Printer-friendly pageTuesday, June 3, 2008
35 over match (well it should have been)
Well another year is upon us and some things never change. At the due start time of 1.00 only 5 of our team had turned up with 6 still on the road (including Captain and Vice Captain) trying to find the ground. Little John had forgotten his spikes and his trousers (lets give him credit for trying as he has decided to this year to pack his bag himself instead of relying on his mum) and the London Saints had collapsed to 16 – 6 off the first 10 overs of the season. The one thing the London Saints batting line up can be relied upon to do is to collapse and to collapse in style and this was style. A solid start by the newly twice defeated Ex Councillor Griffiths and the returning from Stateside Jonty “ it’s not true that my American fiancé blew me out it was a mutual decision“ Nanton took us to 13 – 1 after 7 overs. 13 – 1 became 13 – 2, then 3, then 4, then 5 and finally 6 as 5 wickets fell for NO runs in 14 balls. Wickets fell so fast that not even the bowler realised he had taken a hat-trick but what scalps. Wath thought he had made an early play for the duck trophy when he was 4th man out not realising he would be joined by 2 others immediately. Owen Dallison was the 2nd member of the hat-trick (a golden duck on debut – he joins a long and distinguished club) with Damian Chalmers (who should no better by now) completing the trio. Gary Speedtwin made it a 4th duck as he was harshly given out by our Trigger Happy Umpire Griffiths for his first but definitely not last victim of the season. So 4 ducks and a single run scored by Clive Dunn and ‘Where’s Little John’ meant that the batting averages would start the season slowly and lowly.
The Skipper went in at 16 – 6 and briefly gave Gary Cronin some support for 7 overs but he too came one of Iqbal’s 5 victims for 7 runs. Gary coming in at Number 4 remained unbeaten on 12 at the end and didn’t look in much trouble but no-one else could keep him company as we struggled to a score of 41. This was a lot better than we feared at one stage with even our lowest ever score of 25 at one time under threat.
There were many mitigating factors: - we were very rusty - 6 of the team had not attended Nets and not picked up a bat since last summer – and it showed. The pitch was awkward to score off and we came up against an excellent bowling attack, particularly Iqbal a newcomer to us who was one of the quickest and most accurate bowlers we have faced for a while.
We went out to field fearing the worst but quickly got into the Gents batting reducing them to 15 - 3 showing that the pitch was not easy to bat on and it was not all down to our inept batting. Little John wearing Wath’s spare trousers and missing his spikes (which he had forgotten his dad had bought him last summer) bowled particularly well with 2 wickets off 4 overs whilst only conceding 9 runs. He owed the first wicket though to a spectacular salmon like leap from Dave ‘Jonty‘ Nanton. His ex-fiance’s loss is our gain as our fielding will certainly improve with Dave in our side this season
Man of the Match: Gary Cronin, fine batting who ran out of partners
35 over scoreboard
London Saints batting
Griffiths 9
Grimes 1
Nanton 3
Cronin 12 no
Wathan 0
Dallison 0
Chalmers 0
Thomas 2
Loomes 1
Speedtwin 0
Berkeley 5
Total 32
Extras 9
Total 41 all out
Gents 42 – 3
London Saints bowling
Berkeley 2-0-9-0
Loomes 4-0-9-2
Thomas 3-0-8-1
Grimes 1-0-11-0
Wathan 0.2-0-5-0
Catches 1 - Nanton
With the game finishing at 3.30 we decided to play another 20/20 game to use up the time and hopefully for ourselves to gain back some pride.
Determined to prove that the 1st game was just ‘one of those things that can happen to the London Saints’, we bowled and fielded tightly with 8 bowlers having a turn. After some early chances went down, our heads didn’t drop and the catches started to stick and even The Twintub rolled back the years and the memory bank with a stumping and a fine catch. Even debutant Owen (he later admitted that this was his first ever game of cricket) took a wicket from his 3 overs. Everyone bowled tightly but the pick had to be Hilda Berkeley who picked up 4 wickets in the middle of their innings to peg them back when at 58 – 1 Gents looked on for a large total. Restricting them to 120 off 20 overs was a fine effort against a team with a strong batting line up
The Skipper decided to try and reproduce the excellent Thomas / Berkeley partnership of almost 12 months ago which put on 93 undefeated runs for the 6th wicket against the same opponents. This time the pair opened the batting with the Skipper taking on the role of pinch hitter and Pete keeping his end intact. We quickly raced to 48 – 0 off 7 overs before the Skipper fell lbw for 31 failing to practice what he was preaching to Moanin Cronin just earlier - “ Play each ball on its merits and don’t try and hit the next ball for 6 just because you’ve hit the last one for 6!! “ Anyway we had a good platform but like the 1st game with Gary Cronin, Pete ran out of partners as he excellently kept one end going to remain unbeaten on 44 after our 20 overs. It was still a fantastic effort from the team falling only 3 runs short against some very tight bowling towards the end of the innings as the pressure finally told.
Man of the Match: Obviously Pete Berkeley with 4 wickets and an unbeaten 44 but the whole team showed great character to come back from the first match drubbing to get so close in the second.
Little John also picked up 4 wickets in the day and the experience of 2 innings for our players will help get the rust of the system and be a benefit for the rest of the season
Champagne Moment: At the venue of his ‘ Sunday Roast ‘ Champagne Moment last year I am tempted to choose Little John for forgetting his trousers and forgetting that he actually possessed a pair of spikes and then forgetting that he actually came out of the house wearing a jacket. A jacket was left in the changing room so the obvious candidate was John – upon phoning him up as he was walking down the road to the pub I was told “ it can’t be mine I wasn’t wearing one today “ after a brief pause he replied “ Or was I ? “ and after a further pause “ Oh yes it is mine where is it ? “ – And this man is going to be a father to a young baby in 5 months time!
The award though has to go to Jonty Nanton’s brilliant diving catch – we will do well to better that this season
20/20 scoreboard
Gents 120 –8
LSSC bowling
Wathan 2-0-11-0
Nanton 1-0-9-0
Griffiths 2-0-13-0
Cronin 3-0-23-1
Berkeley 4-0-13-4
Dallison 3-0-19-1
Loomes 3-0-14-2
Thomas 2-0-15-0
Catches 1 – Nanton, Speedtwin, Chalmers, Loomes, Griffiths, Cronin
Stumping – 1 – Speedtwin
LSSC batting
Thomas 31
Berkeley 44 no
Dallison 3
Chalmers 2
Wathan 5
Nanton 1
Cronin 6
Loomes 3
Griffiths 2
Speedtwin 2 no
Total 101
Extras 16
Total 117 - 8
