Match Report vs Glenwood
2 July 2009 @ Wenvoe (Skipper and Report Jonny F)
It was gloomy and apparently pissing down everywhere except
at Wenvoe where 11 Casuals and about 18 Glenwood players turned
up for a game that nobody thought we would complete. We agreed
to use a white ball as it was so gloomy and I was amazed when
their skipper put us in to bat.
JF & Mahesh opened slowly but steadily, putting on 37
off 9 overs, but the skipper was out off the first ball of
the 10th over, caught on the long off boundary for 14, followed
in the same over by Mahesh also caught for 17.
Will & Steveo ticked along nicely before Steve was caught
for 10 in the 14th over. Pikey & Will then set about the
bowling, taking great pleasure in smacking the obnoxious bowler
(a particularly 'vocal' player aptly dressed in red shorts,
football shirt and baseball cap on backwards) around the park.
Two overs later Will skied one and was caught & bowled
for a well made 27. Akbari came in with licence to smack it
around but was bowled for 1, leaving Pikey & Richie to
finish the innings unbeaten on 19 and 7 respectively.
Casuals total 109-5 off 20
J Furnham caught 14
M Kannan caught 17
Will Goad c & b 27
S O’Reilly caught 10
Jamie Pike not out 19
Ash Akbari bowled 1
Richie H not out 7
Now then … since the score book was in Titty’s
car (Oh no it isn’t! – Oh yes it is!), I took
a picture of their book with my phone but it’s almost
impossible to read, so the next bit is pretty sketchy and
done mainly from memory; if any of the bowlers know their
figures, feel free to send them on gents.
I had agreed with their captain that they could use substitutes
in order to give everyone a game, so their batting line-up
was completely different to their bowling/fielding line-up.
Iain opened the bowling with a maiden but from the other
end Rog had the misfortune of facing their best batsmen and
went for 9 in his first over, though he did get the other
opener clean bowled. Dion then followed up with a superb double
wicket maiden – one bowled and one caught behind by
Steveo which the batsman was adamant he didn’t hit,
even though the non-striker and the umpire thought it was
a definite edge.
At this stage, Glenwood were reeling at 9-3 off three overs
but it was apparent that the opener who was still there was
a really good batsman and he took 9 off Rog’s next over
and 8 off Dion’s.
Matt Davies & Andy F took over the bowling and were
both tight in general, although ‘Good Bat’ continued
to punish anything loose and took singles off the good balls.
Pikey had a good spell and suffered pretty much the same fate
as the other bowlers – ie getting hit by Good Bat while
keeping the other batsmen fairly quiet; he also took two wickets,
one caught by Doc at mid on and another caught by JF at midwicket.
Then in one of Porno’s overs, Good Bat pushed an easy
single into the off side and the blokes on the boundary started
clapping – there was no way he could have got to 50
but he then put his bat under his arm and walked off! He retired
so that the other guys in the side could have a bat –
very noble – but by this time Glenwood were well up
with the rate.
Dion had one over left so came back and took another wicket
bowled first ball, giving him excellent figures of 3 for 10
off his 4 overs. There was some interesting umpiring from
their old guy in Pikey’s next over: he bowled a ball
which the batsman nicked on the leg side and which Steveo
managed to stop, though he couldn't quite hang on. Pikey and
the Casz strangled their appeal, only to see the umpire turn
round and call a wide ball. The skipper & bowler protested
that the batsman hit it, to which the ump replied, ‘Oh
did he?’ and then overturned the wide call. Next ball,
the bat charges down the wicket, Pikey seees him coming and
spears one in at his legs, it misses the pads by about an
inch and the old ump calls this one wide!! Oh well …
By this time, they only needed 14 off the last two overs
and, with wickets in hand, the batsmen were having a tonk
and running everything. Rog bowled the last but one over which
was a bit of a mixed bag with a couple of wides, a boundary,
a two, a couple of singles and a wicket (smartly caught over
his head by the skipper, if I may be so immodest!). Somebody
then needed to bowl the last over but with only 5 needed to
win, JF thought it would be unfair to ask anyone else to do
it, so the skipper stepped forward himself. The first ball
was a high, loopy full toss which hit the batsman in the box
and the old guy called a no ball! When asked why it was a
no ball, he said ‘over head height’ – I
did speculate as to the anatomy of a batsman whose bollocks
were above his own head, but old guy was having none of it!
They then took a single and a two to tie the scores, and
with the field in, the batsman hit a four over the top to
win the game for Glenwood with three balls to spare.
Iain Warwick 4-2-10-3
J Bannister 4-0-28-2
Matt Davies 3-1-14-0
A Furnham 4-0-18-0
Jamie Pike 4-0-23-2
J Furnham 0.3-0-8-0
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we simply didn’t
score enough runs batting first; I’d say we were probably
about 20 runs light. We lost wickets at crucial times which
set us back just as we were looking to accelerate the scoring
rate and our running was lazy - we didn’t really look
for twos by pushing the first run hard. Having said that,
the difference in this particular game was Good Bat. If he
hadn’t been playing, 109 would probably have been good
enough against their batting line-up. On the other hand, if
he had not retired, he would probably have won the game almost
single-handedly with about 5 overs to spare.
Still, you can't grumble too much when a game goes to the
last over and apart from the mouthy red-shorted gobsh*te ('Why
was that a wide?' and 'you can't get closer than plumb'),
they were an good bunch of blokes.
Now, where on earth can I find the scorebook?
Ah, yes ... Tittttttttttyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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