inched along
against some accurate bowling. Jam finally fell, bowled by
a shooter, for a well made 54 (7 fours) in the 25th leaving
us 115-3. Ash rotated the strike well but also soon departed
to a tight run out and it was clear that the cazh innings
needed some momentum.
With those instructions from the sidelines ringing in his
ears Stevo theatrically left the first two balls he faced
and didn’t score off the first seven! What was he doing?
Did he have a plan? Has he ever had a plan?
Stevo proceeded to plunder 24 off the next 10 balls with
5 crisp boundaries, giving our innings the impetus it badly
needed, until he was eventually caught at mid-off. Mahesh
came in to join the party and thanks to an increasingly fluent
innings from Kim, in which he passed 2,000 runs for the Club,
the three of them racked up 69 from the last 7 overs. Mahesh
was finally caught off the last ball for 14, leaving Kim 77
not out (10 fours) in a total of 215-6 which was at the upper
end of what we hoped to achieve.
Cazh spirits soared with the sighting of a plentiful and
most excellent Tea, with homemade pie the highlight. Some
cazh felt compelled to feast on two slices of said heavy pie
(mea culpa?) and hoped to be placed at the top of the St Mellons
slope where less running would be required. Alas that plan
failed and the tactical Tea won out.
The first innings had shown that after all those years, and
even with a heavy roller, the pitch hadn’t changed.
It was slow and low with some gentle turn – a typical
old Wenvoe wicket here at St Mellons. So we had to bowl straight,
field cleanly and catch anything lofted in the air.
We started well with Dev bowling economically and JB picking
up a wicket caught behind by Stevo in his first over. A chirpy
Casuals team experimented with a new nickname for Mahesh/Frank
– cuckoo (Dev can explain but I’m not really sure
it works). But the young Lisvane opener Ikram slowly found
his feet and played some increasingly aggressive shots so
that when we clamed our second wicket, lbw to JB, the score
had moved along to 46-2 in the 12th over. JB bowled through
to complete his spell and picked up another wicket bowled
to claim 3-28 but this brought in the number 5 Williams.
Williams became the senior batsman, with Ikram playing the
supporting role, as they looked to put pressure on the cazh
with some judicious hitting. Our fielding frayed under the
attack and catches were put down, the ground fielding became
laboured and our throwing indifferent. The bowlers also failed
to apply any pressure without bowling particularly badly with
Dave, Shakes and Mahesh taking the brunt of the damage as
Lisvane posted 73 off the next 8 overs.
Shakes halted the Lisvane advance with a glorious full toss
doughboy special which Ikram (54) heaved into the waiting
hands of Stevo at mid-on. The bowlers finally began to chip
away at Lisvane and pressure mounted on the batting side as
Shakes picked up two more wickets caught off full tosses,
Ed at midwicket and a caught and bowled, and Stevo got just
reward for a tight spell by bowling the number 7. At 173-7
in the 33rd the lower order were exposed and we had a sniff.
But Williams was still there and he just kept batting. Our
fielding sadly failed to respond to the challenge, including
a run out chance, and Williams raced past his century and
took Lisvane home with 3 wickets and 13 balls to spare with
an undefeated 111 (15 fours). We just needed that one wicket.
Dev 8-1-53-0
JB 8-2-28-3
Dave 5-0-30-0
Shakes 8-0-48-3
Mahesh 3-0-22-0
Steve 5.5-0-30-1
We picked over the bones of the match with a few tinnies
in front of the pavilion as the sun went down and darkness
descended. The older Casuals may have wanted to cast their
minds back to Shield games played with a red ball in near
darkness some ten years before. But we all knew our fielding
had let us down again. A disappointing result but the idle
chat and banter ensured it wasn’t a wasted day.
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