Match Report vs Tintern 01July 2012

Seeing as we only played one game throughout the whole of June, I would suspect that most of the team were not overly confident on a full game, especially with the clouds looming over the small, picturesque ground at Tintern with the ominous yet amazing looking Abbey in the background.

Everyone seemed amazed that I was able to turn up to this game, even though I was not playing (not sure where these opinions manifested from!) with SteveO (who kindly took the place of PeteObee at the last minute!) gracing us with his presence at 14.05 with his woolly hat on and locks of grey hair coming out the sides!

Toss was won by the stand-in toss skipper Pablo, who to DT's disappointment decided to bat first (I guess he wanted a rest after the tea that would come later).

With the sun peeking through and warming up the ground slightly, JF and Tickle opened the batting, giving us a reasonable opening stand of 21 from 6 overs, unfortunately 2 quick wickets fell, Tickle fell first for 12 off 19 balls, quickly followed by Pablo 2 balls later for a duck. Richie then came in for I believe his first game in a while and provided a stand of 13 runs with JF for the 3rd wicket, before he was snatched at deep square leg (even though on this ground DEEP is not really the word!) while trying to pull the ball out the ground.

SteveO then bounded in to what we all hoped would be an entertaining innings and with a boundary 4 off his 3rd ball, he gave us hope. Unfortunately as with most Casz innings these sometimes don't go our way and another 4 wickets fell for 30 runs. Being 64-7 at the 22nd over, it seemed that an early tea was on the cards. HOWEVER, if a captain's innings was ever called for, now was the time and Cheese did not disappoint, hitting any loose deliveries to the boundary which was richly needed. He held a stand of 26 with Shakes, which brought in Winkie who to begin with was just happy rotating the strike so that our amazing (his request) captain could continue to hit the maximums to what was the be the inning's highest total of 40. Good hit skip!

DT then nervously walked into the middle, while the rest of us wondered how long he would last (I think SteveO guessed 5 overs) and also whether he was a better batsman that Pete!! I will leave it there.
DT surprised us all and gave a brilliant rear-guard defence while Winkie took over the senior batman mantle. Winkie ending on 27 off 33 balls and DT 3 off 20 balls NOT OUT!

We must thank Cheese for his contribution which got us to a respectable total of 149 off 37.4 overs, especially on a track that produced a lot of uneven bounce.

JF, caught, 14
Tickle, bowled, 12
Pablo, bowled, 0
Richie, bowled, 11
SteveO, caught, 6
Goff, LBW, 0
Ash, bowled, 3
Cheese, bowled, 40
Shakes, caught, 8
Winkie, LBW, 27
DT, NOT OUT, 3

To everyone's surprise I joined in with the tea, but I did not care as I was hungry!! A nice addition to tea on this occasion were the coronation chicken sandwiches .

Knowing the state of the track, we were confident in our bowling that we would be able to defend 149.
Winkie and Cheese opened up the bowling and did very well to keep their batsman on their toes and unable to pick up runs off the bat. Three wickets fell quickly in the space of 9 overs for only 15 runs, two bowled for Winkie and one bowled for Cheese. Unfortunately our magnificent skipper is actually human and snuffed a simple, in my opinion, caught and bowled chance. However, both continued bowling miserly with each ending their spells on decent figures, especially Winkie.

With the pace bowling over, Cheese's only options were the slower bowlers (yes Tesh this includes yourself!). DT was first change and immediately decided giving the opposition some runs, thinking it would be fair, was the way to go and went for 12 off his first over. Tesh, being told he must bowl seam, continued from the other end and started well keeping it line and length. Within the period that DT and Tickle bowled two more wickets fell one after the other (1 run between them), a bowled for Tesh and a catch by skipper Cheese (you just cant keep him out of it) for DT. By the end of Tickle's spell, the score was 40 for 5 after 14 overs, knowing that a win was well within scope.

JF then came on for what was his one and only over which not only wielded two wickets (good on him!), an LBW and a hard catch by Richie (bet he was relieved after previously dropping one in the same position of deep square leg) which removed their opener who had been in for 66 balls to only get 26 runs, but the over also went for 13 runs, so skipper Cheese felt that that would be good enough for JF and took him off!

Pablo and SteveO the bowled tight lines and lengths and mopped up the tail for another 13 runs. Pablo getting two bowled wickets and SteveO snatching a wicket caught and bowled which seemed to surprise everyone.

Cazh win by 53 runs (I realise I have missed out on a couple of dropped catches, but I can't remember when that happened and who did it!)

Winkie, 5 overs 6 runs, 2 wickets
Cheese, 4 overs 11 runs, 1 wicket
DT, 6 overs 34 runs, 1 wicket
Tickle, 4 overs 22 runs, 1 wicket
JF, 1 over 13 runs, 2 wickets
Pablo, 3 overs 5 runs, 2 wickets
DT, 2 overs 3 runs, 1 wicket

Good all round performance from the team with runs from most of the team and wickets shared round to all. However, I would say that MofM is our skipper Cheese, well done fella! If I have left anything else out, speak up!

Drinks at the pub next to the ground, with most of us deciding to walk there, while some lazy sods drove the 100 yards.

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