Theale & Tilehurst Friendly  XI vs. Sulhamstead & Ufton Friendly  XI

11th July 2010

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Report by Fingers.

Bearing in mind they were the team that had asked for the early start because of the World Cup Final there weren’t many of the Sulhamstead players around by the time our final player had arrived; the toss ended up taking place when we should have been starting.

I won the toss and had few hesitations in choosing to bat first.  The opening bowling from Sulhamstead proved to be testing and when Paul went in the ninth over we only had 17 runs on the board. 

We didn’t lose a second wicket though and James and Harry were able to accelerate the rate as their partnership developed.  By the 20 over mark they had taken the score to 74-1 and we were in a good position to attack the second half of the innings.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it was Harry who was taking the lead in terms of scoring and after he had gone past fifty he really started to play in an expansive mode.  Back to back boundaries took his score to 96 when he was perhaps undone by the second best delivery of the day (see more details below) as Davies got a swinging yorker through his defences.

James had to work a bit harder for his runs but showed excellent patience as he built his score.  Finally a push for two brought up James’ first fifty in senior cricket and justified his constant requests to open the batting.  Whilst the partnership of 160 isn’t a record it was a great achievement for two young players.

Osman came in and pushed the score along even if Andy and Chris did end up losing their wickets to run outs as chances were taken towards the end.  A score of 234-6 was probably just above par for the conditions but wasn’t out of sight in a straight forty overs a side game.

After a fine tea Jordan and Andy opened the bowling and kept things relatively tight to start with.  Jordan was unlucky with a couple of chances going down and Andy bowled the best I have seen from him  for some time. 

The first breakthrough came by way of a run out as the batters had to take more chances to keep the score moving.  Osman took the second wicket as he and Alec continued to put a stranglehold on the innings and Sulhamstead were falling a long way behind the rate.

Having been offered an overs match at the toss but having declined in favour of the forty over a side format Sulhamstead then to all effect played for the non-available draw.  Whilst I don’t expect batters to just give their wickets away for the sake of it having expressed a preference for a win/loss format their approach did seem a little odd.  See numerous previous match reports for my views on straight win/loss cricket.

What did liven up the later overs was a dismissal of unbelievable quality.  Having set up the batter who was lunging at the ball with some off-break bowling I decided it was time to slip in the leg break.  The ball pitched on a perfect length on a middle and off stump line, turned and bounced and took the shoulder of the bat.  The ball fizzed to Paul at first slip who completed a stunning piece of cricket with an fine catch.  That’s my recollection of events anyway and anyone who tells you any different is wrong.

The Sulhamstead innings closed on 145-4 from 40 overs which left us winners by 89 runs.