Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs Holyport 20th April 2008

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Well finally the first game of my reign had skipper had come. All my kit was immaculate and my new bat was raring to go.

I turned up at the Mecca that is the Englefield Ground at Theale. Everybody was present and I strode out to the square with the opposition skipper. I duly lost the toss and we were unsurprisingly asked to bat on a track that looked and played exceptional despite the inclement weather.

I decide to open with the partnership of Messrs Wigmore and Mead. The first wicket fell at 25 when Wiggy had one that stopped on him and he kindly nudged back to the bowler who took a return catch. James came in and was very unfortunate when trying to punish a bad ball in finding square leg who took a very good catch when some fielders would rather have taken evasive action.

Now I'm of Celt ancestry but was born in England. During the medieval days in England the bearded fellows liked nothing more than enjoying large quantities of Mead. At points yesterday I felt drunk watching our own Mead indulging in playing a very good innings accumulating a very good fifty. Meady and Sunil brought up the first 50 partnership of the season. Sunil was next to go for 31 with the score on 99.

The most important thing about playing pre season games is that people have time at the crease and apart from the unfortunate James everybody had a decent time at the crease.

The scoreboard was kept ticking along and we had started to build a decent score. Meady eventually went for a very fine 77 including 5 fours and 3 lusty sixes. Rags contributed a very quick 23 and the T&T innings eventually ending in the 39th over for a very good team score of 170.

Now if anybody knows me and knows my frame they would realise that I've enjoyed many a cricket tea. If Sundays tea was anything to go by we are going to have some quality teas. Brian and Sunil had shared the tea duties and it was down to Sunil to look after the snack and cake side of things. The Holyport boys were treated to an assortment of M&S quality delights with onion bhajis and Cherry Liqueurs being the class act. Now at the beginning of tea there were two boxes of Liqueurs. Five minutes later the only evidence left was a very poorly Mr Mead who must have eaten a box full himself.

Back to the game, Bob and Doc opened the bowling with Bob bowling from the Englefield Road end. Now it's the first game of the season and you've got to expect some rustiness in the fielding and bowling aspects of the game but this was far from the case today. Neil took the first wicket of the day when Taylor hit one at the safe hands of Rags with the score on 14. Holyport couldn't get the T&T bowlers away apart from the exception of the very occasional bad bowl that they duly punished. Cox and the dangerous Fowler had put on 44 and dopey was trying to think of how to break up the partnership. Now Rags was bowling an exceptional line and length and had Cox in all sorts of trouble. Dopey decided to bring Wiggy out of extra cover and put him at short leg , the very next bowl Cox duly played it straight to give Wiggy the simplest of catches. Rags and Fingers continued the keep the pressure on and Fingers got a deserved wicket when Dopey managed to stump Woolridge. Dicko was the next change and picked up a couple of wickets. Now the next wicket to fall was one of those when a spectator would be in hysterics on the sideline. Wiggy had come on and bowled a very short ball that Head totally mis-hit trying to hook. Now watching Doc race over to try and take the skied edge was like watching the Six Million dollar man when the action goes into slow mo. Unfortunately Doc spooned the tough chance but in the mean time Head had called his partner through for a second. Bob threw the ball to Dopey who shyed at the non strikers end to run out Kassamali to complete what you'd only normally see in a slapstick comedy.

Doc took the final Holyport wicket of Kirby to give T&T a victory by 36 runs. Now as skipper I was very lucky to have such a great side, everybody played exceptional today especially in the field, the bowling figures of all our bowlers show how well they all bowled especially Doc who was running in like a train all afternoon. But the highlight of the day most definitely was Meadys innings.