With the normally ever present Chris Savory missing his first match in years I thought that I would jot down a short report on the match against Merstham 1st X1 at Limpsfield on Sunday, 13th July 2008.
Having won the toss and despite Merstham intimating that they were ‘weak’ I decided that, in the interests of the match, Beechwood would take to the field. Upon reflection, the correct decision was most certainly made.
Councillor French was on parade and kindly umpired the match from the Pavilion End. It is always a pleasure having a fully qualified umpire in charge of one of our games so our thanks to Matthew for doing such a fine job and, whilst I remember, thanks for supplying all the spare balls!
Scott (Senior bowler to Larry!) opened up the bowling from the Pavilion end with young Larry being told that he had opted to bowl uphill from the A25 end of the ground!
From the onset Merstham looked to get stuck in to the Beechwood bowling attack and a few boundaries were struck early on. However, both Scott and Larry stuck to their tasks well and a few early wickets were to fall. Glenn Salmon took a nifty well judged one handed catch off Hamilton who seemed determined on cutting anything short that came his way. Scott completed his tidy spell of 1/29 and then made way for Mr. Bradley to continue the task of bowling to the Merstham players who were intent on quickly amassing a target way beyond the reach of us. All that said and done, both Brad and Ian, who had taken the mantle from Larry, 2 for 32 at the time, got on with the job and bowled superbly - the latter without any luck whatsoever. It was good to see Ian bowling with such control again and the same can be said of Brad - well played lads. Brad even got the Councillor to raise his finger in the affirmative by trapping Drewett LBW for a well balanced innings of 42.
After Brad finished with 2/18 Larry came back for his second spell! Yes, a first time for everything and another decent effort; this time bowling down the hill, taking his 3rd wicket in his first over back and finishing with 3/63.
Some good catches were taken in the first hour and a half: Glenn’s nonchalant catch and Brad, taking a high overhead, caught & bowled after insisting that it was his and not “mine!” KHM also performed well behind the ‘timbers’, especially when standing up to both Larry and Ian. However, the last half hour proved to be the most difficult for us all and both Steve and Stuart drew the short straws by bowling at the ‘death’ - Sorry boys! Whilst Stuart was facing the gauntlet he did manage to create two chances, both of which, we put down! The score book would have looked a little better had these both been taken. Oh well, C’est la vie.
Merstham went on to amass 225 for 7 at Tea with A. Rivers top scoring with a fine 54 not out.
The ‘flags’ were out for Tea and also on the sandwiches, which meant that Colin was on Tea Duty this week and an excellent spread was laid on by him, again with the help of Tina and Lyn setting out the fare and making the tea; what would we do without them?
Beechwood’s innings started with the tried and tested formula of Kelly & Freeman (Boycott & Tavare I hear you say!) with Dean taking first strike. The opening over from Litton was impressive, moving the ball both ways late on so at the end of the first over it was agreed (by Tony) that both openers would stay at their respective ends! Dean got frustrated with the lack of run scoring balls on offer and flayed at a wide ball and was well caught at 1st slip. KHM (Jim) then came in but struggled against the newly introduced S. Rivers who was getting good turn and plenty of bounce from his off spin. Keith departed quickly being caught at short leg. Brad joined the fray and for a while runs were in abundance. Yours truly went at the drinks interval for 25 but it was Brad who continued with his fine form this year by smashing 47 off 23 balls before falling to the off spin of Rivers.
Wickets were going down at a steady rate, but first Cooky (11) and then Garnett (18) got in on the act and played their shots rather than just play out for the draw. The final pairing at the wicket had to endure just over 3 overs and both Larry and Stuart comfortably saw these through with the former playing a few shots along the way. Beechwood finished on 138/9.
It was a struggle against a good Merstham side but there were many good performances by the Beechwood lads so no disgrace whatsoever.
One of our great supporters of the Club, Vic Farmer, turned up see how we were getting on and it was a pleasure to see him stay with the rest of us for drinks in the bar afterwards.
With the Merstham boys rushing off to their ‘Curry Night’ we were left with our own company and, what an enjoyable evening it was with politics coming out as the topic of the evening - Oh happy nights in Austria!
Finally, it was Joe’s 7th Birthday and to celebrate a cake with 7 candles lit was presented to the chorus of “Happy Birthday to you…”, Happy Birthday Joe, we all hope that you had a great day.
Beechwood:
Boss, Cooksley, Culhane, Freeman (c), Garnett, Hill, Kelly, Makin (wk), McCrea, Robinson, Salmon |
