Match Report vs Lisvane 11 May 2025 @ St Mellons (Skipper Steveo, report Kev)

We arrived to Lisvane (well, St Mellons) full of hope of a good days Cricket ahead. The weather was excellent and the opposition appeared to be enthusiastic for the game.

Our skipper was late (something to do with traffic was mentioned) so his deputy Dan stepped up for the toss which we won and elected to bat.

Kev and Dave opened with flurry of boundaries. The bowling was consistent, with the one lad being much sharper than the other. The pitch generally played well with the occasional ball staying low and the outfield was a batters dream, if it got past the fielder it was 4.

Dave played around a straight one on off stump in the 6th over with the score at 32 which brought Will to the crease. Kev and Will continued making decent progress with regular boundaries until Kev found mid-wicket with the score at 92.

This brought Rob to the middle and after a few sighters started smashing the balls to all corners of the ground, losing no less than 4 balls in the process. Rob and Will continued with some great shots until Will scooped up on the 23rd over, getting caught on the leg side after scoring a classy 71.

Sanay then joined the fun scoring a quick 6 before getting caught and bowled bringing Steve O to the crease to join Rob. After a tentative start Steve took on the bowling attack with some lovely straight boundaries (including one that nearly killed the umpire). Randomly the bowlers continued to bowl it in the slot where Steve was clearly enjoying it.

Rob then went for 89 after a brilliant innings much to the relief to the Lisvane skipper who was worried about the number of balls he has lost already. Like Will he looked on for a 100 when he mistimed one.

Enter the debutant Syed who smashed a pair of quality boundaries before getting caught. Pabs and Liam then finished things off partnering Steve O before being caught and bowled respectively. Goffy entered for the last ball of the innings and despite missing the ball by some distance shamelessly protested to the umpire when a bye was called.

Dave 16
Kev 33
Will 71
Rob 89
Sanay 6
Steve O 24 NO
Syed 8
Pabs 6
Liam 4
Gof 0 NO
Dan DNB

The first innings took 3 hours with many huddles from the home team and many ball losses from Rob.

One notable event was when the home skipper asked how many fielders they were allowed in the circle and Steve O replied “we don’t really care” much to his surprise.

At the interval the heavens opened and it lashed it down for the 25 minutes we were off the field.

Play recommenced at 16.30 where Goffy opened the bowling much to Dan’s annoyance. Dan and Goffy bowled well to the opening partnership of an extremely talented 13 year old and a much bigger guy that clearly was not looking for the quick singles. The older guy made a number of beefy blows to the boundary before getting done LBW by Dan in the 4th over much to everyone’s relief who already been chasing the ball to all ends of the field as a result of his rampage.

At the end of the 5th over the game halted with more heavy rain and the covers were brought back on, mainly by the Casuals.... .

During the rain break the usual chat of “lets just call it and go to the pub” was in full flow and the way the home skipper was messing about with the pipes coming off the covers you would think he was setting them up for the winter rather than a break in the days play.

The weather improved and the skippers agreed we would play another 20 overs and the adjusted required total was 205 under the Duckworth Lewis method. Dan and Goffy continued the bowling with Goffy picking up a wicket before the end of their allocated 4(not sure that was correct) overs.

Liam then came on which shall we say had mixed results, which would have improved significantly if we had a fine leg in place. Sanay bowled from the other end effectively with little fuss. Robbie then came on and took a wicket to add his runs earlier and Syed also bowled 2 over and looked sharp. Pabs and Steve O finished the innings off very tidily with Pabs taking 2 wickets, including his 550th for the club.

There was a dropped catch by our skipper, it was suggested by a team mate he had enough time to have a picnic whilst the ball was in the air but except that the fielding was generally tidy with the exception of the occasional overthrow.

The only other point of note was the 13 year old getting out on 49 to Pabs after Will giving him a gentle reminder he needed 1 for his 50 (Will miscounted the number of balls in over (really??) and there was one extra - which as it turned was the deciding blow for batter). There’s a bit of karma there as he clearly edged one much earlier in his innings off Dan and didn’t walk.

Goofy 4-0-25-1
Dan 4-0-17-1
Liam 3-0-21-0
Sanay 4-23-0
Robbie 3-0-11-1
Syed 2-0-8-0
Pabs 3-0-20-2
Steve O 2-0-10-0

Lisvane finished on 156, Casuals win by 49.

A great days Cricket all round. The opposition were decent and played on the whole in the spirit of a game (not walking aside). The Casuals batted really well and as a result won comfortably.
Another win for the casuals under Steve O’s captaincy.

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