Saturday 27th August 2006

Richard’s back from his holiday, and in the light of the food parcel he sent me, I decided to allow him to resume his role of keeper. For the moment I’m assuming Interpreter has taken extended leave of absence, so Tom remains as vice-captain. I must admit it’s a toss-up whether he or Vicus have the greatest experience in this field.* MinCat is settling-in to a new home, so I gave her the day off to unpack.

We lost the toss, Touch and Go CC deciding to bat. To be fair, our wicket hasn’t had much attention the last few weeks (the mower was drowned in The Great Flood, and the heavy roller’s a bit rusty too), and our bowlers found it hard to find the right line and length.

Our openers (Tom and I) couldn’t make any impression at all, and the score was already over fifty before our second pair (Vicus and Carol) finally made a breakthrough, following some quick reactions with the gloves by Richard to a slower ball from Vicus: 52-1.

Our third pair (Phil and Jona) couldn’t get a wicket, and with the score ominously over 100 I brought the openers back, making a breakthrough myself when Carol held a diving catch: 109-2.

Runs continued to flow freely before a batsman lofted the ball to a dozing Jona, who awoke just in time to hold onto it: 151-3.

Our second pair achieved nothing; we moved to the third string, Richard holding another excellent catch off Jona’s (extremely) slow bowling: 196-4.

To try something different I gave Ivy a few overs – whilst reasonably economical, she never threatened to take a wicket. However, Frangelita held a surprise catch off Phil’s bowling: 231-5.

Over 100 runs now came off the bat, whilst your increasingly desperate captain tried several different bowling combinations (and rejected Carol’s suggestion that she be allowed to tamper with the ball).

Finally Tom bowled his man: 382-6.

I bowled another batsman: 417-7.

Vicus got an LBW: 447-8.

I held a catch in gulley off Jona’s bowling: 459-9.

Carol took the last wicket, clean bowled; 464-10.

Tea, whilst it looked excellent (well done everyone, especially our new recruit to the kitchen) tasted like ashes in my mouth. I held a long and serious team-talk in the dressing room before we took to the field again. Clearly we had a mountain to climb, so I stressed we should not think about it, but instead concentrate on the fact that every 46½ runs earn us one point (should we lose). Stick in, no flashy shots, let’s just knock off the runs in blocks of 47.

That’s what I asked for.

Tom and Vicus nearly achieved it, the first wicket falling at 39, as Tom was comprehensively bowled.

Medusa was the first of several players to find that her bat seemed to comprise two edges and no middle, being caught in the slips: 57-2.

Vicus fell the same way, when we had nearly achieved our second batting point: 86-3.

Richard and I made a short stand, before he edged to the keeper: 106-4.

Jona achieved a golden duck, edging the next ball to the slips: 106-5.

Ivy and I then put on a 72 run stand for the sixth wicket, before she was given out LBW: 178-6.

A few balls later Frangelita was bowled: 180-7.

Sensing that I was running out of partners, I tried to push on for another couple of points, but was bowled when the score reached: 217-8.

This brought that pair of old troopers, Phil and Carol, together. Phil’s hours in the nets now showed, as this dashing pair put on a quick thirty, before Carol was caught trying to hit the ball over the fielders: 248-9.

I felt sure that Phil and Lisa would push the score beyond 300, but sadly Lisa’s duck ended the match at: 254-10.

Oh well, we earned five batting points. I’m sure you did your best (three of you, at least, did, scoring personal bests in this match).

Let’s hope the teams below us didn’t win, shall we?

I’ll post the league table here tomorrow, together with the updated averages for every player, as we’ve finished another month’s cricket.

*I’m talking about the field of vice, not cricket.