Theale & Tilehurst Friendly XI vs Purley Friendly XI

30th August 2010

Report by Fingers.

This was the traditional bank holiday fixture against local rivals Purley-on-Thames and as has become traditional both teams were a mix of youth and experience.

On winning the toss I elected to bowl first; the pitch seemed to still have a bit of dampness in it and we were probably a front line batter short of me being confident enough to say we’ll have a bat.

The early part of the innings was a tale of two ends. At one end Julian Fernando was playing aggressively and scoring freely; at the other end we were keeping it relatively tight and taking wickets. Mike got the first wicket when he bowled Steve Purser with an in-swinger that he left. James B then picked up two wickets in quick succession as he bowled both Kieran Barrett, whom he’d earlier had caught of a no ball, and Robbie Jeffery.

The next wicket combined the stunning with the unsurprising as Michael took another brilliant catch in the deep to dismiss Fernando and Rob followed soon after with another wicket as Purser was out stumped; this quick stumping means that James W has equalled the record for number of dismissals in a friendly season and with some time to go in the season he should beat it.

These wickets meant I had managed to introduce myself in to the attack just as the main Purley batters arrived at the crease. Patrick Allen was the more fluent as he played some fine shots but fortunately Michael was bowling a good containing second spell and with overs running out I managed to sneak one through the gate to bowl him.

A couple of overs later I managed to get one past Kamath as well and when Bell was run out soon after we had done a good job of containment. Purley skipper Paul Reber marshalled the later overs for Purley without ever being as fluent as he can be to leave Purley with a competitive total of 221-8 from 44 overs.

Arsalan and Sunil opened the T&T reply and gave us a good start until Arsalan was caught at a cleverly placed short third man from the bowling of Jordan Seward. Sunil and Dennis took us through safely to drinks and seemed to be building a platform from which we could attack the second half of the innings. Unfortunately Dennis went in the over after drinks and when Charlie went to the next ball we were well and truly in to collapse mode.

From 81-1 we subsided to 109-8 with a combination of good bowling and some poor shots being to blame. With ten overs to get the last two wickets the bookies favourite (if I can mention such things) would have been a Purley win. However, James W and Rob came together in a good partnership for the ninth wicket; neither looked to just block it out as they put on 36 in 9 overs before James was bowled by the last ball of the penultimate over. This left Rob to block out the last over which he did with a relative degree of comfort to secure a draw.

PS – I’m not so humble that I shan’t be mentioning that my second wicket was my 900th for the club. Well done me.

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team		Purley on Thames						Away Team		Theale and Tilehurst
Date of Match		30th August 2010						Played at		Purley on Thames

		Team							Result	Team
Result									Drawn

1st Innings of		Purley on Thames
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	J Fernando	ct			M Holder			R Why		11	0	71
2	S Purser	bowled						M Holder		0	0	0
3	K Barrett	bowled						J Bozarth		0	0	6
4	R Jeffery	bowled						J Bozarth		0	0	0
5	T Purser	st			J White			R Why		3	0	24
6	P Reber	not out								1	0	39
7	P Allen	bowled						B Cooper		6	1	41
8	V Kamath	bowled						B Cooper		0	0	7
9	H Bell	run out			(M Holder / J White)					0	0	1
10	J Seward	not out								0	0	4
11	C Cox
							Byes	8
							Leg Byes	4
							Wides	4
							No Balls	12
									Extras			28

							Wickets	8	Total			221

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	M Holder		13	2	44	1
2	J Manning		5	0	24	0
3	J Bozarth		5	1	29	2
4	S Kumar		7	0	34	0
5	R Why		6	0	42	2
6	B Cooper		8	0	38	2
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	7	2				7
2	57	3				50
3	68	4				11
4	108	1				40
5	127	5				19
6	182	7				55
7	200	8				18
8	201	9				1
9
10




2nd Innings of		Theale and Tilehurst
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	S Kumar	bowled						C Cox		7	0	55
2	A Ahmed	ct			P Allen			J Seward		2	0	15
3	D Robertson	ct			H Bell			R Jeffery		0	0	10
4	C Cooke	bowled						R Jeffery		0	0	0
5	C Manning	bowled						C Cox		0	0	1
6	M Holder	lbw						V Kamath		2	0	9
7	J Bozarth	bowled						H Bell		0	0	2
8	J White	bowled						P Reber		3	0	21
9	B Cooper	lbw						H Bell		0	0	1
10	R Why	not out								2	0	13
11	J Manning	not out								0	0	0
							Byes	3
							Leg Byes	1
							Wides	15
							No Balls	1
									Extras			20

							Wickets	9	Total			147

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	J Seward		6	1	25	1
2	T Purser		5	0	29	0
3	C Cox		7	3	17	2
4	R Jeffery		6	1	15	2
5	H Bell		5	0	13	2
6	V Kamath		5	0	16	1
7	P Reber		4	1	12	1
8	K Barrett		2	0	14	0
9	P Allen		2	1	4	0

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	37	2				37
2	81	3				44
3	81	4				0
4	82	5				1
5	89	2				7
6	103	7				14
7	105	6				2
8	109	9				4
9
10