Theale & Tilehurst 2nd XI vs Emmbrook & Bearwood 19th May 2007

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Report by Chef

With some players out absent and some playing in the 1sts we had some new faces.  A notable absentee was Rags who obviously leaves a large hole in the squad, which could normally only be filled by two people.

Meady lost the toss and we were put into bat.  Rog and Eddie opened until a miscommunication between them ended up with Rog run out.  I say miscommunication between them but it was actually between Rog and Rog as it appeared Eddie didn't actually say anything and Rog decided not to listen to his own call of  yes....wait!!!

This brought Meady to the crease who from the start looked in good nick.  The pitch condition was difficult as it was still a little damp and the bounce was a little variable by staying low.  Meady racked up his 50 by dispatching the ball on the railway tracks.  This came in 73 balls (guess who was doing the scorebook with the colours and balls faced?). 

Meady and Eddie rode the storm to put a partnership of 91 together but Eddie was dismissed on 11 (off 71 balls).  Eddie's innings was just what we needed on a difficult pitch and this put us in a great position to kick on.

James then joined him at the crease who did exactly that scoring 31 in 42 balls.  James hitting a lovely 6 off his 8th ball he faced :-)  James finally perished to the familiar figure of James Hern who had James caught off the first ball of his over. 

Meady then passed the club record for the 2nd's with his hundred in 120 balls.  Imran was soon to follow bowled by Giles and Paul was run out running down the pitch in his cement boots.

At this stage I have to say panic had set in.  I had to go and get padded up and without Rags to take over my handy work I had to leave Pawan in charge of the scorebook.  I rushed to get padded up and fortunately only missed 3 balls so the panic was over.  I came back back to see Meady despatch another 6.

Spike was caught by a great catch. Ram was either stumped or run out on the final ball, it was hard to tell which.  Meady finally ended up on a chanceless 128 not out off 132 balls.  This is the best innings I've seen and paced to perfection and will likely to be in the record books for a while.  We ended up on 218 although when I added up it was 219 so the first innings ended in disappointment for me really.

Chef and Ram opened the bowling and Ram struck early bowling Hodges.  It wasn't until the Golden Arm of Ager (sounds like an Indiana Jones quest) struck, bowling Phipps followed by Woodward. Pawan struck in the middle of that and then Agyz finished off with his customary 3fer. 

Throughout their innings they were well up with the run rate but losing wickets regularly.  Clacey however was becoming a threat as the pitch became harder and less variable.  It was Ram who finally managed to dismiss him, followed by two more.  Sadly we ran out of time and they were 178 for 8.  We bowled well and the 8 bowled and an LBW suggests we were accurate, sadly the pitch turned a little docile compared to earlier and we were unable to bowl them out.

It was a great game with a good bunch of lads, still felt like a loss at the end tho.

P.S. Agyz, did you notice how I never mentioned how bad your last over was? coz that would have been really mean but I'm a bigger man than that (a lot bigger) so I didn't mention it.