Theale & Tilehurst 2nd XI vs Woodley 2 14th July 2007

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Report by Fingers

With the top two sides in the division playing each other elsewhere this was an ideal oportunity to take advantage of a slip up by at least one of them. Things initially didn't go well when Meady lost the toss and T&T were put in to bat.

Rog and Eddie were able to exploit some loose bowling in the first couple of overs to get us off to a flyer but things started to turn in Woodley's favour when they were both back in the pavilion with only 31 on the just about hanging together score board.

Fortunately Meady was able to carry on his excellent form for the season so far and after a difficult first half of the season Micky was able to provide ample support. They were able to put on 94 for the third wicket and whilst they were at the crease we were looking at a score in the region of 220-240. However, they were both to go in quick succession and most of the scoring in the final overs of the innings was left to Ram who continued where he left off last week.

A final flourish in the final three or four overs took the score to 197-7 but the conversation over the excellent Ager tea was that it was probably twenty short of par.

However, when the Colt and Ram both struck with their second deliveries, the second to an outstanding diving one handed catch by Tim, we were back on top. Wood batting at three looked a good player but he was cleaned up by a in-swinging yorker by Ram. The Colt then picked up two further wickets with the assistance of a brilliant catch by Pawan and a merely good one by Andy in the gully.

With the score at 44-6 Paul was introduced in to the attack; his first over went something like: long hop, wicket, rubbish ball, wide, wicket, long hop, wicket. All of a sudden the score was 46-9 and Paul was on his way to 4-12 off 2.4 overs.

With T&T poised on the verge of victory the Woodley captain decided at this point to resurrect an issue from the first innings. Relatively early in his innings Micky had hit a ball over mid on which had stopped about an inch short of the boundary, however the fielder had put his foot over the boundary in picking the ball up and Woodley had taken great offence when the umpire correctly signalled four. Can I suggest for future reference that 50-9 chasing 198 to win is not necessarily the time as a batsman to bring issues like this up in an attempt to sledge the whole fielding side.

Not to worry though, Paul continued his golden arm spell and trapped Figzal palpably lbw to secure a comfortable victory to keep the 2nd XI run of positive results going.