I must confess, I don't usually enjoy our annual trip down to Wadhurst... nothing against the folk down there you understand, it's just the fact it's late-season, (hence the earlier journey starts), it's a bit of a trek, (hence the even earlier journey starts), it's usually a murky sort of day, there are craneflies hatching this time of year which tend to be a nuisance and, as one of the bulkier members of the troop would notice more than most, there isn't a great deal of room in the away changing-room. Oh, plus their 1st X1 deposit our bowlers into the road at the council estate end with regular ease! The signs were better for this year though; the forecast was for more of the brighter weather we'd been having of late, the craneflies are late hatching this year and it's the turn of Wadhurst's 2nd X1 to entertain us this year. All this doesn't alter the distance factor however, and thanks to some engineering works on Southwest trains plus some not particularly good navigating from myself (although in my defence, Tony does posess an old map - the A25 has horse-troughs marked out on it for example) it meant that some of us arrived at 1:15 for a 1:00pm start. As Tony was one of the late arrivals it fell to The DoC to call at the toss, which he duly did correctly, and opted to have a bowl.
Scott and Larry opened the bowling for Beechwood and with just six runs on the board Larry nipped one through the gate to dislodge Wagner's leg-bail. This set the tone for Larry who bowled beautifully, and although no more wickets were to come his way, he was able to return the figures of 1 for 8 off 9. The oppo were saying it was some of the best bowling they'd faced, and indeed, Larry resembled Glenn McGrath throughout the length of his spell although obviously Glenn swears far less! Opener Notley was having a torrid time but was hanging in there and new bat Evans simply couldn't lay bat on ball. Scott was also bowling well, lest we forget, and just the odd wide delivery and occasional four-ball letting him down in his quest to match Larry, but as often has been the case with Scott this season, little good fortune came his way. We had a new(ish) face behind the timbers this week, with Hamish subbing for the regular glovemen, and you suspected he enjoyed the view of Larry's continued beating of the outside edges. After some tight spells from The DoC and Bradley, Wadhurst had edged up to 62-1 with Notley mixing resolute defence with the occasional expanse, looking set, but Evans, who'd been out there for 20 odd overs had mustered just two runs. His type innings of course, is a boon for any first innings fielding side, and of course you're better off leaving somebody like that out there but typically yours truly messed things up by removing him in my first over... drat!! Oh well, things were still moving reasonably sedately, and although Le Bouedec and Elkins upped the scoring rate, neither were able to hang around too long, with Le Bouedec falling to some nifty fielding from Bradley, effecting a run out with a direct hit. Notley was still there however, scoring the bulk of Wadhurst's runs, but wickets still fell at the other end with Stuart clean bowling Barrett and Woody swooping to run out Troupe.
Although run out chances were being taken it seems that unless Adrian is underneath a catch these days, it doesn't seem to stick unfortunately, and a few more were shelled this afternoon; some harder than others but all crucial just the same. It has to be said that the fielding in general has been pretty good of late however and catches aside, today was no exception. With six wickets down and Wadhurst running out of overs and edging closer to what could be a useful 150, Notley started to chance his arm a little more, launching a brutal assault on my last over and bringing up his century in the process; a fine effort from the Wadhurst opener. With time for perhaps just a one over spell and with the usual cast of colts, juniors and septuagenarians waiting in the hutch, Woody decided he'd be okay for a bowl at this point and although his first ball looked like it was headed for the oast-house until Hamish somehow acrobatically prevented the wide becoming four, he produced a fast economical over, picking up his customary wicket and stopped their push towards 160. Wadhurst closed their innings on 154-7 and a quick glance at their score-card showed what an oddity their innings was. Notley carried his bat for 104 at just over two runs per over but the rest of their Batsmen amassed just 39 more runs between them and although we sent down a few wides (and I'm blowed if I can remember being called for the one logged against me!!) it still looked an uneven card to say the least. I was miffed that I went for nearly five an over as I didn't think I'd served up too much muck, but the relative economy of everybody else should be able to negate this I was hoping...we'd see. Aside from Larry's early heroics the true star was Hamish, who despite not having kept for a couple of years by my calculations produced a performance out of the top drawer, resulting in no byes conceded from the 45 or so overs we sent down to him...bet he aches by the time he reads this however...Tea.
I've gone into a bit more detail about the bowling this week as to be fair, although it looks like we came close, there were few highlights from our innings along the way. I'm not going to say anything too detrimental about our batsmen's efforts, but even Adrian, these days a popular choice for the opening berth it would seem, struggled for momentum, and he had the grace to admit he didn't take too much pressure off Tony in their opening stand. Eight of the first sixteen overs were maidens with three more going for just a single run and the famous Wadhurst couches became just too tempting for yours truly by then, and although we feasted on the odd over we just simply never got our noses in front. When Tony was out for 37 in the 29th over it was perhaps not an ideal time for Woody to be retained at number three, and through no fault of his own we still couldn't find the necessary acceleration and when Adrian holed out for 60 it was going to take some instant heroics from Bradley to get us over the line. Woody did his best and duly sacrificed his wicket when things started to look a little desperate but Brad was off strike for too many balls as the overs counted down. Hamish joined Brad, but with 19 needed off the last over it was all over bar the shouting. Brad was stumped, Colin was bowled and The DoC and Hamish scampered a few singles to allow us to close on 140-5 from 41 overs. A disappointing result from an otherwise enjoyable day; it just didn't click for us it would seem today. The highlight of the closing overs was a quote from a certain wag, who shall remain nameless, on seeing that a Beechwood win was going to be very unlikely suggested, jokingly of course, that perhaps Wadhurst had a 3rd X1 who could play us next year! Oh dear...
Beechwood:
Boss, Cooksley, Culhane, Freeman (c), Garnett, Hill, McLachlan (wk), Robinson, Savory, Warner, Woodward
Final words from the DoC:
Look, I'm fed up being accused of continuously having a go at the batting. Leave me alone! |
