BACKReport by Speedo
One word sums up this game......WIDE. No two words WIDE and LBW. Actually 66 wides and 6 lbws.
With the first decent weather on a Saturday afternoon since April I'd decided it was the day to win the toss and bat. Unfortunately their skipper had different ideas, won the toss and chose to bat. The pitch looked flat and the outfield fast so 200-220 looked about par.
We struck early with a direct hit for yours truly after a slight misfield. The Colt wasn't quite at his best but Pawan took two further wickets to leave Sandhurst struggling at 22 for 3. At this point their number 5 Hall started slashing the ball over backwards point so in an attempt to stem the runs I pulled line leg over to third man. This was the trigger for wides to really hit form and after a string of 5 wides fine leg was restored showing that sometimes you do have to set a field for a bad ball. Anyway after a couple of good stands between wides and Hall Sandhurst were 110 for 4 at which point Nehals low bouncing offbreak decived Hall to bowl him for 47. With Hall’s departure Sandhurst looked like they would fall away for under 150. However despite the Colt bowling well and taking 3 wickets in his 3rd spell they made it up to 176 in the 44th over thanks to the ever-dependable wides. Extras toped scored with 58 including a fluent 50 from wides. I must say wides’ wagon wheel was surprisingly varied. Overall at the start of play we'd have taken bowling them out for 176.
After a good tea and a catch-up on the footy scores we started our reply. Rog was first to go caught behind after two powerful straight drives. Eddie nearly ruptured his groin in an attempt to get forward but was still given out lbw and after my departure also lbw we were struggling at 35-3. Nehal and Micky then put on the match winning partnership of 88 during which one of their bowlers was removed from the attack due to bowling three beamers. Nehal scored 62 at better than a run a ball with Micky anchoring the other end. After Nehals departure, bowled slashing at a full toss, Micky upped his scoring rate and assisted mainly by John saw us home. Micky finished with a beautiful straight six the ball after he’d collapsed with cramp bringing up his fifty. We’d won with 6 overs to spare and wides third top score with 16.
Match stats of 89 extras and a bowler friendly lbw count of 6.
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