Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs Portland 29th July 2008

BACK

Report by Speedo

Tricky match report for me as I was asked to write it a few days after the match and although I scored the entire match those who saw the scorebook will know I wasn’t paying much attention. The days entertainment started with Brian winning the 9 holes of golf using a lesser known West Reading version of Stapleford scoring. The better known stroke play method revealed Lemmy as the winner which was a relief as he’d also taken least shots. We arrived early at the windswept ground on top of Portland Bill across the hill from the young offenders institution. Two of the young offenders (clearly brothers) appeared to have escaped and took their places with one in each team.

And onto the game. We batted first and Dennis tucked into the young attack amassing a princely zero from the first 25 minutes play (including 5 minutes to remove the matting that was blowing around instead of protecting the following weekends wicket). Williams made the early breakthrough trapping Den LBW. Raj quickly followed caught. The first of the escapees came to crease. Using a logarithmic batting by numbers template Dicko started to amass a useful score with a mixture of perfect forward defences and hits over midwicket. After Micky was hit on the cheek by a ball that lifted off a length their skipper started to explore the full depth of their bowling attack. Dicko and Micky continued to put together an excellent partnership which went pasted one hundred. Just as Dicko looked likely to achieve his first club 50 he was bowled by the 7^th change. Micky and Mark continued to score quickly and Micky retired for 100 after an elegantly constructed innings full of front and back foot drives. Colly promoted himself to bat against his old team and was left not out with Mark at the end of 40 overs. Excellent tea got four plates on the Meady scale.

The second innings started with controversy when Ager refused to give their opener out on two separate occasions. In top tour tradition all the team bowled except for the centurion Mehta. Brian showed when he’s too old to bowl spin he could always become a seemer dismissing their classiest looking bat with one that apparently went like an off break (?) Phil J bought his stat topping net bowling to the outdoor arena with 4 tight overs. In fact all the bowlers explored new bowling styles except for Rags. Unfortunately the opposition batsmen weren’t told he was bowing in his usual style and were so savage he was taken off after only 2 overs. The innings finished in further controversy when the opener Ager had refused to give out retuned for his 4^th innings.

T&T ran out comfortable winners and in the most fiercely contested part of the afternoon Phil J and Os finished 5 all on the byes count.