Theale & Tilehurst 1st XI vs Goring 11th June 2005

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Report by Fingers

After the initial formalities had been completed, Phil winning the toss and putting the opposition in, the game got underway. It seems that some people are now taking Phil winning the toss for granted, AJ turning up already in his whites and ready to take the field.

Grist and Haines opened the innings for Goring. Grist looked well organised but Baines didn’t detain the opening attack for too long. He was dropped off Doc’s first ball but went three balls later caught one handed by James at cover. This brought to the crease Duncan Kent who played excellently and probably the best innings by an opposition batsman we have seen this year. He and Nicholson put on 65 for the 3rd wicket and then he and Clarke 59 for the 5th wicket. For much of their innings Goring looked like they would score more than the 194-7 they ended up with. With the wickets that they had in hand they could perhaps have used the later overs to better effect.

This wasn’t our best performance in the field but we were still able to keep a relative check on the scoring. On a good pitch and fast outfield batsman were getting full value for their shots and 194 was arguably 20-30 runs short of what should have been par for the course.

The opening bowling by Goring allowed the T&T innings to get off to a flier. Phil in particular was savage on Blackburn who struggled with his line and length. When the 100 was brought up in the 19th over for no loss it seemed like we would cruise to victory. It was no such thing though. The change bowling for Goring was left arm spin followed by more left arm spin. Crawford was probably the pick of them bowling his 15 overs unbroken from the road end and it was he that picked up the initial breakthroughs dismissing both James and Phil.

During the middle part of the innings there was a sideshow to the main game. No one is quite sure how but we managed to lock ourselves out of our dressing room; we are of course blaming Dopey for this. The only key we had was locked inside the changing room so the caretaker was summoned who confirmed after plenty of trying that they didn’t have a key for either door. The option of having to remove one of the doors was actively being considered and James went in to the shed to look for a screw driver with which to start removing the lock. When looking he found a couple of old keys lying around and thought he might as well try them, fortunately one of them turned out to be the key to one of the doors and we were back in. The funny thing is that whilst we were locked out and no one could get at their kit we were going along nicely and not losing wickets. As soon as we got back in wickets started to fall; perhaps it’s a shame we found the key when we did.

When Dennis was the 3rd out with the score on 144 there was a decided wobble as 5 wickets fell for 16 runs; 35 were still needed with the main batsman gone. Lemmy has struggled with the bat recently, primarily due to lack of opportunity, but today he showed some of what he can do. When Crawford finished his spell Hedge was brought back and Chris drove him for one four through mid off before picking him up twice over mid wicket for further fours.

At the half way point of the T&T innings the one result that had looked least likely was the draw. However, due to the control exerted by the Goring spinners time was starting to run out. To the penultimate ball of the final over Fingers was run out trying to get a second but Doc instantly came and relieved some of the pressure by hitting the final ball over mid off for four.

This left two needed off the final over with two wickets in hand. Phil was sat nervously on the boundary hoping that there would be no repeat of the Warfield game but fortunately with a single apiece Lemmy and Doc saw us through to a two wicket win with four balls to spare.

This was a good game of cricket between two good sides which in the end could have gone either way, fortunately we are developing a winning habit that helped see us home.