Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs West Reading 3rd July 2005

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Report by Fingers

This was a new fixture for T&T and having been looking at the Berkshire League message board in the week leading up to the game we weren’t sure what to expect; however, West Reading came across as a good bunch of guys and it was a very enjoyable game. It was also good to see a couple of our ex-colts playing.

In a straight forty over game West Reading won the toss and put us in to bat; with the best part of 500 runs scored the day before there were plenty of players on the T&T side keen to have a bat. (Thanks to West Reading for their comments about the pitch on the BCL message board)

The T&T innings started at a pace; Rog smashed the first ball of the game straight back down the ground nearly taking Trigger’s head off and this was followed a couple of balls later by a six over backward square leg. That was as good as it got for Rog though as he was soon out caught behind, he being the only person in the RG7 post code area at the time that did not know that he had nicked it.

This brought Jamil to the crease; Jamil has been short of runs this year compared to previous years but in recent weeks has looked in fairly good touch. It was inevitable that someone soon was going to get a hammering and West Reading turned out to be the unfortunate victims. The West Reading bowling generally looked quite tidy but on a very flat batting pitch any error in line or length was punished. The statistics for Jamil’s innings were as follows: his 50 came up off 67 balls, 100 off 104 balls and 150 off 124 balls; there were 24 fours and 5 sixes.

What shouldn’t be forgotten was that alongside Jamil’s fireworks Micky was also batting very well as he continued his good run of form this year. Micky made 68 in a partnership of 179 which set a new 3rd wicket partnership record in all cricket for T&T. When Micky was dismissed it was left to Ed and Spike to support Jamil and give him the strike where possible. The last few overs were dominated by whether we were going to get to 300 or not and we finally did this when Spike got a two off the last ball. 300-4 also set a new record for T&T.

As mentioned above this was a straight forty over game; this format is preferred by many as it offers “more exciting cricket”. Well, sorry to disagree but it doesn’t. With all due respect West Reading were never going to get very close to 300 and as we didn’t have to bowl them out to win the cricket in the second half of the game lacked any intensity or tension, everyone already knew the result of the game. If it hadn’t been an overs game we would probably have considered declaring earlier to keep the game open and give ourselves more time to try and bowl them out but you don’t declare in straight overs games do you?

This isn’t to say that West Reading didn’t have a go for the runs and didn’t bat well. At the start of the reply it looked like the innings might subside quickly; Icky took three quick wickets as West Reading collapsed to 39-5. The West Reading innings was dominated by A Hussain as he made a very fine 105 which featured shots as cleanly struck as any in the first innings; he was well supported initially by Z Abbas in a partnership of 77 before Fingers took three quick wickets and threatened to wrap up the innings. For the second week running though a ninth wicket partnership frustrated us as Taylor and I Razaq put on an unbroken partnership of 74; as overs started to run out the game could have been quite interesting if we’d had to bowl them out to win but as we didn’t the game petered out to the inevitable T&T victory that had been practically guaranteed three hours earlier.