Match Report vs Glam
Centurions 30 July 2020 @ Llantwit Fardre (Skipper
Will, report Martin)
It was a glorious Thursday evening for the casuals to head
north of Cardiff to Llantwit Fadre, to face one of our regular
Willow League rivals in a friendly. Pressure was leaning heavily
on the new captain Will, could he fill the boots of cazh legend
Dan, who in his final season had won the indoor/outdoor cup
double? Would he stop his 100% game and toss losing record?
Had off field problems such as a star player (well, a player)
being stranded in quarantine affected his ability to focus
on cricket? What about the media focusing on his Root-esque
inability to convert 40s into 50s since becoming captain?
And in a relationship mirroring the Strauss/Pietersen saga,
could he manage maverick talents such as Steveo while keeping
the team dynamic together?
Predictably, Steveo was late, and predictably Will loss the
toss again and we were put into bat. With 2 debutants (George
and Sam) in the lineup, and batting looking light, Martin
was promoted to open for the first time with James. This experiment
didn’t go very well, Martin edged his way to 4 before
swinging across a straight one and being bowled. Will and
James put on 30 runs together, before James got out LBW. Rich
came in at 4 to join Will, as Will headed into his 40s could
he get to his first 50 as captain? He skied one deep to mid-on…
but was dropped and made it to 50. Will was then out LBW (questionably,
some would say). Rob came to join Rich and they put on a further
20 runs or so for us to finish on 97, a pretty good score
in 18 overs and with an incredibly slow outfield.
Special mention must go to Rich who came in when we were
on 43 and got out on the last ball of the innings for 3. Meaning
during his time in the middle he scored a whopping 6% of the
team’s runs, quite the anchor innings. (Though on a
serious note there were so few boundaries this actually did
involve a LOT of running and he was well tired after, good
effort.)
Cardiff Casuals - 97-4 18 Overs
James lbw10 (though worth pointing out the scorebook had 9,
but he had counted while batting and was sure the scorers
were wrong so looked through the scorebook until he found
their error…)
Martin b4
Will MW lbw54
Rich c3
Rob no10
The mid-innings break consisted of skittles and predictable
moaning from Steveo about not getting a bat.
We went out to the field, with debutant Sam taking the gloves,
high pressure considering there were 3 (James, Will, Steveo,
maybe more?) other cazh keepers in the field. Keith and DT
opened up and things were kept fairly tight until Keith got
a wicket, with a remarkable diving stumping from Sam, as he
wasn’t even standing up to the stumps! They both had
4 overs each which caused some grumbling because there’d
been an agreement that Centurions could only have 3 overs
each as they wanted to rotate more than 11 into the match,
which didn't apply to the Cazh.
Will relented to Steveo’s moaning and gave him a bowl,
with Shakes as the other first change, despite a Steveo wicket
and a run-out by Shakes the game was starting to get away
from us. These points in games are what dictate a poor or
a great era of captaincy. Will finally stood up to Steveo,
ripping the ball out of his hand as Steve demanded a 4th over
and gave the ball to Rob.
Rob proceeded with a devastating spell of actually bowling
the ball so it hit the stumps (maybe more of us should try
this?), and took 3 wickets, all bowled. This was supported
by debutant George, playing his first ever game of cricket
from the other end. Glam were 90-7 on the final over, 7 to
tie, 8 to win. Unfortunately for them Shakes bowled a brilliant
over taking 2 wickets, including a second stumping for Sam,
for just one run to win us the game in a tense finale.
Glam Centurions – 91-9 18 Overs
Keith 4 overs – 0 maidens – 16 runs – 1
wicket
DT 4-0-29-0
Steveo 3-0-14-1
Shakey 4-0-15-3
George 1-0-10-0
Rob O 2-0-7-3
Also, shout out to Andrew Hood and his wife came along to
watch and are now considered our lucky mascots.
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