Match Report

In the interests of time, I will not go into huge amounts of detail with this report.? The long and short of it is we lost, and the painful reality is we could easily have won.? But I guess most cricket games are like that!

Anyway, here are the details.

We all arrived pretty much on time.? A good start! ?The day was hot and humid.? Toss dependent, this could be a good thing.? Still a good start!? We then realised we didn?t have a ball to supply the game. Hmm, a bad start?!? (and my fault for not realising this *.)

Anyway, after a huge amount of grovelling with the oppo skipper they allowed us to bowl with a relatively 20 overs old (league) ball.? After losing the toss we were quickly asked to take the field.? Chris Lilford and Scott Hoskin opened and Lilford quickly managed to exploit a partially shiny cherry to get some movement.? Scott was little less accurate and so I brought Ed Beesley on early to tighten things up.? Duray soon replaced the unlucky Lilford and the two spinners operated for a period and the run-rate dropped back to manageable levels.? We also managed to pick two wickets up and eventually we were wrestling some initiative.? However, by drinks the loose deliveries came back (at least 2 loose balls an over; wides or 4 balls) and we weren?t able to stem the flow until the close of innings.? After 45 they had amassed 273 for 7.

After tea Ding Dong Bell opened with TJ.? Both looked very assured putting away anything loose and our score-rate ? albeit behind our target ? was respectable at around 4/over.? Bell went for a well-made 11 (but had done his job of seeing the shine off the new ball against their quick man) and Ovens knocked a few around with TJ to keep us going.? After TJ gloved to the keeper/ slip and Ovens carved a loose-ish ball to point, Barraz and I looked to consolidate for a period.? This we did for 10 overs and we were still in contention.? Unfortunately, I went for 25 but this actually brought in Duray and he and Barraz looked to up the scoring rate.? 15 overs later both had crashed through 50s and we were in sight approaching 200 and needing 7 or 8 an over.? Unfortunately, it was not to be as both got out chasing the game and despite some lusty hitting from Lockhart and Lilford (and Gray) we fell 50-odd short.

In all we had set ourselves too many to chase, but the reality is that the chase was on and we should never count ourselves out.? I was very proud to see the team really pull together in the batting chase and really give it a good go.? Barraz and Duray batted beautifully and were unlucky not to steer us home. ?That all said, we all know the reasons why the game was lost though.? We must try to work harder at bowling tighter lines and not go for magic balls all the time ? it?s amazing what you do if you look to pull things back to basics.? A lot of us were trying to do just that when bowling, and it just was not working for us. ??But we must look to find a way.

Onwards and upwards.

NR