Theale & Tilehurst friendly XI vs Rotherwick friendly XI

15th May 2011

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Games between us and Rotherwick have rarely been blessed with good weather so it was no surprise that we met on a day when a chilly breeze was blowing across the Recreation Ground and there were spots of rain around for much of the afternoon (although fortunately it never mounted to much).

Rotherwick won the toss and elected to field; James and James opened the batting and made a steady start.  There were some loose balls in the first three or four overs that were put away to the boundary but then the bowling tightened up and the scoring rate slowed.  James W was the first to go and James C was unlucky to follow soon after when a full toss that must have been on the very margins of being a legal delivery (match report code for it was probably a no ball) bowled him top of off stump.

Little did we realise at this point what a dominant part the full toss would play in the match.  Wikipedia says of full tosses:

“They are commonly greeted with delight by a batsman, as they tend to be very easy to hit…. Occasionally a full toss can surprise a batsman so effectively that he is unable to play it properly, and this can lead to a wicket, but few bowlers rely on this.”

The delight of both Nehal and Raj was hard to detect after they were bowled swinging across the line of slow full tosses despite being shown what to do by Meady who repeatedly just knocked them back down the ground with a straight bat for a single.  With so many full tosses bowled by both sides I’m not sure any batter can claim to have been surprised when one was bowled either.

Meady batted solidly for his 63 and controlled the innings very well.  Tim joined him for the final overs and with his combination of stubborn defence and powerful hitting took the score up to 201-6 in our 44 overs.  This felt like a decent score in the conditions.

After tea Raj and Trevor opened the bowling.  This continued the trend set by Rotherwick as collectively across two team this must have been the match I have played in where the average speed of the bowling was the slowest it has ever been.  Before the game a couple of the Rotherwick players were discussing their bowling attack and complaining that they only had one quick bowler; I thought that’s one more than we’ve got.

The typical over in the second innings was 2 fours and a wicket with at least two of those balls being full tosses.  There also seemed to be a continuation of a competition started in the first innings to see who could get out playing the worst shot to the worst ball.  Two of the Rotherwick batters managed to hit leg side knee high full tosses to Tim at square leg who gratefully accepted the chances.  Tim completed a hat trick of catches taking a catch from a Rob full toss; this was a much better catch though as it was taken running towards the mid wicket boundary at full stretch.  Tim’s pleasure in the catch was clear for all to see.

The main wicket taker at the start of the innings had been Trevor.  It might unreasonable to claim that he ripped through the top order batting but following on from his four-fer least week he claimed five wickets in his first five overs; his first fiver-fer in his seventies and the oldest player to take a five-fer for T&T.

Tim came on for his first bowl of the season and picked up his first T&T wicket which made for a fine all round contribution when added to his 27no and 3 catches.

I can’t recall if the last wicket fell to a full toss but it would have been appropriate if it had; a conservative estimate would be that half the wickets on the day had fallen to full tosses.  On a chilly evening a second innings that only lasted in to the 17^th over suited the fielding side and enabled an early departure to the Crown.