Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs Hartley Wintney Friendly XI

16th August 2009

Report by Speedo.

Early in the proceedings Fingers mentioned that I was the oldest player in the team so I volunteered to write the report to hide this fact. At the toss it was decided that T&T would bat and then the toss was made so we batted first. It's worthy of mention that the previous year the HW skipper had tossed and got the rare outcome of edge. The first 3 overs passed with few events of note except:
      1. Meady requesting a change of batting order after one ball. Highly unusually this was a request to be dropped down the order on a flat track with friendly looking bowling.
      2. Wiggy and James taking the total to about 40.
      3. Wiggy clubbing a straight six and getting out next ball deceived by a slow one out both lbw and bowled.
      4. Andy D out for a duck.

Meady joined James and proceeded to reduce the run rate to a more manageable 7 an over with plenty of milking of gaps left by the opening batsmen's onslaught. After about 20 overs Meady was undone by a cunning leg side full toss plan - after 3 boundaries he spooned the fifth leg side full toss of the over to be well caught at mid-wicket. Os joined James who'd gone past 50 complaining about the surreal batting environment but concentrating well with some elegant cover drives in particular. Os wasn't full of rust after a 2 month cricket lay-off and immediately timed the ball well. During his innings one of the HW players decided he'd had enough and went home. We weren't sure if it was the Ossie's batting, the heat or the run rate which did for him but HW were down to 10 men for the remainder of the innings. James went bowled behind his legs(?) when generally we'd just assumed he'd go on for another ton. Mikey came in a stoked the ball around before falling lbw and soon after Os reached his fifty Fingers declared.

Excellent Tea. The early declaration meant they hadn't had time to cook some savouries but there was plenty and I tucked in with gusto whilst watching the early stages of the Spurs vs. Liverpool sky game.

Fingers graciously allowed HW an new 11th man. They started up cautiously but wickets were soon falling to the opening T&T bowlers. Fingers plucked a peach of a catch one handed at gully. The HW full toss plan used to good effect on Meady was adopted and adapted by T&T accounting for three more catches. Earlier the young HW number 3 had come out with a runner and then toyed with the fielding side by standing outside his ground blissfully unaware that he could be run out even though his runner was in. H and Mikey followed up the good opening spells from Sharpy and James with all 4 picking up wickets. At this point a combination of soft old ball and slightly cracking pitch were resulting in some variable bounce. Os showed he was human and was very rusty at first before settling in to good line and length. Fingers picked a couple more wickets up to keep his fight with Rags at the top of the wickets taken table going. Finally after some confusion over the how many overs were left of the final 20 in a timed game they were down to their last pair. The well lubricated crowd got behind the number 11 and he survived for an honourable draw.

I summarise this as a well managed game. The colts and younger players often say how they prefer 40-40 cricket as it's more exciting. This would have been an incredibly dull 40-40 game - bring back timed Sunday cricket I say - but maybe that's just my age!

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team		Hartley Wintney						Away Team		Theale and Tilehurst
Date of Match		16th August 2009						Played at		Hartley Wintney

		Team							Result	Team
Result									Drawn

1st Innings of		Theale and Tilehurst
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	A Wigmore	bowled						D Gray		1	1	12
2	J Codd	bowled						D Gray		11	0	80
3	A Darling	ct			-			J Lillington		0	0	0
4	P Mead	bowled						J Gilbert		5	0	40
5	O Mahmood	not out								6	0	51
6	M Holder	lbw						H Bowman		4	0	20
7	A Sharp	not out								1	0	6
8	H Osborn	dnb										0
9	J Bozarth	dnb										0
10	J White	dnb										0
11	B Cooper	dnb										0
							Byes	10
							Leg Byes	4
							Wides	30
							No Balls	1
									Extras			45

							Wickets	5	Total			254

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	D Gray		8	0	54	1
2	J Gilbert		6	0	46	1
3	W Ross		5	0	25	0
4	H Bowman		5	0	31	1
5	J Lillington		4	0	39	1
6	J Phillips		5	0	37	0
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	33	1				33
2	39	3				6
3	132	4				93
4	207	2				75
5	242	6				35
6
7
8
9
10




2nd Innings of		Hartley Wintney
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	J Lillington	ct			B Cooper			A Sharp				0
2	J Gilbert	ct			O Mahmood			J Bozarth				0
3	W Ross	bowled						H Osborn				17
4	H Bowman	bowled						J Bozarth				11
5	J Mitchell	ct			A Sharp			H Osborn				28
6	J Jolley	ct			J Bozarth			B Cooper				1
7	J Phillips	bowled						M Holder				28
8	J Mitchell	bowled						B Cooper				13
9	A Ross	bowled						A Sharp				6
10	M Lillington	not out										12
11	D Gray	not out										2
							Byes	33
							Leg Byes	2
							Wides	8
							No Balls	1
									Extras			44

							Wickets	9	Total			162

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	A Sharp		9	4	31	2
2	J Bozarth		6	1	16	2
3	H Osborn		8	1	21	2
4	M Holder		6	0	26	1
5	O Mahmood		7	1	34	0
6	B Cooper		7	1	25	2
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1						0
2						0
3						0
4						0
5						0
6						0
7						0
8						0
9						0
10						0