Post date: Jul 23, 2017 5:25:22 PM
Saturday 15th July
The mighty twos on the road again and all fired up from a big score last week. Off to face top of the table Ipplepen 3rds. These being the team that proper stuffed us at the beginning of the year. Bowled out for 33 or something.
Playing at Stover School on the artificial so no spikes allowed!
LJ defied the 2017 season odds by losing the toss. His chief toss caller Dale Harris being absent from the side I guess. Any whatever, they chose to bat.
On a bouncy track with relatively short boundaries and a fast outfield the discussions were around 250 as a benchmark score as we walked out to field. True enough anything with anything on it was scooting to the boundary and into the lovely long Grass/Thistles/Nettles on the boundary. JL(9.0.42.2) was the first to strike removing one of the openers in the 5th over, caught by ….name not in book.
His opening partner C Holiday (9.0.4.2) applied some symmetry to the opening bowling attack. Something which the OCD amongst us were pleased with. At two down, Ipplepens #4 bat. Wearing a white floppy sun hat and looking exactly like Graham Gooch did in the 80’s ( even his bloominkit looked like it was from the 80s!!) came to the crease with Briddy starting to think …we might be nearly through this lot and into the hutch already.
Ipplepen had trudged along to 84 for 3 by the 18th over with 1stchange Marco Butler (9.0.51.1) bowling with some wheels taking that third wicket in his second over. E Valance (8.0.44.0) supporting at the other end was also bowling well.
Now with their # 4 (Goochie) & # 5 (Fat Boy Slim) bats at the crease we needed one last wicket and we knew that we were into them. And lo we were…!!
Trouble was that was into the 34th over and the score at 205.
Only point of note was Goochie being put down when he was on around 50 by Nielo ‘owww my fingers’
Joppers (6.0.30.1) brought the run fest to halt. LJ had also turned to part time bowlers Buzz (2.0.17.0) and Batstone (2.0.8.0)
And we were definitely into the soft underbelly of the team as wickets fell and runs dried up when really Ipplepen should have been charging onto 300. E Valance and C Holiday bowling very well at the death.
Final score 260 for 6 with Goochie unbeaten on 125*
The observant will note that not one maiden was bowled in the whole innings….sort of summed up the innings really.
Tea….. ok ‘oh this looks lovely spread whats in the sandwiches?’ ….’what would you like?’. Well I fancy maybe ham and pickle, but can’t quite make out whats in the rolls’. Theres a reason for that…..thats a roll! , over there is the ham, and over there is the pickle….put it together yourself!............ideal
After a lovely tea we set about the score. Definitely reminding ourselves that 250 was only a par score.
Ipplepen opened with a proper fast quick (WTF is this guy doing in 3rd 11 cricket!) Nielo showed him absolutely no respect slapping him for two successive 4s. maybe 300 was more like a par score after all. Unfortunately Neilo tried to repeat it only to find the guy on the boundary. 1 wicket down…..lets keep going though.
Ian ‘teflon’ juts and Buzz came and went troubling the scorers little. Yet still we believed!
LJ and Batstone kept on pace with the run rate of 6/over till the 20th over before LJ tried to smash mr quickie for another 4 off his last ball only to be bowled neck and crop. At drinks we still only had 6/over.
3 balls later Batstone fell on 48 (arrrrrrghhh!!) ‘I would have dobbed a couple of bloody singles if you’d told me!!’
Mark Butler strode to the crease with the obvious intent of finishing off the match in style. The balls came and the balls went. 26 off one notable over. His 50 was up in just over 20 balls…….we still believed ! Jack Shaw held one end up whilst Mark ‘hero’ Butler smashed the ball to all parts from the other end.
It was not to be….Once they had snared Marco for 70 and the score on 195 we just melted away in the 37th over.
We were probably right 250 was a bench score, but those early wickets didn’t enable a blast at the end.
Never mind. Better luck next week, when we host……errrm.
Who? …..no idea, somebody else.