Tour
Report 2008
Day
1 - Shedfield CC
- Report by Rags
So
the tour kicked
off, but not where originally planned. After Bridgport cancelled, much
to the
upset of Micky Mehta, who had planned the world's best curry for that
night in
Bridgport, we managed to get a hastily arranged game with Shedfield in
Hampshire (well done to Brian and John). After a rendezvous at Theale,
complete
with fresh cream pastries (courtesy of James) we were underway and
travelled
down to meet at the Samuel's Rest pub, opposite the ground. A good
lunch was
enjoyed and then tour business began with the allocation of tour hats
and
nicknames.
|
Tourist |
Nickname |
|
John
Morris |
Spike |
|
Brian
Cooper |
Shaun |
|
Phil
Jenkins |
Madejski |
|
Tim
Sant |
Kate
Adie |
|
Mark
Mason |
Bob
Snr |
|
James
Codd |
Stag |
|
Roger
Puri |
Geoff
Miller |
|
Matt
Dixon |
Thomas
from Leeds |
|
Chris
Lemm |
Rod
Knee |
|
Sunil
|
DT3
4DY |
|
Paul
Ager |
Jamie
Summers |
|
Chris
Collingwood |
Admiral |
|
Osman
Mahmood |
Amy |
|
Hamad
Ali |
Ssius
Clay |
|
Bob
Williams |
Rags |
|
Dennis
Robertson |
N
E 1 4 T? |
|
Micky
Mehta |
Wonder
Stuff |
|
Phil
Mead |
Kirstie |
Most of these will need no explanation to regular players but among the
best,
just for those who may be reading this and don't play with them, were:-
Sunil - Was given the postcode of where we were staying (and still got
lost!!)
Micky - This was due to their big hit "Size of a cow"
Tim - With reference to his penchant for 'war stories' in the bar.
Matt - For the resemblance between him and the singing superstar
sensation
on the Halifax Building Society ads.
So to the game itself. I must admit as a non player that day, it
actually makes
it harder to remember (or maybe it's my age) all the thing that
happened, but
here goes.
Prior
to the
game Tim bought out a special orange bat, used to give catching
practice before
a game, everyone 'seemed' to excel in making the catches off this bat.
Maybe we
should have had a word with the opposition and asked them to spray
paint their
bats orange, as it may have helped later! Also in the pre-amble to the
game was
the 'brolly wars' between Speedo and Sunil with both claiming that
'theirs was
bigger' !!!
Not sure who won the toss, but we were in the field, with Bob and Colly
opening
the bowling. This seemed to suit the Shedfield openers, as the pace and
bounce
of an artificial track meant that the bowlers were having to pitch the
ball up,
and driving seemed to be a strong suit for these batsmen. A fairly
early drop
in the gully by Den off Colly was the start of a feud between the two,
to see
who could drop the most catches on the day!! Colly putting a hard
chance down in
the covers to equal his rivals score( as far as I can remember the
final score
was 3-3).
After
an opening
stand of 98, Sunil made the breakthrough, bowling Jennings for a well
deserved
54. The next wicket followed soon after, when following a 'yes-no'
scenario,
James threw the ball from square leg to Sunil to complete the run-out.
Another
50 partnership followed before the skipper wisely turned to a bowler
renowned
for his wicket taking prowess and ability to bowl it straight!!!
Enter
Micky - he
proceeded to give a masterful display of tight, accurate in-swing
bowling, that
the batsmen couldn't get away, luckily for them Brian was not bowling
quite as
well from the other end. Micky took 2 wickets whilst conceding only 8
runs in 5
overs to be the pick of the bowlers on the first day.
At
this stage it was
192-4, soon 198-5 as Colly came back and took a wicket, no surprise
really,
apart from the fact that Raj took the catch!! This was the signal for
the
number 3 batsmen Martin to start launching the ball directly to
fielders
and running lots of runs as they dropped him. Colly dropped 2 in 2
balls,
Dennis dropped 2 in 2 overs and at least there was a certain parity
between
them both at the end of the innings. Brian's figures, in particular,
suffered.
Martin ended on 75 not out and saw Shedfield to a total of 238 for 5, a
good
total, but one that we felt was within reach if we batted well.
James and Raj got us off to a good, solid and quick start. James
was
looking in good nick but then fell to a decent catch to leave us 76-1.
Enter
the returning Tim, for his first match for T&T in about 4 years
since he
left us for the 'warmer, tropical climate' of Cheshire! What followed
was an
excellent stand of 134, between the increasingly knackered Tim and the
even more
increasingly knackered Raj. Raj batted superbly and managed to keep his
concentration to complete a 'ton' before Nelson struck. With Raj on
111, Tim
pushed the ball firmly to a shortish cover, Raj called for a single and
set
off, Tim called No quite emphatically. The ball was thrown to the
bowlers end
and missed, Raj was demonstrating the turning circle of a super tanker
stuck in
the oil it should have been carrying, the ball was backed up and under
armed at
the stumps which also missed, Raj was stumbling back to his crease,
finally the
ball was again backed up and the throw this time did not miss and
found Raj just a foot or so short and run out. I'm sure I saw a
smile on
his face at the relief that he wouldn't have to find another breath for
running
again and could instead go off and have a cigarette. Well played Raj
although its possible that he deserved a fine or two for the
impression of Sehwag when on 96 (going past his ton with a six) and the
Inzi
impression as he was comically run out. That was the end of the wickets
falling, despite Dennis trying to get out in various ways whilst at the
wicket.
Tim brought up a well deserved 50 and the two of them saw us home with
over 3
overs to spare.
A competitive start to the tour, in a game played in good spirit, was
just
exactly what we'd wanted. Unfortunately we couldn't stay on after the
match, as
we had to travel to Chickerell to book-in, but I'd like to thank
Shedfield
for the hospitality shown to us on the day and hopefully we will return
to
sample the delights another time.
Dennis received the duck/bunny T-shirt, as he had the lowest score of
the day
(23not out) and Spike won the Dicko of the day T-shirt, for a
lightning
quick dash across the car park to get his match trousers, which he'd
left in
the car, and thinking that nobody had spotted him!!! If you get to see
the tour
photo at some point that was taken at the Shedfield game, you may see
Spike
clearly holding his whites in front of his jeans for the snapshot.
Day
2 - Martinstown
CC - Report by Fingers
After
Micky had led a
fine survey of Chesil beach in the morning and lunch in the Riverhouse
at
Upwhey it was on to Martinstown for the second game of the tour and a
second
game on an artificial pitch. We met up with Lemmy who had joined the
tour late
and already helped himself to a free lunch from our hosts for the day.
With
the previous
game on an artificial relatively high scoring the same was expected
again,
especially as there were some short boundaries in places, albeit some
of the
others were very long.
Martinstown won the toss and elected to bat and after Lemmy got rid of
Milverton the youthful Lewis and Moss played the main partnership of
the
day. This shouldn’t have been allowed to happen but unfortunately
Spike
and Meady ran in to each other and the chance to get rid of Moss was
missed. Lewis, who plays for Dorset u14s, played the better of
the two
and made it through to fifty; Moss also followed in reaching fifty but
relied
heavily on the bottom hand and hits through mid wicket, something we
should
have been able to cope with but didn’t.
When
Lewis finally
went to Dicko Moss soon followed and with the introduction of Osman in
to the
attack 136-1 became 146-6 in no time. However, the collapse was
halted by
Nichols in the main who scored an excellent fifty. With Kershaw
he took
the score past 200 to set what would be a challenging total.
After
tea Meady and
Aygz opened the batting and got us off to a steady start. Aygz was the
first to
go for 23 and after another promising partnership Dopey went for
18.
Unfortunately this was to be the shape of things to come, batsmen
getting
starts and small partnerships being formed but not going on. The
main hope
seemed to be Meady but after he had batted very well to reach 61 he was
caught
at long off trying to lift the scoring rate.
With
Colly at
hospital having the ever expanding bite on the back of his leg looked
at when
Dicko was out bowled by Adams that was it and we had fallen thirty runs
short
of our total.
This
was a very
enjoyable match against what seems to be a well organised club that is
looking
to grow and develop. Good luck to Martinstown in their plans to
lay a
grass square at the ground and hopefully we’ll be back in future years.
See Martinstown scorecard here
Day
3 - Portland Red
Triangle - 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 7th
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 4th 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.
See Portland Red Triangle
scorecard here
Day
4 - Farley
- Report by Fingers
And
so to the final
game of the tour as we stopped off at Farley on the way home.
Having
arrived in Farley early we took over the beer garden of the local pub
and used
the Pétanque court for what must have been one of the most fiercely
contested
and ill tempered games of “keepy-downy” cricket ever played. If
Dopey as
fines chairman had had a pencil and paper with him at the time he could
have
got everyone down for a fine or two there and then; as it was by the
time
evening came round and Dopey started erratically issuing fines he
seemed to
have forgotten that we had played “keepy-downy” at all.
After
this episode we
carried on to the ground for the proper game. No idea who won the
toss
but we were batting first; to avoid any lethargy in the performance it
had also
been decided to give motor-mouth himself an excuse to talk even more by
appointing him captain (that’s Aygz in case you hadn’t worked it out).
After
waiting two
clear days for a game James walked out to take the first ball and
immediately
found himself walking back with Jackson having bowled a ripper to take
the top
of off stump. Spike and Aygz steadied the ship with a useful
partnership
for the 2nd wicket before Aygz decided to quite shamelessly run Spike
out;
Spike very generously making a sacrifice of biblical proportions to
allow
Aygz’s survival.
When
the score was at
61-4 it looked lke we might fall some way short of a competitive total
on a
decent pitch with very short square boundaries. Fortunately Tim
and Os
were able to put those fears to rest with an excellent partnership of
126 for
the fifth wicket. Tim showing how to take advantage of the short
boundary
as he hit 5 sixes in his 85 and Os scampering away for his 51;
potentially it
was Os’ aggressive running between the wickets that cost Tim a century
as he
seemed to have run out of puff by the end of his innings.
Rags
and Speedo also
both scored quickly at the end of the innings and 252-6 certainly
seemed a competitive
total to have set.
After
tea Lemmy and
Bob opened up the bowling and they both took an early wicket.
However,
Colvill was soon starting to dominate proceedings and when he was
joined by
Rowlandson and their partnership went past fifty it looked like they
were the
favourites. As soon as he got to his 100, though, Colvill was
dismissed
by Os and if Farley were going to get close it was Rowlandson that was
going to
have to get most of the runs.
With
one end open,
however, wickets were starting to fall regularly and with 32 needed
Glanville
came out to bat at no.11 with his skipper leaving him in no uncertain
terms
about what was expected of him. However, the pace of Lemmy
eventually
proved too much for him and we were able to close out the win by 25
runs.
So
ended a
fantastic tour; some excellent and competitive cricket, a great place
to stay
and a half decent bunch of blokes to go on tour with!