Theale & Tilehurst 2nd XI vs Thatcham Town 3rd XI

3rd September 2011

Lifts were the major headache approaching the game with only half the team at the meet at the right time. After a few calls and some lifts thanks to the 3rds and 1sts we got to Thatcham with 10 on time. I won the toss at the pavilion and decided to bat on what had been described as an interesting pitch. In this case interesting meant very wet.

At this point it's tricky to detail any highlights from our batting so I'll got straight to the 20th over when Crofty reached the square. At this point things got a lot more interesting and the spectators were treated to the ball leaving the square and going even over the boundary line. Crofty was at his bullish best and things were further livened up by some sledging although I should be clear this was between the batsmen and not from the oppositions! Lifts home were withdrawn after comments about ones ability to hit full tosses. Micky's innings had been a struggle with his fifty coming up in the 40th over whilst Crofty had made it look ridiculously easy especially pulling anything slightly short on the slow pitch. Their 100 partnership was a great advert for batting in pairs and Micky's innings and our slow start an advert for keeping wickets in hand. Crofty went to a good catch in the deep when a century looked likely. Mikey came in and timed to pants off everything for a quick fire 30. We were able to declare 2 overs short. We'd been at just 39 runs off 20 and so had scored 186 in the last 30 overs. There were some who said Meady had got out at the right time but I wondered if I could have gone earlier!

At tea we knew that we'd scored perhaps 40 over par but with the pitch much drier and on paper a good looking Thatcham batting line-up the chase was definitely on. They started confidently although we got the early wicket of the dangerous Bloor well caught at short cover by Micky (although not a good as his catch the previous week in the same position - that was a blinder - pouching a full blooded drive from about 7 yards.) But after the first 10 overs they really struggled to lift the rate despite some attacking fields and a much improved pitch. Sathish in particular proved difficult to score off. The game suddenly changed with 3 quick wickets.
Fingers had the opener and number 4 well caught by Naz and Ram. And the young number 3 was taken by Sathish. Suddenly the game was on with more attacking batsmen from Thatcham and some wickets falling for us. But 6 an over was a tough ask for them and 6 wickets for us also difficult on a lifeless pitch. We took more wickets with the returning Naz and Ram and their experienced left hander had a couple of scares but the game rather fizzled out.

In the end the pitch scuppered any chance of an interesting game. The groundsman had watered as he was worried a dry pitch would be dangerous - well he was successful as there was no danger of any life in it. So we should have chased but there you go!

Thanks to all the team for all their support. A great team effort over what to me feels like a very long season.

Meady

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team		Thatcham Town 3						Away Team		T&T 2
Date of Match		03 September 2011						Played at		Henwick

		Team							Result	Team
Result									Draw

1st Innings of		T&T 2
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	P Mead	ct						Mirchandani		2		18
2	M Mehta	ct						Jenkins		5		54
3	A Crofts	ct						Jenkins		7	1	79
4	D Robertson	ct						Bloor				13
5	M Holder	not out								3		30
6	R Sankaran	not out										4
7	B Cooper	dnb										0
8	J White	dnb										0
9	J Blake	dnb										0
10	S Kumar	dnb										0
11	N Caffoor	dnb										0
							Byes	11
							Leg Byes	4
							Wides	4
							No Balls	3	Pens			5
									Extras			22

							Wickets	4	Total			225

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	Redmond		14	2	39	0
2	Jenkins		12	0	51	2
3	Mirchandani		12	3	39	1
4	Karthikeyan		4	0	29	0
5	Bloor		7	0	32	1
6	Wylie		1	0	14	0
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	39	1				39
2	163	2				124
3	177	3				14
4	208	4				31
5						17
6						0
7						0
8						0
9						0
10						0




2nd Innings of		Thatcham Town 3
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	Cottingham	ct			N Caffoor			B Cooper				40
2	Bloor	ct			M Mehta			R Sankaran				16
3	Mirchandani	bowled						Sathish Kumar				31
4	Beumont	not out										37
5	Mirchandani	ct			R Sankaran			B Cooper				1
6	Wylie	bowled						N Caffoor				24
7	Redmond	ct			Satish Kumar			N Caffoor				9
8	Jenkins	bowled						R Sankaran				3
9	Taylor	not out										10
10	Karthikeyan	dnb
11	Allison	dnb
							Byes	5
							Leg Byes	3
							Wides	7
							No Balls	1
									Extras			16

							Wickets	7	Total			187

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	R Sankaran		11	5	21	2
2	M Holder		5	1	23	0
3	N Caffoor		8	0	28	2
4	Satish Kumar		10	3	25	1
5	B Cooper		16	1	82	2
6
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	25	2				25
2	93	3				68
3	94	1				1
4	96	5				2
5	135	6				39
6	150	7				15
7	167	8				17
8						20
9						0
10						0