g29_27jul06_LegalGeneral

And so to our annual slaughter at the place we like to call run happy valley – for the opposition that is – Penarth as it’s also known to the home team.

After losing the toss the rather sporting captain of theirs decided to put us in to bat after I declared that we were waiting for one of our players.

Opening again were the dastardly duo of Cllr Stephens and Dr Dain, and despite the best efforts of the opening two bowlers, we remained intact after six overs having amassed the princely sum of 37 runs.

First to fall was the Dr (bowled) for 13 ( 38 for 1 in the 7th over ) allowing Will to middle to help up the ante.

Mark fell next to a run out (less pies Cllr …. and cakes, Miss Millies, visits to the China Kitchen … need I go on?) for a well crafted 23 ( 47 for 2 off 10 )

Kim joined Will and the two put on a swashbuckling 56 before Will was bowled for 23 ( 103 for 3 in the 17th )

Late comer Goughy (!) came and went for a very swift two twos (bowled) ( 110 for 4 also in the 17th )which hastened Tesh into the fray.

Alas I was also called into action following Kim’s dismissal LBW for 36 (including 2 sixes) ( 116 for 5 in the 18th ) – three balls later I was back in the hutch caught off the gloves for 4 ( 120 for 6 in the 18th )

Last in was Dan and he and Tesh added two off the last two balls to bring the innings to a close.

122 for 6 off 18 overs (Extras 19 : 3 nb; 7 w; 4 lb; 5 b)

Dewbs, Nadeem and Paul DNB

A respectable score maybe for a shield game but this is L&G on their own ground we were around 2-300 short of what we needed.

Dan opened down the hill with the wind and after a tight opening 17 balls he said he’d be happy with a play and a miss – which the batsman duly obliged with. He must have been kicking himself later when it occurred to him that he could have said in his first over I’d be happy for a 10 for ……….

With Paul declaring himself fit to bowl he was given the wind (to bowl into). However, that merely gave the batsman the wind behind him and with two sixes off his first over it was looking ominous at this ground once again.

After 5 overs L&G were slightly ahead of the rate at 54 without loss.

Paul made way for Nadeem into the wind and he was rewarded in a wayward opening over with a caught & bowled to remove their opener ( 30 ) leaving them floundering on 56 for 1 in the sixth. We could sense something was about to happen you could smell it in the air – but then Ed apologised declaring that it was something from lunch that had disagreed with him and the game continued.

Dewbs replaced Shagger down the slope and after a tight first over he went the same way as many a bowler and suffered in the middle before starting to bring it back at the end.

Will took the twelfth over and Tesh bowled 3 of the thirteenth.

The first ball of Tesh’s over saw the dismissal of their number two batsman ( 50 ) caught very well in the deep by Shagger which had them on 120 for 2.

Tesh’s second ball was a dot and Tesh’s third cleared the boundary rope to wrap up the game for the opposition.

126 for 2 off 12.3 overs (Extras 18 : 15 w; 3 lb)

There would have been a lot more wides run but for Goughy’s heroics behind the stumps – I bet he was glad he drove like a looney back from West Wales to play in this one!

People always say you learn something from defeat – I think we’re beginning to learn that you can’t win at Penarth against L&G if they have a few of their main batsmen playing!

Their captain said to me as we left the field “well that’s one each now” – to which I replied yeah but I don’t think the two games are really comparable as he said he didn’t recognise too many of our players from the last game to this one – having explained that we have a squad of 30 players and we liked to give everyone a game I then thought that the main difference between the two games wasn’t our team but their opening 4 batsmen !! … but I was wrong (again) as the teams below show 3 of their top 4 batsmen were the same in both games – I’m happy enough with our squad rotation though 17 players across the two games – those who played in both games didn’t bat in the same position and everyone did something (apart from me !)