Deerest team mates.
St. Lawrence at home. Another rain affected game. It’s August now, this is getting ridiculous. Anyway, to the game we go.
After some luck at the toss, we were back to winning ways and I put St Lawrence into bat. Seb and Michael opening up with the ball, but the ball was not giving them much in terms of swing or seam on the day, and the opening batsmen were able to survive the pace attack, but not their own running – quick singles were taking their hamstrings out and there was an early runner involved. No surprise then that our first wicket came by way of run out – Tom D picking the ball up cleanly at cover and pinging a throw in straight over the stumps for Jules to finish the job – slick cricket all round.
At the 10 over mark, we turned to our more experienced two pronged attack, Brian and Phil S. At this point, you’ll all be wondering ‘but Tom, that means one of them bowled from the road end…surely not!’ – I know, it was a remarkable state of affairs. Phil was the poor soul who I asked to perform this devilish task from holding down the road end. To say it didn’t go down too well is an understatement – if you’ve ever seen Phil been given a wide that was marginal, you’ll know what I mean. Ironically enough, his first ball was a harshly called wide, and the look I got at mid-on was frightening. However, he bowled with his usual flight and guile, matched wonderfully by Brian’s unerring accuracy at the other end. Phil picked up 3 wickets in statistically his second best spell of the year (beaten only by the away game at St Lawrence), and Brian bowled 4 maidens in his 9, only going for 11 runs in total, incredible mastery of the conditions. This 18 over spell really strangled our oppo, but the weather intervened just as it came to a close, with rain/thunder/lightening all contributing to a rush back to the changing rooms. After an hour or so, the rain finally stopped and the storm passed on, the ground had taken the moisture gladly and allowed us to get going again around 5pm-ish. Both Tom D and I were about to come onto bowl before the rain, and I was worried about the wet ball, but Tom D was straight into his work, bowling with lovely flight and dip, looking like he’s been in the nets all summer. He got 3 wickets in the end, just reward for a tight spell at the end of the innings, including a googly that spun back up the hill through the gate. Looking forward to seeing more of that across the remaining games. At the other end, I bowled tidily and picked up another 2 wickets, which meant that St Lawrence had batted the full 40 overs and reached 109-9.
Given we’d already had an hour’s rest in the rain delay, there was a quick turnaround at the halfway point, and our openers headed out to start our chase. Dan picked off where he left off at Cudham, scoring fluently and quickly – unfortunately Arthur did not and was out second ball. That brought John to the crease, returning after a few weeks away, and he only managed one more ball that Arthur, neither of them troubling the scorers. Striding out to join Dan was George, who was immediately determined to see this chase through. The ship was steadied by this partnership, both scoring off the bad balls and just about keeping the good ones out – one of the opposition bowlers was making the most of the now juicy pitch and was seaming the ball both ways. One that jagged back up the hill brought an end to Dan’s innings at 31 from 28 (five 4s and one 6 mean that 26 of his 31 runs were from boundaries – stand and deliver stuff). That wicket brought me out to the crease, and I did my best to stay with George for as long as possible as we scraped through more good bowling in a tough period. Scoring a scratchy 12 from 24 (slooooow I know), I fell when trying to accelerate with a premeditated charge. Lord Asterisk himself, the Red Ink Messiah, came to the crease to accompany George to the finish, contributing 18 to the cause, and with George also not out at the end with 33 from a colossal 68 deliveries, it was clear that the chase was not as straight forward as it would have seemed before we began. In any case, we crossed the finish line on the back of George’s stalwart innings, extending our winning record to 11-1 across the season, and maintaining our gap to Cudham in second.
Awards time – we all know George as a fluent attacking batsman but he really dug in for us in the batting innings, when a Sennocke collapse loomed dark on the horizon like the thunderstorm earlier in the day. His calm assured innings was key to get us over the line on the day, and he took another catch (more regulation than the one featured heavily in last week’s report), so his contribution was felt in both innings. Congrats George – not only are you enjoying your own stag do at time of writing, but you are also the recipient of the MVP award. (No photos this week – unless something gets posted from the stag do, in which case we will update this accordingly)
In terms of TFC, if we look back a few reports, there was a rollover, so I’m delighted to be able to award this prestigious honour to both Arthur and John this week. Both usually contribute nicely with bat and are active in the field, however this week there was not a lot to write home about for either. Thanks for coming to you both.
Back at it tomorrow, away to Fordcombe but at Stonewall Park. Some more old faces make an appearance tomorrow, looking forward to seeing everyone. See you there and in the meantime – swing true Sennocke.