Match Report vs Barry
West End 28th May 2026 @ Barry's Island (Skipper Steveo,
Report Goffy)
A beautiful hot Sunday of a bank holiday weekend and not
a better place for a game of cricket then next to the blue
Golden Sands and blue Sea of Barry Island.
A 1 pm start was scheduled and about five of the Casuals worked
out that with the hot weather and the location and the bank
holiday weekend you need to leave an extra good 45 minutes
to get there on time. Some of us arrived in plenty of time
and even afforded ourselves the opportunity to go and do a
bit of 'sightseeing' on the award-winning beach. Predictably
for Barry Island, everything we saw in a bikini was........er.......
forgettable! Absolute Chav city and crime central, but on
a positive note, it was great to see hundreds of thousands
of pounds of benefit money being ploughed back into the local
businesses, fish and chip shops and Nessa’s slots all
made massive gains.
So with less than half a team present, it was very fortunate
that Skipper Stevo won the toss and elected to bat. To be
fair with the with the blue sky the historical flat deck it
looked like a good decision. After a 20 minute conversation
with himself Steve O finally arrived at who his opening partnership
would be. Dave White initially in the running, 35 seconds
later was batting number 5 only to eventually walk out as
the number one alongside Liam! I don’t want any of you
thinking that Skipper Steve O doesn’t have a clue what
he’s doing. He purposely put the seed of doubt in the
batsman’s minds in order to better prepare them for
what was coming. An absolute master stroke. What could possibly
go wrong!??
Dave White to face the first over partnered by Liam F. A
very watchful first over. In fact a very watchful second,
third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh over not so much for
Liam who perished in the third and at the end of the eighth
the Casz were on a solid 13 for 1.
Jesus in his customary number three position joined Dave
in the third and initially found things pretty hard going.
Casz 'raced' on to 18 for 1 after 11!!
Due to hot weather, drinks were taken at the 15th which was
obviously needed as by the 20th the Casuals had moved onto
63 with the loss of no more wickets. By now, Whitey had got
himself comfortably in but then got himself comfortably out!
caught behind.. Casz 73-2 after 21.
JB joined WMW and significantly helped to get the rum rate
moving. A few boundaries later we had moved onto 99 by the
26th. Unfortunately, it was in the 26th that James was bowled
bringing Cheese to the crease.
The Cheese and Jesus partnership proved very profitable for
the Casz as they both got on with it and moved the score to
a much more respectable and defendable 173 by the 36th. The
book is now an absolute fucking catastrophe. One of them went
in this over it could’ve been Will for a fantastic 92
or it could’ve been Cheese for a very respectable quickfire
28 who knows?
I’ll just add here that Will was fined for tankard dodging
back at the social club.!
The ‘purple’ Grinch in next, buoyed by a very
sizable fan club that had accumulated on the midwicket boundary.
A decent effort and added 6 to the scoreboard. Skipper Stevo
in next with a free license to hit out as only two and a bit
overs left. More Jedi mind tricks tactics to bamboozle only
his own team and he finished the innings 1 not out. Robbie
O came and went playing a very uncustomary Robbie O shot in
the last over as did Granville who did manage to add eight
runs. Goffy due in next but had taken his pads off because
there was no way we’re going to lose two wickets in
the last over.?!
Obviously we did. So the greatest all rounder in Cardiff
Casuals history came into face one ball and finished his innings
with a 300% strike rate.
Casuals finished on a slightly below par 195 for 8. The pitch
had now improved significantly for the second innings batters
and this was going to be a tough act to defend.
D White Caught 23 (4 x 4s)
L Forster Bowled 1
W MW Caught 92 (12 x 4s, 1 x 6)
J Barber Bowled 17 (3 x 4s)
E Stewart Caught 28 (3x4s 1x6)
M Davies Caught 6
S O'Reilly NOT OUT 1
R Owens Bowled 0
Hasnat Bowled 8 (1x4)
G Day NOT OUT 3
D Lewis DNB
Tea was taken burgers and chips were purchased. Cheese didn’t
have time to get his and nicked most of Goffy’s. It’s
a good job he’s supposedly on these Kilimanjaro jabs
so he doesn’t ever get hungry.!!!! Skipper Stevo scared
the shit out of all the people that had gathered at a young
person‘s birthday party in the clubhouse by going for
a swim and coming back with no top on oh my God! Everyone
was throwing up their food. He was also fined for this back
at the social club.
Dan and Goff to open the bowling Steve O took the gloves.
Bowling had to be tight as we were defending a small total
for this ground in this weather and on this ever hardening
wicket. These two bowled the first 8 reducing Barry to 31
for 3. Dan grabbing two wickets. The first a wonder catch
at first slip by Will. His second clean bowled (trickling
onto the off stump). The third being a well taken run out
by Granville of the dangerous number three, pin point accurate
throw from mid on.
Robbie O and Granville took the next eight. Previously at
Dinas, Granville lost a couple of wickets off his overstepping
no balls!! There was no way he was going to bowl no balls
again was there??? Yep! Eleven of them!!!! smilie=afraid.gif
smilie=afraid.gif
Even so this bowling partnership proved extremely miserly
and Barry were only able to get on to 46 for 4 at the end
of the 16th. Robbie notching the only wicket in this spell.
Robbie bowled through his controversially non-agreed six over
maximum (but that’s another story)joined by JB to take
us to the 20th. Barry now reduced to 70 for 5 with Robbie
claiming a second, clean bowling, the number 5.
Casuals now well in the driving seat with a very good opening
20 overs in the field. Not even we could snatch defeat from
the jaws of victory from this position could we!!!???
Cheese and the Grinch were to take us through the next 10.
By now the Barry number six got himself well established and
the run rate was accelerating.. 118-5 after 30.
The controversial six over maximum was now causing a bit
of a problem for Skipper Steve O as we were running out of
bowlers.. What Jedi mind trick would follow??? He temporarily
gave the gloves to Goffy so he could bowl 1 over!!!! Jesus
also chipped in with a few overs and Dan was brought back
on for to complete his 6. During these eight overs Barry had
literally raced to 175 but had lost a further three wickets.
One was a very good stumping by Stevo (obviously now back
in the gloves!) off Will's bowling. The other two were catches
of Dan’s overs - another taken by Will in slips, athe
second a caught and bowled that Dan couldn't get out of the
way of.
Barry now only needed 19 to win off 18 balls with 2 wickets
in hand! 6 from Granville (hopefully) and 12 from Goffy.
Squeaky bum time!!
A few slogs and mis-fields later….. Barry left needing
3 runs off the very last ball of the match. Fortunately for
the Casz that very last ball to be bowled was by the greatest
all-rounder ever to wear a Cardiff Casual shirt. Full length
cutter into the block hole which the batsman could only dig
out for a single. Another Casz victory by two runs. SteveO
really is the best skipper we have ever had.....! This season.
D Lewis 6 overs 4 for 21
G Day 6 overs 0 for 31
R Owens 6 overs 2 for 5 (great performance)
Hazzer Granville 6 overs (plus 2 more in NBs) 0 for 37
J Barber 2 overs 0 for 21
Cheesey 6 overs 0 for 31
M Davies 4 overs 0 for 18
S O'Reilly 1 over 0 for 4
WMW 3 overs 1 for 19
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