Theale & Tilehurst 1st XI vs Welford Park 5th May 2001

Report by Mr Ed

For this match report I'm going to examine the phenomenon of déjà vu. That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before, that what is happening now has already happened*. Preseason friendlies are a terrific exercise in getting rid of that rustiness and used to playing cricket once more; I don't believe they are intended to be a rigid template for the league season, and yet in many respects our first league game of the season mimicked our earlier game against Marlow Park; bowl reasonably well, through a good partnership get yourself into a strong winning position and then don't see it through.

Our bowling resources for this season have been dramatically strengthened by the return of Mohammed Iqbal who in his second game again bowled impressively taking two early wickets and demonstrated that he can still go up a few gears when required. At 42-3, Welford Park were in some trouble but a useful innings of 42 from their captain, Ian Herrington started pushing the game in Welford's favour.

A dramatic over then tipped the scales back towards us. Brian Cooper first ball of his over was a rank long hop, which Herrington smashed, straight to Mark Mason at square leg who held onto impressive catch. The new batsman, J Fuller, facing his first ball, danced down the wicket and hit a glorious cover drive for four. Two balls later Fuller, hit our captain for a big straight six. It was looking ominous, the same batsman the previous year had scored a very rapid century against us. Have you ever had that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before, that what is happening now has already happened. Next ball however trying to repeat the shot, Brian had him stumped by Phil Jenkins. A further wicket shortly afterwards reduced Welford Park to 98-6. An intelligent unbeaten 7th wicket partnership however moved Welford Park's score onto 160 at the end of their 45 overs.

On an excellent pitch such a target should have been well within our range, and our new opening partnership of James Codd and Tim Sant put on 69 untroubled runs for the first wicket, both however were needlessly run out in almost identical fashion (déjà vu?), and wicket started tumbling, at one point we lost five wickets for the addition of only three runs. Mo Iqbal went in with the score at 91-7 with instructions to bat it out for a drawn, which he followed to the letter by hitting 3 sixes and 4 fours going on to make a quick fire unbeaten 43. Ably assisted by Chris Lemm and then Nigel Halliday, safety was secured and we avoided defeat.

The match card shows that we were just 15 runs short of victory and that Welford only required one further wicket to win the game, but in reality the match wasn't quite as close as that. It was certainly good not to lose, because we played enough good cricket not to warrant a defeat, however, to ensure success this year in the league we need to perform throughout the match and start turning such games into victories.

* borrowed from Monty Python

SCORECARD
Home Team		Theale and Tilehurst						Away Team		Welford Park
Date of Match		5th May 2001						Played at		Theale

		Team						pts	Result	Team			pts
Result									Drawn

1st Innings of		Welford Park
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	B Beecroft	ct			B Cooper			A Johnson		0	0	10
2	M Westbrook	bowled						M Iqbal		1	0	12
3	S Jeffcott	ct			P Jenkins			M Iqbal		1	0	4
4	I Herrington	ct			M Mason			B Cooper		7	0	42
5	D Hancock	bowled						Nigel Halliday		1	0	13
6	J Fuller	st			P Jenkins			B Cooper		1	1	10
7	G Barnard	not out								2	0	34
8	A Hutchinson	not out								2	0	24
9	A March	DNB
10	C Foxwell	DNB
11	R Axten	DNB
							Byes	2
							Leg Byes	5
							Wides	3
							No Balls	1
									Extras			11

							Wickets	6	Total			160

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	M Iqbal		14	6	27	2
2	C Lemm		7	1	18	0
3	A Johnson		10	2	47	1
4	Nigel Halliday		6	0	27	1
5	B Cooper		8	0	34	2
6
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	18	2				18
2	25	3				7
3	43	1				18
4	84	4				41
5	94	6				10
6	98	5				4
7
8
9
10




2nd Innings of		Theale and Tilehurst
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	T Sant	run out								3	0	31
2	J Codd	run out								5	0	32
3	E Choules	ct & b						I Herrington		1	0	9
4	S Pyke	ct			D Hancock			I Herrington		0	0	4
5	M Mason	bowled						J Fuller		0	0	0
6	A Johnson	lbw						J Fuller		0	0	1
7	B Cooper	lbw						I Herrington		0	0	0
8	C Lemm	ct			G Barnard			I Herrington		0	0	5
9	M Iqbal	not out								5	3	43
10	Nigel Halliday	bowled						R Axten		1	0	6
11	P Jenkins	not out								0	0	0
							Byes	4
							Leg Byes	5
							Wides	6
							No Balls	1
									Extras			16

							Wickets	9	Total			147

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	R Axten		10	3	36	1
2	A March		13	1	39	0
3	I Herrington		11	2	40	4
4	J Fuller		11	3	23	2
5
6
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	69	2				69
2	70	1				1
3	88	3				18
4	89	5				1
5	89	4				0
6	90	6				1
7	91	7				1
8	122	8				31
9	146	10				24
10