Theale & Tilehurst friendly XI vs Farley Hill friendly XI

18th September 2011

The King of the Farley Hill - James the 13th XIII

The shrewd negotiator and skipper Hammad went out and did all he could in his power to bat first. When all else failed he won the toss and eventually got his way. As they walked off a 40-40 format was agreed.

Lemmy and James opened the batting. Lemmy made a comparatively quicker start and soon put his boss’ boss the Superintendent T De Meyer under pressure in the field. Lemmy was then bowled as we lost our first and only wicket of the day on 31. Hammad came out in the number 3 spot, made a solid start and maintained an even pace throughout the innings.

At the other end James was starting to score very freely, at one stage sweeping Malik for 4 three times in a row.  The early progress was halted by the constant drizzle of rain which became slightly heavier and lingered for the best part of an hour. At this point we took tea (very early) and even more surprisingly the skippers decided to use a different and apparently dry wicket when things got underway. Unfortunately for Farley the break had little impact, despite a wet outfield the runs kept coming and balls kept disappearing over the boundary, into the trees and in pretty much every direction going. James reached his 50 and if there was a small celebration of acknowledgement it was ever so slight. The runs kept coming and the catching opportunities were not taken.

James then started to open up more and more and was soon closing in on a ton. When he reached 90 Hammad was also close to his 50. With a race to the respective milestones on, speculation began to mount as to who would get what first, a few bets were taken and Osman won the little wager as James brought up his 13^th Century for the club. A great celebration could have erupted but James just kind of raised his glove and acknowledged the applause briefly and went back to business. Congratulations go to James for bringing up his 12,000^th career run. He carried on strong for the remainder of the innings and finished just 9 short of his personal best. In the meantime Hammad made his way to 50 and played the supporting role. We finished on 236-1 with some late acceleration.

With plenty of runs on the board, there was an air of confidence as we took the field. This was further cemented by good opening spells from both Alec Parcell and Jordan; they were hard to get away and looked to constantly attack the stumps. Unfortunately Alec dropped a catch down at fine leg from Jordan’s bowling which could be seen as the only flaw in a very good start. This didn’t prove to be too costly as Jordan then removed the same batsman with help from James White who held on to a routine catch behind the stumps.    

Hammad then decided to introduce some spin into the attack. Blake kept things tidy but was a little expensive as the batsman looked to take advantage of the short boundaries even though it wasn’t too bad in the context of the game overall. From my perspective the best bowling spell came at the other end, mainly because I was stood at the bowler’s end, if nothing else. I was surprised to see the ball actually turned a little from my ‘’off-spin’’ (code for lazy man’s bowling style). Then I was shocked when the keeper dropped 2 catches both from my spell and horrified still when he caught everything that came his way from that point on and didn’t put a foot wrong. I was then replaced by another off spinner. I take comfort in the fact that it wasn’t just any other spinner but one with more experience and many more wickets than anyone else at the club. Brian then justified the faith placed in him by producing a stumping chance which James took up and demolished the stumps in his trademark style to seal another wicket.

Stuart joined in the fun, on a very high note after his beloved Tottenham team had beaten a certain Liverpool team. Come to think of it I shouldn’t even mention his bowling, but in the interests of fairness and everything else that we stand for, he did take a wicket, something I didn’t achieve and neither did Blake (quit slaking dear boy, focus on your bowling and less on your Eddie impersonations) although it was a tail ender he got out, I suppose he deserves some reward. Well done Stu!! Lemmy bowled in one over bursts and was destructive, almost unplayable and all this when he had turned over his ankle the day before and was injured. He made life scary for the boys from Farley and broke a sweat just barely!  Osman on the other hand looked to ridicule the batsman further still. He bowled the juiciest full tosses, coupled with the most tempting pies and lollipop deliveries ever. He adopted a new style of bowling which had a bitter after taste for at least 2 of the opposition batsman. He could quite possibly have had a 3^rd which was unfortunate not to have been given caught behind. It always looked to be out of reach for Farley and the scorecard reflects it all.  

Another win in comfortable fashion and with that said I have no more to add.

Till next time 

Arsalan