BACKReport by Fingers
When a catch went down off the first ball of the match the guy scoring for Falkland sat next to me turned and said “you might regret that”. There’s nothing like confidence I thought to myself. However, after a couple of overs it was apparent that the Falkland openers, Day and Dey, had something about them. Chatting away with the other scorer he soon dropped in to the conversation that when Falkland had played Thatcham Day and Dey had put on 197 undefeated for the first wicket in 17 overs after which they declared.
We did regret that dropped catch as both Day and Dey went past fifty and put on 137 before the first wicket, Day, fell in the 14th over. Dey went in the next over and after that it was like playing a different game; whereas before the ball had been flying to all parts of the ground there was only one more boundary hit and only 20 runs came off the last four overs when there were wickets in hand.
Ashley went to the second ball of the reply but then Phil and Louis threatened briefly to do what had appeared the impossible as they put on 80 for the 2nd wicket in 11 overs. The partnership was a combination of aggressive stroke play and running between the wickets as both carried on their good form from the start of the season. This would have been an outstanding start in most games but the run rate required was still going up and both perished to attacking shots. The batsman that followed had little option in the context of the game but to try and play some shots from the off and needless to say struggled as wickets started to fall regularly to leave us all out with one ball of the innings to go.
Falkland 178-4 (L Day 56, R Dey 75, D Nicholson 2-25)
Theale and Tilehurst 103 all out (P Legace 34, L Jarvis 43, A Bolan 4-14)