Match: 08 / 158
Won by 5 wkts
Team |
Total |
Milton CC |
116 |
I. Howarth 4 - 28,
J. Hoskins 3 - 9 |
|
|
|
FFTMCC |
120 - 5 |
D.
Edwards 54*, A. Morley
27 |
To be honest, I was only half looking forward to the
game against Milton yesterday – I was really tired from painting our house
and staying up too late watching Big Brother, plus I’ve been organizing Zac’s
Kwickcricket tournament, which is a lot more work than you probably think. I
was going to get to the game late anyway, and that never puts me in a great
frame of mind, on top of which Milton are always hard to bowl at, especially
their top order, and when you open the bowling like I do, you have to deal
with that. Me, with the
Collins bros – Jenner left, JP right – we’re all Aussies y’know? As it happened, I wasn’t late at all, even though I got
fined for that at the pub later. But the match was just about to start when I
got there, and then as soon as I walked onto the field, I had to start
bowling, because Ian had lost the toss and we’d been sent in. In addition to
which, there was a really fierce wind blowing right at my back, and it put me
off a bit. I wasn’t getting a whole heap of swing because we were using one
of those Kookaburra balls left over from last year, and I didn’t feel like I
had much rhythm. But even so, I thought I did okay, six overs for only 18
runs, it was just a few half-trackers that got tonked by Wilby and their
left-hander Stanley, whom I haven’t got out even once yet in four games
against Milton. I beat the bat a few times, and once I thought I might have
had an edge, but that was about it, and most of my slower balls seemed
overpitched and didn’t really trouble the batsman. It was cold to start with
bowling, so I wore my jumper, but then after a couple of overs, I took it off
and ran it to the side of the field. I tried
keeping Claire amused whilst her ole man bored us with his batting. JP at the other end, another Aussie, was on his debut,
but likewise wasn’t having much luck. He bowled with good pace, but soon
enough him and me were taken off and Nick Hebbes came on and made the
breakthrough. Wilby top-edged a slower one to Dan in the covers, who took a
catch running backwards. I was fielding pretty close to Dan at that point, at
a kind of short mid-off, so I got a perfect view of the catch, and it was a
good one. Dan doesn’t drop many. When Ian came on to bowl, I mainly stayed at
mid-off, and short midwicket for the left-handers, but later in the game I
switched across into the covers on the other side of the wicket, just in case
the batsman skied one to me, which didn’t happen. I probably only had to
field the ball about three times in the whole game, and it got a bit boring,
just standing there in the wind, which didn’t let up the whole game, although
apparently in the previous game against the Lemmings, it had been even
worse. Ben props the
scorebox up, close to where I sat (whilst we batted). Ian got their skipper Leon out for a duck after about
three balls, then got the next guy to nick one through to Martin keeping
wicket – or so we thought, but the umpire didn’t hear anything, and so we had
to wait a while to get him, it was Ian again, and this time the nick was much
louder and so he walked. I could tell even from where I was standing that Ian
was bowling well, he beat the bat a lot, and hardly even bowled one at the
batsman’s head, and ended up with 4 wickets, which made a big difference in
the end. I was also fielding close when Jamo was bowling, right into the
teeth of the gale, and he did it well, holding the ball up and using lots of
variation. He took 3 wickets in the end, and with Adie Small chipping in for
the last one, we managed to confine Milton to 116 all out, which was a big
change from the game a few weeks ago when it was 214-5 and we got battered.
Jenner, PJ’s brother, was also on debut, and took an amazing catch in the
covers, diving to half-grab the ball as he fell, kind of palming it onto his
chest, then rolling over and somehow finding it stuck in his hands. PJ close
on the off-side took an important one too, to get rid of Stanley fairly early
off Jamo’s bowling, though it looked for a second like the ball might not
have carried. But Stanley walked off and we kind of figured it must have been
out. Kind of. Even though I didn’t take any wickets or catches, I
thought I did okay in the field, the way I encouraged people to do well, and
congratulated them, even if I was a bit tired and not fully focused. Anyhow,
then we had tea, which isn’t great at Kidlington, not much better than what
Kev used to offer up at Pembroke to be honest, and they use these kids to
make it, and they get paid just a few quid. It’s like slave labour. I enjoy
umpiring sometimes – it’s a really good view of what’s going on. After that it was our turn to bat and I didn’t need to
look to know I’d be down at number eleven. It’s actually been a pretty good
year with the bat for me, and with the ball, and I’ve taken quite a few
catches, so I’m doing okay, but when you open the bowling like I usually do,
you can’t expect to bat high up the order the whole time. I did a bit of
umpiring first up and got to see Jenner up close, and he looked pretty good,
hitting two sweet boundaries before getting out. Shame, because he seemed
like he could get some runs. Dan was at the other end, playing very solidly,
which was a good plan, because even though it was a low total to chase, we
usually muck it up against Milton. We were all pretty keen to win this one,
just to prove that we could beat them. Nick Hebbes and Martin went cheaply,
though, which left us three down for not that many, and it looked like we
might be getting the shakes, especially since Andy Morley was in next. I was
sitting chatting with Dan’s wife Clare when he went in, and expected like
everybody else that he would probably be out a couple of balls later. But it
didn’t happen that way. Andy batted really well, clubbing the ball all round
the ground. You could tell it was annoying Milton, because they thought they
should get him out, but he just kept smacking these good-length deliveries
for four. Three boundaries off one over he hit, and the guy bowling was
really pissed off. Eventually, though, he missed one and got bowled, but by
then, he was on 27, his highest ever score for the team, and he’d just about
won the game for us. Though Dan did make 54 not out, which helped too. I’m out of
shot here, just some 20 metres to Andrew’s left. Everyone was amazed by the way Andy batted, it was
like, where did that come from? My own theory was that he’d given up the
booze and gotten his crap together, and this was how he could really bat when
he put his mind to it. But then I found out he’d been drinking vodka all day,
so my theory was basically completely wrong. He actually batted well because
he was utterly pissed. Anyhow, we won the game, by five wickets. Even though I
didn’t get a bat, I felt like I contributed to the win, though not hugely.
I’ve had better games, but all in all I thought I played okay. After the
game, we went back to the pub for a beer. After that, I went home and watched
some telly, then went to bed. Maybe I read a book for a while, but maybe not.
To be honest, I can’t remember. ‘Blocker’
|
*
Far from the MCC versus Milton CC Played at Stratfield Brake, 29 June
2008 Milton CC won the toss and elected to bat Far from the MCC won by 5 wkts Far from the MCC debuts: Jenner
Collins (101), JP Collins (102) |
08 / 158 35 over match |
Team |
Milton CC |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
# |
Batsman |
How Out |
Total |
Balls |
4s |
6s |
FOW |
1 |
G. Wilby * |
c Edwards b Hebbes |
26 |
|
|
|
1-49 |
2 |
A. Stanley |
c JP Collins b Hoskins |
30 |
|
|
|
3-78 |
3 |
L. Houseman |
b Howarth |
0 |
|
|
|
2-51 |
4 |
G. Edward |
c J Collins b Howarth |
24 |
|
|
|
4-84 |
5 |
W. Fletcher |
c Westmoreland b Howarth |
9 |
|
|
|
6-90 |
6 |
C. Kinch |
c & b Hoskins |
0 |
|
|
|
5-90 |
7 |
G. Fletcher |
not out |
12 |
|
|
|
- |
8 |
H. Wyn-Jones |
c Westmoreland b Howarth |
2 |
|
|
|
7-96 |
9 |
C. Houseman |
b Hoskins |
0 |
|
|
|
8-97 |
10 |
S. Wyn-Jones |
b Small |
4 |
|
|
|
9-116 |
11 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Extras |
(W5, LB1, B3) |
9 |
|
|
|
|
|
TOTAL |
(all out, 34.1 overs) |
116 |
|
|
|
|
# |
Bowler |
Overs |
Maidens |
Runs |
Wkts |
|
1 |
Mann |
6 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
|
2 |
JP Collins |
4 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
3 |
Hebbes |
4 |
1 |
21 |
1 |
|
4 |
Howarth |
8 |
0 |
28 |
4 |
|
5 |
Hoskins |
8 |
4 |
9 |
3 |
|
6 |
Small |
3.1 |
1 |
9 |
1 |
|
7 |
Edwards |
1 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
|
Team |
Far from
the MCC |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
# |
Batsman |
How Out |
Total |
Balls |
4s |
6s |
FOW |
1 |
D. M. Edwards |
not out |
54 |
(97) |
8 |
- |
- |
2 |
J. Collins |
c b W. Fletcher |
8 |
(7) |
2 |
- |
1-9 |
3 |
N. J. Hebbes |
lbw b Houseman |
6 |
(24) |
1 |
- |
2-22 |
4 |
M. T. Westmoreland + |
c b Wilby |
9 |
(12) |
2 |
- |
3-49 |
5 |
A. Morley |
b G. Fletcher |
27 |
(30) |
5 |
- |
4-97 |
6 |
B. J. Mander |
b S. Wyn-Jones |
1 |
(5) |
- |
- |
5-106 |
7 |
J. P. Collins |
not out |
9 |
(13) |
2 |
- |
- |
8 |
I. Howarth * |
|
|
|
|
|
|
9 |
J. D. Hoskins |
|
|
|
|
|
|
10 |
A. Small |
|
|
|
|
|
|
11 |
A. G. Mann |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Extras |
(NB1, W1, LB3, B1) |
6 |
|
|
|
|
|
TOTAL |
(for 5 wickets, 31.1 overs) |
120 |
|
|
|
|
# |
Bowler |
Overs |
Maidens |
Runs |
Wkts |
|
1 |
W.
Fletcher |
7 |
3 |
17 |
1 |
|
2 |
C.
Houseman |
7 |
3 |
22 |
1 |
|
3 |
Wilby |
5 |
0 |
14 |
1 |
|
4 |
L.
Houseman |
3 |
1 |
4 |
0 |
|
5 |
Kinch |
2 |
0 |
22 |
0 |
|
6 |
S.
Wyn-Jones |
4 |
0 |
22 |
1 |
|
7 |
G.
Fletcher |
3.1 |
0 |
15 |
1 |
|
MOTM: A. Morley Champagne Moment: J. Collins’ amazing
tumbling “iffy” catch Buffet
Award: JP Collins’ kangaroo quiche
(with onion sauce) |
Opposition:
V040 / 04 Ground: G032 / 04 Captain: C007 / 38 |