Printer-friendly pageMonday, September 11, 2006
Partnerships
Results table
2006 season review
The club’s 26th year (post Sri Lanka tour) saw us use 3 new players bringing the total number of players who have represented the club up to 153. In total 29 players were used, 19 of whom bowled, 16 of these took wickets and 17 players took catches or stumpings.
Our full record was: Won 3, Drew 1 and Lost 8 with 3 games cancelled, one to bad weather and the other two due to opponents letting us down at the 11th hour failing to gather enough players. We had good chances to win at least two of these games which would have made our record better and these cancellations at regular intervals gave the season a rather disjointed feel.
The only common link to all 3 games was that Steve Cotton was down to play in all 3 games so perhaps we should all be wary of which games Steve makes himself available for next season!
Our 3 wins were based around good individual batting performances from Lui Patel (v Walthamstow),
Phil Rogers (Sunderland) and Trevor Mayhew (Witham Friary) backed up by good all round bowling and fielding performances. Apart from our defeat to Coldharbour, we avoided any heavy defeats as had been the case in 2005 but apart from the losses to Derby and in The Nelson Cup we didn’t trouble our opponents too greatly in our other defeats so the old saying that the scorebook never lies is probably a fair reflection of our games played in 2006.
Peter Berkeley won The Player of The Year award for the 2nd year in a row – he will have to go some to win it next year (and in any case it wouldn’t seem right for a ‘Hilda‘ to achieve a hat-trick of different sorts)! Trevor Mayhew was top of the batting aggregates and averages with the top score going to debutant Lui Patel with 86 not out. Pete was top wicket taker with 16 followed by Little (Where’s) John whose 7 wickets did not truly reflect how well he bowled in his first season. A clear sign of our under performance this season on the bowling front was that we only had 3 wicket hauls on 2 occasions (Pete 3 for 23 and Swampy Frood 3 for 31).
Arran also took most catches with 4 followed by Wath and the two debutants Little John and Gavin Van Marle with 3.
The Duck Trophy found its way back to its rightful owner Garry Burrell after a number of years absence. His 4 ducks do not detract from the Skipper’s decision to bat him up the order this season as he had four other scores around the 20 mark and he had far more innings than his other
contenders. In fact Damian Chalmers who came 2nd with 3 ducks achieved this from only 5 innings – a feat of which he can be truly proud as he looks at the other 10 batsmen ahead of him in the batting order when he plays next year.
The Champagne Moment was almost unanimously awarded to our Umpire Big Dave who called “Over“ (with all the hand actions that he himself has dreamt up) immediately after calling “Wide“ off the last ball of an over whilst on tour in Somerset – you had to be there.
Other noteable milestones achieved in 2006: Trevor Mayhew passed 3,000 club career runs, Pete Berkeley passed 1,500 and John Griffiths and Gary Speedtwin 500. Paul Pearce on his way pass 100 season runs hit his best ever score of 33 and Pete finally passed the half century mark in making 60 v West XI. Arran achieved his best club bowling analysis with 3 – 31 and John Griffiths passed 50 club career wickets. With this last statistic, the Skipper finally passed the landmark that he has been striving for – his 1,000th useless stat!
Our final match of the season was our 290th, so hopefully next year we should play our 300th match - a fact worth celebrating as our squad continues to grow and the club thrive as many of our contemporaries struggle to continue.
DT
