‘Oh Harry can’t you make it go away??’ said Hermione. ‘Of course I can!... clamidia disappearo!’
Greetings all…again! It’s me again I’m afraid…Chris is currently recovering from bowling 20 odd overs for Keith and the Pioneers this week so it’s Captain Culhane at the helm of the Starship Beechwood once again!
So Tatsfield was the scene of this match, in fact the scene where I made my debut 2 years ago…and of Hamish and Scott before if what I hear is right? Unlike previous years there were no indications that Tatsfield were struggling for players…so we headed down to Furze corner not only with not only our best possible ground finding skills…but also our best ‘game face’ if you like. Also, we spent the week digging out the calculators as Ron was away this week!
Once we had finally found the ground we wondered whether an international incident had occurred as we saw the red power ranger patrolling the outfield! Turned out to be Kieran keeping his father (and me if I’m honest!) in check! Anyway to the game, the pitch had been soaked the night before and was nice and sticky once we had got there. Tony duly lost the toss ad after some surprising deliberation we were put into bat. I and Adrian went out to open (obviously Tony knew we were the best men for dealing with the odd sticky patch!). We got somewhat ‘bogged’ down by the pitch and tight bowling and for a while were going at 1 run per over, however after I got out (Bowled by Enever) after putting the rest of the boys through a 25 ball innings of 1 Adrian and Keith set about putting the innings back on track. They set about putting 39 before Adrian was caught for 20 with the score on 47. Keith was still going well at this point, pulling and dabbing down to third men…more or less the only two effective shots on the pitch. That was until Brad came in however, he played how Brad does clearing the boundary twice along with a bunch of fours, the total of fours surely would have been higher had it not been for the ball slowing down in the outfield on occasion! This partnership brought the score up to 106 -3 once Brad got out, Hamish came in and he and Keith brought the score up to 119 at the interval.
After tea Hamish took the first over up the hill as we looked to exploit a drying but yet popping sort of pitch (that’s proper cricket terminology for you!). He made the breakthrough with the wicket of Thomas, caught by Brad with the score on 21. I then took the new batsmen and over later with a stream of full tosses…one of them being hit back at me and I somehow clung on to it! Typical that I come back from a broken finger and take two caught and bowled dismissals in three weeks!...especially having never taken one before! Steve then replaced Hamish from the other end and took the wicket of D Eames which left Tatsfield at 44-3. However, with Shannon and Heasman at the crease we didn’t get another look in, although the pitch, some good bowling and some excellent fielding suggested that on another day we could have changed the ending of this match. But losing shouldn’t detract from some wonderful performances of the day. Keith batted superbly and obviously showed no signs of hangover from his Gary Glitter tribute tour…Singapore holiday. Brad batted and bowled superbly as taking a good catch, Colin and Steve had a good day out in the field trying to run each other over, but in all seriousness fielded excellently and Stuart Boss, whom worried by the presence of the Red Power Ranger obviously wanted to stay out longer and bowled a very tight spell towards the end and can feel unlucky to have not gotten a wicket. All in all a good day…even if it was a bit short! Oh and Hamish was able to get home without car troubles this year!
Beechwood:
Boss, Cooksley, Culhane, Freeman (c), Hill, Makin, McLachlan, Morton (wk), Robinson, Savory, Warner
Final words from the DoC:
Too few runs, but again good spirit in the field. |
