Theale and Tilehurst vs Marlow Park 6th August 2006

Report by Fingers

With James resting his bad back and Osman away at a family funeral I was left in charge for the visit to Marlow Park. On a pitch where over 300 had been successfully chased the day before it would have been nice to say we’ll have a bat on winning the toss but for the second time this season I found myself hoping to lose the toss; inevitably I won it and condemned us to some hard toil in the field.

Slater survived an early run out scare (match report code for we all thought it was well out but it wasn’t given) and then went on to play some powerful strokes, particularly straight down the ground, to give the Marlow Park innings a flying start. This shot did eventually prove to be his downfall with Rags taking an excellent running catch at long on off the bowling of Raj.

Hawkins Senior was then joined at the crease by his son and they started to threaten a decent partnership before Mo found the outside edge of Hawkins Senior and I held on to a sharp catch at slip; when Neal went next ball and Campbell soon followed to leave the score 126-4 we had made a good recovery and got ourselves back in to the game. However, Hawkins Junior was still at the crease and looking very comfortable as he took advantage of a very good batting surface and a lightning fast outfield.

He found useful allies in Barlow, Way and Holland as a succession of partnerships took the Marlow Park score well past 200. Just as the declaration seemed to be in the offing it was revealed that the 15 year old Hawkins was in the early nineties and the Marlow Park skipper reasonably let his young batsman complete an excellent and chanceless century.

The unfortunate thing was that the extra 25 runs scored and time taken up in the process of Hawkins getting his century rather took the game beyond reach for the team batting second.

With three of our regular top six absent a big run chase was always going to be a tall order and it became loftier still when Raj went first ball and Howlin knocked over my off stump. With Meady and Micky at the crease together we needed a big partnership if we were going to even vaguely threaten the opposition score. Meady initially looked quite fluent but then unfortunately chipped a drive to extra cover which prompted a collapse as Stephen, Rags and Dicko all went for ducks.

When Micky was dismissed as the third batsman of the day to narrowly miss out on a half century it was left to Mo and Arsalan to bat out the last few overs of the game in an attempt to secure a draw. Both batted very well with Arsalan the more aggressive of the two and even the return of the Marlow Park opening bowlers didn’t cause them any problems as they put on an unbroken partnership of 45 for the eighth wicket.

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team		Marlow Park						Away Team		Theale and Tilehurst
Date of Match		6th August 2006						Played at		Marlow Park

		Team							Result	Team
Result									Drawn

1st Innings of		Marlow Park
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	L Slater	ct			M Mason			R Puri				48
2	D Hawkins	ct			B Cooper			M Seghir				49
3	L Hawkins	not out										103
4	Neal	lbw						M Seghir				0
5	A Campbell	ct			M Mehta			T Greaves				8
6	K Barlow	ct			M Mehta			T Greaves				16
7	M Way	ct & b						B Cooper				12
8	O Holland	not out										19
9	I Campbell	DNB
10	G Miller	DNB
11	J Howlin	DNB
							Byes	9
							Leg Byes	2
							Wides	3
							No Balls	1
									Extras			15

							Wickets	6	Total			270

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	A Ahmed		9.4	1	51	0
2	R Williams		5	0	28	0
3	R Puri		6	1	28	1
4	M Seghir		7	1	30	2
5	T Greaves		7	0	40	2
6	M Mason		5	0	29	0
7	B Cooper		4	0	34	1
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	71	1				71
2	110	2				39
3	110	4				0
4	126	5				16
5	160	6				34
6	210	7				50
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2nd Innings of		Theale and Tilehurst
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	M Mehta	ct			G Miller			K Barlow				48
2	R Puri	ct			L Slater			O Holland				0
3	B Cooper	bowled						J Howlin				1
4	P Mead	ct			G Miller			I Campbell				35
5	S Wallace	ct			K Barlow			I Campbell				0
6	M Mason	st			L Slater			I Campbell				0
7	M Dixon	ct			J Howlin			I Campbell				0
8	M Seghir	not out										20
9	A Ahmed	not out										31
10	T Greaves	DNB
11	R Williams	DNB
							Byes	0
							Leg Byes	3
							Wides	5
							No Balls	0
									Extras			8

							Wickets	7	Total			143

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	J Howlin		10	3	32	1
2	O Holland		9	1	30	1
3	I Campbell		7	2	25	4
4	M Way		4	1	21	0
5	K Barlow		6	1	22	1
6	G Miller		3	1	10	0
7
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Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	0	2				0
2	1	3				1
3	51	4				50
4	51	5				0
5	60	6				9
6	98	1				38
7	98	7				0
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