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Report by Fingers
After the trip down to Devon in the morning and having checked in at the new tour venue of the Sportsman's Inn in Ivybridge it was on to the traditional tour opener against Holbeton at Flete Park.
With a tour party perhaps short of a front line batsman or two James decided to field first on winning the toss. Bob and Os initially kept it tight and the first breakthrough came when Os found the outside edge of Ackland's bat and Ian took a superb diving one handed catch across in front of first slip. Bob soon followed with the wicket of Moody and when the score reached 75-3 at the end of the 25th over things seemed to be under control.
However, when I took the wicket of Legrice things changed rapidly. Edwards came to the crease and with no gloves adopted a very unorthodox and squat stance; I thought throw it up in the air and he'll either miss it or hit it up in the air for a catch and that'll be another one thanks very much. After the first ball to Edwards was despatched miles over mid wicket I thought anyone can get lucky once, just bowl the same ball again and this time he'll miss it; I did and Edwards again put it miles over mid wicket. When he took twenty runs of Rags' next over there was some need to adjust the "he's just got lucky" theory. Fortunately it wasn't to last too long and Rags finally bowled Edwards for a 13 ball 42.
However, the innings had changed the match situation and instead of chasing 140-150 we were all of a sudden chasing 178 to win.
James dominated the early scoring in the T&T reply but when he went for 24 the score was 32-3 and we were in trouble. Spike and Hamad steadied the ship but when they and Rags went in quick succession the game was effectively over. Matt struck some late blows to take the score past 100 but it was left to Ackland to pick up the last two wickets and complete his five wicket haul.
Following the game we retreated to the rejuvenated Mildmay for a couple of beers and the big moment of the tour for Osman; was the bar of soap that he has left on top of the fuse box in room four for the last few years still there? Unfortunately there was no chance to check as the occupants had the bad manners to be in the room whilst we were there.
Report by Fingers
Following a lazy morning it was up to Whitchurch for the only other ever present tour fixture. Phil J joined the tour and the presentation of tour caps was made in the Whitchurch Inn at lunch.
Following another successful toss I was most of the way back to the pavilion before I finally decided that we should probably bowl first again. Os was straight in to action having Witcher caught in the gully off his second ball before bowling Claridge. Not to be outdone Bob had Gray taken superbly by Meady in the gully before he had Hamad palpably lbw.
At 45-5 it looked like the game might finish at a pace but Whitchurch had a strong lower middle order and Daymond, Alford and Freedam were all able to steady the ship and make a contribution; Alford was going nicely until Restall came out at number ten and hit his first ball straight to mid-on and called for an impossible single that allowed Spike to complete the run out.
At tea the president offered his analysis of the game; if we'd been chasing 130 we'd have got them, if we'd been chasing 170 we wouldn't but chasing 150 as we were left the game in the balance.
He may have been revising his analysis when James went to the first ball of the innings and he may have been thinking that fifty would have been a challenging target when we had subsided to 23-4. However, two decent partnerships followed first between Meady and Os and then Os and Rags but at 132-6 the game was still open with us very much relying on Osman being undefeated at the end.
At six over mid-off from Osman that hit a telegraph pole and met the bowler at the top off his run eased some of the pressure but the wickets of Phil and Matt still kept the game open.
In the end Osman did see the game through to a T&T victory with consecutive boundaries off Restall but until the end it remained a game that could have gone either way.
Report by Fingers
After nine holes of golf in the morning which the president won by a comfortable seven shots it was to Oak Park for the game against Cornwood. There had been discussion the night before at Whitchurch about whether or not Cornwood's pro had been called up to a Pakistan A tour of Australia or not and we had contented ourselves that it seemed like he had. However, when we arrived there was someone who looked distinctly pro like as he walked round the ground (and I don't mean Rags). It seemed that Cornwood had felt the need to bring in an alternative pro for this game and perhaps a few league matches as well.
Cornwood won the toss and elected to bat so it was up to Bob and Os to start up again. They again both struck early with Staddon edging Osman to Phil behind the stumps and Logan clean bowled by Bob.
The main batsman for Cornwood proved to be their captain Morgan who played very nicely for his 61 but his dismissal brought to the crease Farooq, the pro. Speaking to the Cornwood scorer before the game it seemed he was a bit hit and miss with the bat and fortunately this day was a miss. However, this was only due to a superb tumbling catch at long on by the president as he continued his tour tradition of taking superb catches to dismiss the pro at Cornwood. He soon followed this up with an even better catch one handed above his head but unfortunately stepped over the rope in the process.
In a straight forty over game the innings closed at 184-8 which represented another good effort in the field by us.
Having been dismissed first ball the day before James went to the other end of the scale here by hitting his first ball for six over wide long off. Unfortunately that proved to be it for James as it was left to the president to hold the top order together with a hard worked 38. The destroyer in chief proved to be Thomas who on a slow low pitch bowled slowly and lowly and proved to be very difficult to get away.
Hamad again played well but again it was down to Osman if we were going to get up to the total. However, having made it up to 39 he fell to Farooq, bowling some off spin rather than his more usual pace bowling, and not long after the game was wrapped up for a Cornwood win by 16 runs. Not even a re-enactment of the great pastie speech had been enough to get us the win.
Report by Fingers
The final game of the tour was at Ivybridge and for the fourth day in a row it was a hot and sticky afternoon. With Spike out of action with a bad back it was the president who led the team and who elected to field on winning the toss.
On an artificial surface Bob and Os opened the bowling one more time and he has had done most times Os took an early wicket when Bulloch was caught at point. However, Bob was struggling to find a line and length as Ivybridge got off to a flying start. When the 100 came up in the 15th over it looked like we would be chasing a massive total.
However, wickets were falling and when three went in consecutive overs to leave the score 149-6 targets were being revised downwards. The wildcard down the order though was Coker who hit a 19 ball 41 and took the score past 200. Whilst the final score of 242 was less than it looked like it might have been at one point it still represented a big target to chase.
Eddie went early but then James and Meady took advantage of some overly attacking fields to get the T&T innings off to a flyer. James' fifty came up off 35 balls and the team 100 came up in the sixteenth over, only one over later than Ivybridge's. The other similarity though was that wickets were falling and it was left to Osman and Rags to again try and forge a partnership that would keep us in contention.
They were able to do so with Rags taking the lead role this time and scoring a fifty off 44 balls. Various bowlers were tried and wickets again started to fall and at 201-8 Ivybridge again were the favourites. However, I was able to get a couple of pull shots away and Matt came in for a cameo innings of 19 off ten balls and all of a sudden only eight runs were needed with three overs left; the only problem was that there was only one wicket left. A pull shot for four halved the target and with only one ball of the over left the field was brought in to try and keep Bob on strike. Warden the bowler over pitched though and disappeared back over his head for four for an excellent T&T victory in a game where we had looked second favourites for long periods. Eddie then managed to rub some salt in to any opposition wounds there might have been after the game by apologising that we hadn't been able to bring a stronger side.
So ended another successful tour and thanks go to Spike for organising it. Osman was unanimously voted as the player of the tour, the champagne moment was agreed to be Eddie's tumbling catch at long on to dismiss the pro at Cornwood and James won the tour fantasy league competition.