Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs Thatcham 2nd Friendly XI

23rd May 2010

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It was a 12.45 meet at TnT and I was treated to some entertaining cricket by the Under 11s playing at our home ground. Lots of sun hats, sun tan lotion being passed around, people looking for tree shades and lot of cheering for the young talent. I hope I am there some day to watch my son Kartik play for our club too. Surely he will be a lot more talented than I am especially as he will rub shoulders with our colts in a few years although I hope he is not treated by James White as mentioned in the letter written by Fingers to our Welfare Officer yesterday.

There was also a lot of activity in our Club House as all were scrambling for a new sun hat. We should have taken the opportunity and sold a few hats for summer discount prices to the parents of the Under 11s while supporting the team but maybe next week.

We left for Thatcham in a convoy and reached the ground to find a beautifully laid track for our offering. Cricketing logic said "win toss and bat first" and I followed that logic diligently. Matt and Raj opened the innings for us and they gave us a good start.  They showed patience for good deliveries and hit the bad ones to the boundaries. Thatcham realised that the more pace on the ball, the faster it travels to the boundary. We outplayed their opening fast bowlers and quickly Thatcham got their spinners into attack.

Matt was the first to go after playing a confident knock and I joined Raj in the middle. Once the spinners started to vary their lengths and pace it became a completely different ball game. Raj after scoring some quick runs got out to the spinner as he timed an edge to cover.

Ian joined me and then played some beautiful drives especially the superb straight drive for six above the bowler's head. As we looked a little less comfortable playing spin their keeper duly took his pads off and was keen to bowl. He was their first XI spinner and boy he was good. We just decided to play him off and use the opportunities given at the other end.

Ian was unfortunate in missing a straight full toss that sneaked between his bat and pad to be clean bowled. A good innings came to an abrupt end. I also perished in trying to hit the spinner for a boundary and was caught at mid on after the ball hit the bottom of my bat.
So we had 4 players who got out in their 20s (jimmy's official age this week) and the rest was left to our middle order. Spikey continuing his form from the last game played some very good shots and played the Minor County Spinner effectively and also scored a boundary. But he then fell victim to a superb catch at gully to the spinner.

Arsalan's first scoring shot was a superb square leg boundary but after a few shots he too perished to the spinner. Bobby showed a lot of maturity in this innings and scored some very sweetly timed boundaries for his vital contribution of 16. Tim K joined Bobby and they played the spinners with ease. Tim was taking time to adjust to the pace or lack of, and we were just waiting for him to launch the cricket ball into one of the houses near to the ground. Unfortunately he got out to that very shot. Bob in his sun hat looked a class apart with his solid defence and his confident NOs for any second run. Bobby got out to a good delivery and Rob joined Bob at the crease. Rob played a few good strokes but was caught at cover trying to score a few in the last few overs. Bob remained unbeaten at 0 and it was time for a good afternoon tea.

With spinners derailing our good start i decided for something different. Bob and Rob opened the bowling attack. Both of them put a lot of pressure on the batsman as they were not prepared to see a spinner in the second over. Rob bowled beautifully with good flight and bounce. After Bobs 5 overs I took over that end and Raj took over Robs end. We both applied some pressure on the batsman and Raj took the first wicket of the guy who was riding his luck today just like Meady had in the first's game on Saturday. He was caught by Matt donning the gloves with
his thighs!!

The next wicket was a very good example of what our young talent will be displaying in the coming years as Rob chased a ball towards cow corner and threw right over the stumps for Raj to complete the formalities. In fact Raj was so keen to get the guy run out he ended up injuring his finger!!

Two good wickets in quick succession and Thatcham looked a bit shaky. Their First XI batsman then came to the crease and played some big shots to take their team towards victory and then came the prized scalp. Rob bowled a typical leg spinner's delivery and got him LBW.  That was a good wicket to have against your name in the scorebook.

Thatcham scored the final runs with a boundary with 6 overs to spare. Given that we had a very low score our bowling and fielding was spot on and the very fact that it took them 34 overs to chase 140 spoke volumes on the talent we have in our club. Quite proud to be leading such a team and dear colts, please remember this match report when you need a last minute player when you all are playing for the first Xi in the very very near future.

Looking forward to a great summer of cricket and to write volumes on the young talent in our club...

Bye for now...