Match Report
Fresh off a beating last year by the ROW, GB were looking forward to the chance for revenge this year at the Ploughman’s club day. A relatively strong squad with a return for Robert ‘chairman’ Cox strengthened this hunger more and there was a great start.
The opening bowling pair of Coxy and some young upstart called Harry Piles held down their openers before the brilliant leggy, snuck a slider between bat and pad of Aruran Morgan clean bowling him, quite simply Shane Warne would have been proud. Some excellent bowling from Coxy held their runs down before Shane returned to take another wicket, this time some turn and bounce catching out the batsman who skied the ball to slip. There would have been another wicket too, save some appalling umpiring decisions by Si Carson. However, a combination of DC and Hynes left us feeling down as both made 50’s and ROW started coming back.
Some strong batting throughout thereafter led to them being in a dominant position and Rob Keogh also scored a 47. However, some tight bowling from Grant and a host of others helped us recover what looked completely lost, with their innings finishing at 261.
GB didn’t drop however as the pitch was good for batting and with openers like Max Chilton and Steve ‘the 8000’ Britto we weren’t out of it.
However, Chris Lilford opened the bowling and dismissed both with some absolute peaches, wickets kept falling and it looked certain to be another drubbing, however strong middle order batting from Noodle and Student helped us recover before the younger Ridgway fell to a good catch.
This let Liam ‘fifty shades’ Gray go in and give them a piece of us. He stuck around well and looked solid to build the innings, however soon Grant was out and despite some lusty blows, Action Jackson back from dodgy knees, fell too. This left young Shane in with him but unfortunately he couldn’t display his batting talent despite a few decent strokes.
All in all, after Matt Rees fell to an incredible delivery by Si Carson, who today was bowling superbly effective off spin, caught at slip by Paul Hynes. Uncle was sent back too and Coxy came in. He tried his best but there was too much to do, and we ended up about 50 runs short.
The reason GB lost was clearly the umpiring, maybe there was a problem with the language, or maybe because one of their best players was only handed a visa on the basis his mums dog had an Irish name.
Despite the result it was a massively fun day with some great banter flying around. Friends and family joined and saw that despite the weather closing in later on that everyone left happy.
Until next year?s GB win at least!!!
Harry.
