Theale & Tilehurst vs Valley End 20th September 2003

Report by Fingers

The final home game of the season saw the visit of Valley End. On yet another Indian summer's day T&T chose to bat and El Presidente and Jimmy Hill strode out. The T&T innings got off to a good start with the Valley End opening bowlers dropping too short and allowing El Presidente to play his trademark square and late cuts. Valley End soon noticed they were leaking runs through third man and more and more fielders were put behind square on the off side, this didn't stop Eddie threading the ball through narrower and narrower gaps to the boundary. Jamil went with the score on 40 in the 9th over which led to a fine partnership between Eddie and Crofty which took the score to 111 in the 20th over, a large total was looking likely. However, Nelson struck and Valley End through Coleman put a significant brake on the T&T innings as he bowled a consistently good line and length. He picked up his wickets with the batsman trying to play forcing shots to decent balls. James continued his heavy run scoring with 40, although he wasn't in his best form, to hold the innings together and it wasn't until the 46th over that the 200 was brought up, the declaration soon following with the score on 211-9. It should be noted that the declaration was forced on the captain by Bob who showed no inclination to come and bat wanting to avoid stretching his lead in the duck cup. 212 to win left the game wide open and the Valley End innings got of to a decent start to set the match up even more. Parsons and Foster put on 48 for the 1st wicket until Parsons was well caught by the debutant Phil Mead in the gully of Fingers' second ball. Foster followed in Bob's first over to another good catch, this time by Crofty running back at cover. O Coleman came out and immediately looked dangerous but his innings was cut short when he was caught by Rags at long off. This made the score 104-3 with Valley End needing about a run a ball to win the game, again the game was still evenly poised. The introduction of Rags in to the attack threatened to be the turning point but unfortunately for the wrong reasons, his first over went for 19 with Messenger not quite being able to believe his luck at a buffet being provided so soon after tea. Fortunately Crofty was keeping it tight and soon dismissed Messenger to a superb caught and bowled. The game continued to ebb and flow with Valley End making it through to 179-6. However, the skipper then made an inspired decision as he decided to replace the suffering Rags with Jamil at the Englefield Road end. He soon broke the partnership that had developed between Readman and J Coleman and in his next over cleaned out Pocock's middle stump. What a stroke of genius this bowling change had proved to be and one that possibly no-one else had considered (leaving so late). Valley End commendably continued to go for the win and J Coleman was very well taken by Phil running round at long on. There was still one twist in the game though. Jamil had fielded like an asthmatic ant carrying some heavy shopping all afternoon and when Coe played the ball towards him presumed there was an easy single, even thinking there was time to stop in the middle of the pitch and have a chat with his partner on the way. However, for once Jamil picked the ball up cleanly and returned it to Tim behind the stumps to secure the win with a run out allowing Jamil to claim that all the rest of his fielding had been a superbly played hustle on the Valley End team.

BERKSHIRE LEAGUE SCORECARD
Home Team		Theale and Tilehurst						Away Team		Valley End
Date of Match		20 September 2003						Played at		Theale

		Team						pts	Result	Team				pts
Result		Theale and Tilehurst							beat	Valley End					by 27 runs

1st Innings of		Theale and Tilehurst												Rate Per Over
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score		Score		W	Bwl
1	E Ellis	ct			-			J Coleman		10	0	51	1	1		0	1
2	M Jamil	ct			-			A Readman		3	0	14	2	5		0	2
3	A Crofts	bowled						J Coleman		8	1	45	3	14		0	1
4	P Mead	bowled						J Coleman		1	0	10	4	19		0	2
5	J Codd	ct			A Coe			P Foster		6	1	40	5	27		0	1
6	A Johnson	lbw						J Pocock		0	0	1	6	29		0	2
7	T Beck	bowled						F Parsons		2	0	14	7	30		0	1
8	O Mahmood	bowled						P Foster		1	0	4	8	35		0	2
9	M Mason	ct			F Parsons			F Parsons		1	0	10	9	44		1	1
10	B Cooper	not out								2	0	10	10	45		1	2
11	R Williams	DNB											11	53		1	1
							Byes	1					12	62		1	2
							Leg Byes	4					13	68		1	1
							Wides	5					14	72		1	2
							No Balls	2					15	74		1	1
									Extras			12	16	89		1	3
													17	98		1	4
							Wickets	9	Total			211	18	102		1	3
													19	107		1	4
Bowling			O	M	R	W							20	111		2	3
1	A Readman		8	0	44	1							21	112		2	4
2	A Gale		7	0	30	0							22	112		3	3
3	J Coleman		10	3	30	3							23	117		3	4
4	G Messenger		5	0	22	0							24	119		3	3
5	J Pocock		7	2	26	1							25	121		3	4
6	P Foster		6	1	37	2							26	124		3	3
7	F Parsons		3.3	0	18	2							27	126		3	5
8													28	127		3	3
													29	135		3	5
Fall of Wicket													30	135		4	3
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of							31	140		4	5
1	40	2				40							32	142		4	3
2	111	3				71							33	143		4	5
3	112	1				1							34	145		4	3
4	135	4				23							35	145		5	5
5	145	6				10							36	146		5	6
6	167	5				22							37	156		5	5
7	173	8				6							38	167		5	6
8	191	9				18							39	167		5	5
9	211	7				20							40	167		6	6
10													41	169		6	7
													42	177		7	6
													43	186		7	7
													44	190		7	6
													45	196		8	7
													46	210		8	6
													47	211		9	7
2nd Innings of		Valley End												Rate Per Over
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score		Score		W	Bwl
1	F Parsons	ct			P Mead			B Cooper		5	0	25	1
2	P Foster	ct			A Crofts			R Williams		0	0	7	2
3	T Nevin	ct			B Cooper			A Crofts		5	0	27	3
4	O Coleman	ct			M Mason			R Williams		3	1	18	4
5	N Coe	bowled						B Cooper		3	0	12	5
6	G Messenger	ct			A Crofts			A Crofts		4	1	26	6
7	A Readman	bowled						M Jamil		2	0	17	7
8	J Coleman	ct			P Mead			A Crofts		3	0	21	8
9	J Pocock	bowled						M Jamil		0	0	1	9
10	A Coe	run out								0	0	2	10
11	A Gale	not out								0	0	0	11
							Byes	16					12
							Leg Byes	6					13
							Wides	4					14
							No Balls	2					15
									Extras			28	16
													17
							Wickets	10	Total			184	18
													19
Bowling			O	M	R	W							20
1	O Mahmood		6	1	16	0							21
2	A Johnson		5	1	18	0							22
3	B Cooper		8	2	32	2							23
4	R Williams		8	2	28	2							24
5	A Crofts		6.4	1	28	3							25
6	M Mason		4	0	33	0							26
7	M Jamil		2	0	7	2							27
8													28
													29
Fall of Wicket													30
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of							31
1	48	1				48							32
2	50	2				2							33
3	86	4				36							34
4	104	5				18							35
5	117	3				13							36
6	141	6				24							37
7	179	7				38							38
8	182	9				3							39
9	184	8				2							40
10	184	10				0							41
													42
													43
													44
													45
													46
													47