Club Cricket 2010

[Jason H]

A weekend of Cricket, with a home match against Morden on the Saturday and the club 6-a-side on the Sunday...ruined by the weather.

Final match of the season this coming Saturday as we travel to take on Bec Old Boys, not the fixture I'd choose to end the season with, another fairly unpleasant bunch so I understand - and a team when I've played against their 2s who don't mind loading up their 2s with strong players if their 1s don't have a game. For some reason their 1s didn't have a game EVERY time I played against their 2s!

 

[Jason H]

Just found out our club's President died yesterday after a long battle with Alzheimers.

 

[Jason H]

We finished the season off with a hard-fought win in yet another fractious encounter against a Bec Old Boys side clearly trying to win at all costs as they attempt to stave off relegation.

We claimed the t*ss and batted (the oppo, despite it being their home game, not all showing up in time therefore forfeiting the t*ss). Early signs that they would cheat came when on 3 or 4 occasions they claimed to have stopped the ball going over the boundary (no painted lines, only markers) when it clearly had. Skip Tony, getting frustrated by this, then got himself out for 24. Former Skip Pes played nicely for 47 before some serious jug avoidance in holing out to long off.

I came in at 6 with overs fast running out and a 200+ score required by Skip. I proceeded to hit 24 off 17 balls as wickets tumbled at the other end, and my knock saw us to 209 all out in the last over.

The oppo had an aggressive bat to open with, and I should have done a lot better with a skyer that I thought was going down to long-off's throat before it held up in the strong wind - I saw this too late to get anything more than a hand to. Fortunately he didn't last too much longer. Nor did Gazza, off whose bowling I missed the chance - he pulled up injured 2 balls later.

All the while, things were getting very niggly. Just before my chance the other opener was clearly run out by a deflection onto the wickets from our bowler from a drive, and then a row broke out over our 1st team debutant bowler Kash, who because he is double-jointed appears to chuck it (well, he does chuck it anyway, but hey...!).

It was actually Kash who made inroads, taking 3 wickets, again not without a little niggle - the oppo batsman made some snide remark about "Park Cricket", Kash got him out next ball (brilliantly stumped by Paddy Mason) and said "Go and play Park Cricket then".

Things again got pretty heated due to their old boy scorer stuffing things up with our overs - twice claiming our bowlers were bowled out when they still had one left (the second time was absurd as 39 overs had been bowled meaning 2 bowlers at the second end couldn't have each bowled 10 overs as claimed!). The second one was when their Skip was batting, and Tony had a go at him for not helping to sort things out. A fierce row broke out, and when all was finally settled, the Skip was obviously so un-nerved that he slashed at one and was bowled, giving Kash his 5th wicket.

In the gathering darkness and with 17 needed, Nigel Clemmey got their 11 to spoon one up to me at backward point and that was that.

So, we finished the season in mid-table, the season seems to have gone by so quickly (especially as we had 4 games rained off). To be honest, the way the weather has been the last month, I'm not as sad as usual to be putting the whites in the cupboard for another year.

 

[crocks]

Jason - sounds like you need boxing gloves; not cricket whites!