g4_4may06_cavaliers.htm

Lots of hype about this being the hottest day of the year but ended up cold and wet with the Casuals batting in extremely dark conditions. At one time it looked like the players would come off but thankfully that didnt happen.

In the earlier light the oppo decided to bat first with Dan Lewis and Rob Sage opening up for the Casz. Lewis showed his consistency once again and Sage some swing for a tidy opening 8 overs that left the oppo on 34 for no wicket. Dan finishing on 4-0-15-0 and Rob 4-0-18-0.

It was always going to be difficult for the change bowlers as the two batsmen were now settled and were looking to push on a bit. Foxy who earlier put a little sign up telling us how much the new shirts were, bowled 2 overs for 22 despite not bowling badly (at least that what he told us). Nadeem had similar figures with 2 overs for 21. This meant that at the end of over 12 they were on 79 for 0. This meant that captain Furnham had to make a difficult choice and choose plan B. This is interesting as earlier he didn't have a plan A as he didn't have a clue who some of his team mates were. Plan B as it turned out was to bring on Tesh and the evergreen Hood.

In the meantime the first wicket fell to a run out which came from a throw from Furnham in the deep ( who earlier commented that he wished he had a fielder to stand where he was ) which was not exactly over the stumps. No problem for Gough though as he dived to throw down the stumps from side on with a typical Gough groan of delight to follow and one pissed off batter. The batter who had made an excellent 57 described his partner as a "c*nt" while reaching the boundary and they then called himself a dick for agreeing to run. 87 for one.

There number 3 Steadman is also a very good bat so we were still looking down the barrell a bit but Hirani with 4-0-21-0 and some brilliance from Hood with 4-0-16-2 really clawed it back for us. Hood because of his bad back came off only a few steps but class is class and he showed it. The other opener Armstrong was his first victim off the first ball of the last over. Despite being bowled for 34 it was thought by many that he should have scored quicker with so many wickets in hand. Steadman fell two balls later in the same way for 13 but he had by that time managed to piss Gough (and most of the rest of the team) off by taking two singles when the ball was deemed dead by the casuals, when Gough threw the ball back to the bowler who missed it. Gough was not pleased.

Also a clear run out was denied but overall to claw it back to 118 was a good effort when they only actually lost 3 wickets and two of them were in over 20.

It wasn't going to be easy but certainly within reach of the Casz batting. Furnham and Swain opened up and put on an excellent stand of 69 until Swain fell for 25 with an excellent catch from Steadman at long on. The rain had by now been falling heavily which made the catch harder but unfortunately for us he took it. Swain though showed that he has the abiltiy to play some superb shots.

Matt Davies then came to to help Furnham and despite the gloom managed to score 11 in a stand of 34 until he had one that kept really low. He had done his job though and a game that had been in the balance was now firmly in our favour. Foxy was confident as he decided not to pad up and instead collect the boundary markers.

Gough came out and in his short innings of 5 not out managed to fall on his arse while Furnham at the other end managed to try and kill fielders when he threw his bat further than Shakes can hit the ball. The conditions by now were absolutely atrocious and if we had lost early wickets it could have been so different as coming out to bat in such light is extremely difficult. Furnham however as he has done so many times in the past was the glue that kept the innings together and took us home as we won in the 19th over and only losing two wickets. The final ball (first ball of 19th over) ended up as 3 wides which summed up their bowling as they conceded 23 wides to our 7 which was a big help to us in the final analysis. Furnham just short of a well deserved 50 with 47 not out.

At certain times the game looked like getting away from us and hung in the balance for much of our innings but in the end we just had that little bit extra with Hood and Furnham once again doing it when it matters.