Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs Reading Uni Staff 6th May 2001

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Report by Mr Ed

This was a rather frustrating game of cricket in which T&T were unable to secure a victory despite commanding the majority of the game.

The match started ten minutes later than scheduled due to the late arrival of the opposition’s captain. This fixture is a long established one and consequently you can adapt your tactics to the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition. We’ve played against the opener Andy Eagle on dozens of occasions and know he plays like Keppler Wessels i.e. great on the offside, absolute pony off his legs, and for years adapted our tactics accordingly. However, this is not how you get Andy out. Osman may have thought he got his man with an off-cutter and fair enough it was a reasonable ball, however the majority of the credit should go to the slip fielders and their policy of mental disintegration that so utterly destroyed Mr. Eagle’s concentration.

After the early wicket, there followed a frustrating second wicket stand of 64 for the University Staff. Our bowlers continued to bowl well, but our inability to accept half chances ultimately cost us the chance of victory. Bob Williams eventually broke the partnership with a beauty that the batsman couldn’t believe got through. The introduction of Tim Sant’s leg-spin accelerated the fall of wickets, with Tim eventually taking 4-24. Special praise should also be given to Roger Puri who deserved far more success than his solitary wicket in seventeen economical and testing overs. Unable to pick up the pace, University Staff eventually declared on 157-9 after 50 overs with no more space available in the scorebook.

Tim Sant and James Codd opening the innings brightly scoring 32 runs for the first wicket within 6 overs, before James was caught in the gully off a high full toss. The innings continued solidly but it was difficult to accelerate the run rate with the ball not coming onto the bat. David Withington in his first Sunday game gave splendid encouragement to the narrator, by stating that he would pad up now because I’d probably be out for a golden duck! (has he seen me play before!)? T&T tried to keep the score ticking along with quickly taken singles but with a slow outfield, and the opposition able to set the field deep it was difficult to score the boundaries which were required to achieve victory. Edward Choules, firstly with David Withington and then Brian Cooper continued to bat positively ensuring that T&T looked the more deserving team but eventually fell 27 runs short of winning ending on 131-5 in 34 overs.

Possibly if we had accelerated earlier we could have achieved a win, and if we had taken our chances in the field we would have been chasing a smaller target. In a timed game, you accept that the team batting second will have fewer overs, and this is one of the factors you have to take into account when deciding to field first, the pay off being that you can always shut up shop if things aren’t looking good. However we received sixteen overs fewer than our opponents and this was probably the deciding factor.