2008 Tour Reports

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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.

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.

See Shedfield scorecard here

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 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.

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.

See Farley scorecard here

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!