Theale & Tilehurst President's XI vs Captain's XI

11th September 2011

Report by Meady, Fingers and Jenks. Photo's from Sunny.

I think we'll have a go at writing the longest match report yet although really this isn't a match report it is a summary of an entire day of celebration.

The day started with a revelation. After 15 years Claudia (my long suffering girlfriend and cricket widow) has learnt that rain is bad for cricket when she drew back the curtains and announced that 'she didn't think we'd be playing much cricket today'. An early tweet from Jenks confirmed that there had been substantial overnight rain at the ground also. I arrived at the ground pretty early and it was clear I'd already missed a large amount of hard work. A couple of players mentioned that the lunch tables looked very good - I pointed out they were for the honoured guests and not us players! Although as I'll detail later no player could be disappointed by the food offered over the day. And so to the teams...


Backrow: Osman Mahmood, Brian Cooper, Ed Choules, Chris Lemm, Nigel Halliday, James Codd. Frontrow: Andy Johnson, Phil Stephens, Eddie Ellis, Philip Jenkins, Mo Iqbal	Backrow: Neill Halliday, Raj Puri, Mark Mason, Phil Mead, John Morris, Sunil Kumar Frontrow: Harry Osborn, James White, Andrew Wigmore, Rob Why, Michael Holder

The square was understandably very wet and the covers hadn't been able to keep all biblical style rain off the pitch. The President’s Legends decided to bat first after a delayed start. James and Ed opened up and got off to a good steady start. Doc was using the conditions to good affect pinning Ed back and testing all his protective equipment. Fairly early a back spasm caused Ed to call for a runner and of course Osman was the man used!

James had struck some early fours but was bowled by Doc playing on when trying to cut a ball that was a little fuller than he'd expected. Cat came to the middle and immediately looked like a man in good form despite few opportunities to bat for his new team this season.

Phil and Ed put on a good partnership although Ed had to play himself in at least three times due to strike stealing. Ed was Raj's first LBW victim of the day and so he departed leaving his runner to stay in the middle as the next batman. And that concludes the wickets for the Captain's XI. Cat pulled anything slightly short and cover drove anything full in his usual manner. Osman rotated the strike but also drove over the top to keep the scoreboard buzzing along.

With the run rate rising to a climax both completed milestones in the final over before Eddie's declaration. Cat’s hundred reminded us of his class although we did manage to drop him 4 times including twice on 99 when Doc was the bowler! And Osman also reached a well deserved 50 running the tiring fielding team ragged.

The captain's XI had managed only 54 overs in about 4 hours but the key thing was the 4 sessions due to rain, speeches and food. It'd been a tough slog and 233 would be a tricky chase.

Wiggy found a unique way to unite his team - in their universal unhappiness with their individual batting positions. Although 'universal' is a bit unfair - a couple of players were happy with their batting positions but unhappy with the ends they'd bowled from! So our chase began with some strong hitting from both opening batsmen who took the fight to the legends. Iqqy, with his remodelled run-up, made the breakthrough as Raj picked up his second LBW victim. At this point Wiggy fully united with his team-mates as he worked out his frustration around the boundary. Sunny came in and his flowing bat got the Captain's XI up with the rate (well probably - at this point we were unsure when the 20 overs would be called so could easily have been behind the rate). Harry became the third batsman to dispute his LBW decision and then Meady and Why joined him back in the pavilion as Halliday Jnr took as many wickets in one over as had fallen in the previous 70 odd!

Spike soon also fell but Michael and Sunny started a partnership that looked capable of taking the Captain's men to victory. Both fell to the clever bowling of Osman in relatively tame dismissals. So now the draw was the only escape route. Raj and Dougie found the right formula in the gathering gloom with Raj deploying sonar to keep Lemmy at bay and Dougie able to cope with the clever bowling.

To be honest the weather had made it very hard to have a coherent game of cricket and we'd done exceptionally well to get the game in at all. Well that's the formalities of the on field play out the way lets get to the main events....

First the food/catering....

Things got things under way with an excellent selection of bacon, sausage and egg sarnies. Sunny didn't understand the foreign language of 'bagsy a sarny' and so also supplied doughnuts. All washed down with tea.

Lunch for the guests was an elegant affair - 17 of the club’s Life Members and Vice President’s sat down for lunch in the Peter Gooch Room. Present for the lunch were Sir William and Lady Benyon, Alan and Sandra Pyke, Roy Reeves, Brian and Margaret Barefoot, Keith and Joy Payne, Ralph and Brenda Jenkins, Jenny Ellis, Gordon and Rosemary Cooper, David and Adele Fishleigh and the President himself who dined with his pads on in case there was a flurry of wickets. It would have been interesting to see how he batted after a couple of glasses of wine and a glass of port.

Working his miracles with the limited facilities available Phil served a salmon main course which was following by Wiggy’s lemon tart. To finish there was cheese and port and a very fine lunch was enjoyed by all.

Life members from left to right: Dave Fishleigh, Ralph Jenkins, Brian Barefoot, Roy Reeves, Alan Pyke, Keith Payne

Further guests joined us for afternoon tea including Liz and Stuart from Angles of Art (supporters via their Fixtures Card advert) and Yvonne Mundell.

Players returned to the pavilion for a drinks break after the guest’s afternoon tea to hear speeches from Brian B and Eddie - details later. Later we enjoyed our own lunch. Well to be more accurate I enjoyed my own lunch and quite a bit of the President XIs lunch as well!

Then came the players tea. Now I'm a savoury man myself but could easily be converted based on the selection of cakes and 'fancies' for tea. Somehow a few of us also made it to the Crown for the post game Chinese!

Backrow: Alan and Sandra Pyke and Jenny Ellis standing.
Frontrow: Keith and Joy Payne Seated.

And to the speeches...

There was a short introduction from Phil J where of course we were reminded that this day was about celebrating the Theale CC and Theale and Tilehurst CC on and off the field career of the departing president.

Brian Barefoot, as someone whose time at both clubs has pretty much matched Eddie’s, spoke about Eddie’s playing days for Theale and then Theale and Tilehurst Cricket Clubs. It was finally agreed that Eddie had probably scored more runs than he had consumed bottles of brown ale during his Theale days but as that was over 20,000 runs it doesn’t say a huge amount for his abstinence!

Brian reminded us that both clubs had been lucky to have a player of Eddie’s ability play for a total of fifty seasons and just as lucky to have someone as committed as Eddie to the club off the field.

Eddie thanked Brian and Phil for their kind words and offered some memories of his own; including some about some of the life members present. Perhaps his story about the person with the longest association with the club, Roy Reeves having first played for Theale in 1943, is best not repeated for the world to see! Although it seemed Roy enjoyed being reminded of the events.

Following his speech Eddie was presented with a bat that had been signed by all those present to mark the day.

Finally, some thank yous for all the hard work that went in to organising such a successful day. To all the Life Members and Vice Presidents that attended to make it such a special day, to all the players (and particularly the returning players) who entered in to the spirit of the occasion, to Matt Runkle for travelling all the way from Swindon to umpire and to all those that helped with the catering (Brian and Kevin for the breakfast, Phil J and Wiggy for the lunch, Brenda for the player’s lunch and Vicky and James for the cakes at tea).

Finally, an extra thank you to Phil for the huge effort he put in to organising such a good day. As ever the day itself showed the huge amount of work he does; he was the first to arrive at the ground whilst most of us were probably still in bed and typically he was last to leave at the end of the day as well.

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team		President's XI						Away Team		Captain's XI
Date of Match		11th September 2011						Played at		Theale

		Team							Result	Team
Result									Drawn

1st Innings of		President's XI
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	J Codd	bowled						Neill Halliday		2	0	16
2	E Choules	lbw						R Puri		5	0	40
3	P Stephens	not out								8	1	107
4	O Mahmood	not out								4	0	50
5	A Johnson	dnb										0
6	E Ellis	dnb										0
7	C Lemm	dnb										0
8	Nigel Halliday	dnb										0
9	B Cooper	dnb										0
10	M Iqbal	dnb										0
11	P Jenkins	dnb										0
							Byes	3
							Leg Byes	6
							Wides	7
							No Balls	3
									Extras			19

							Wickets	2	Total			232

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	Neill Halliday		10	2	19	1
2	M Holder		9	0	47	0
3	S Kumar		2	0	7	0
4	H Osborn		7	2	19	0
5	M Mason		9	1	61	0
6	R Puri		7	0	35	1
7	R Why		6	0	25	0
8	A Wigmore		4	1	12	0

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	33	1				33
2	107	2				74
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10




2nd Innings of		Captain's XI
	Name	How Out			Who			Bowler		4's	6's	Score
1	A Wigmore	lbw						M Iqbal		3	0	17
2	H Osborn	lbw						Nigel Halliday		3	1	43
3	S Kumar	ct			A Johnson			O Mahmood		5	2	69
4	P Mead	ct			O Mahmood			Nigel Halliday		0	0	0
5	R Why	ct			A Johnson			Nigel Halliday		0	0	0
6	J Morris	bowled						B Cooper		1	0	7
7	M Holder	bowled						O Mahmood		2	0	28
8	R Puri	not out								1	0	10
9	Neill Halliday	bowled						C Lemm		0	0	1
10	J White	not out								0	0	9
11	M Mason	dnb										0
							Byes	4
							Leg Byes	7
							Wides	1
							No Balls	3
									Extras			15

							Wickets	8	Total			199

Bowling			O	M	R	W
1	C Lemm		9	0	27	1
2	M Iqbal		7	0	50	1
3	B Cooper		10	0	39	1
4	Nigel Halliday		5	0	20	3
5	A Johnson		5	0	20	0
6	O Mahmood		5	0	28	2
7
8

Fall of Wicket
	Score	Outgoing Bat				Stand of
1	25	1				25
2	101	2				76
3	101	4				0
4	101	5				0
5	118	6				17
6	167	7				49
7	179	3				12
8	182	9				3
9
10