Match Reports

17/07/2010

The Saturday Cricket Team beat Old Park. Ev reports thus:

A crunch match this, coming as it did on the back of two succesive defeats, and against a team with promotion hopes of their own. With Roger away and both Kalu and Rob T unavailable, a bowling shortage neccesitated SteveO offering “favours” to Mark W in order to tempt him over from the sunday 1sts.

Old Park lost the toss and, with the pitch wet and sticky, SteveO had little hesitation in inserting them. They got off to a flyer however, as anything short sat up and pleaded to be pulled to the boundary. Opening (up the hill) Joe soon found his rhythm and had the Old Park number 2 caught behind with the score at 33. Some good pressure in the field followed (broken momentarily by an uncharacteristic comedy gaffe by Gazzer, who having allowed the ball to pass him in the field, rather than pursue said ball with any haste at all, chose to put his hands in his pockets hunch his shoulders, look down at his shoes and stroll sulkily to retrieve it. Thereby allowing the batsman an extra run with no attempt at a run out) and despite their strong start, at 20 overs Old Park had only reached 75.

Whatever favours SteveO had performed for Wilko paid off immediately after drinks as their number 3 had an almighty heave at a straight one and missed. Old Park never got going after this. With Angelo attempting to catch the ball with his crotch, Wilko bowling a great spell of slow bowling, conceding only 12 runs, Gary and Rich bowling great second spells (both up the hill), SteveO taking a couple of wickets for not many (also up the hill) and Ev (bravely bowling down the slope) managing to be economical at the death, the opposition only managed 115 for 7 from their 40 overs.

115 is the same total the cowboys chased (and failed dismally to reach) a couple of weeks ago against bottom of the division opposition, and having only managed 106 against Wrington last week there could be no room for mistakes. To paraphrase the Bardgimp “lightning must not strike thrice”, so with Grove away at some festival or other SteveO and Wilko strode out to knock off the runs in a risk free manner. Before long SteveO was back, out LBW having swung across the line. Wilko watched in disbelief from the non strikers end as our middle order committed suicide one by one. Ben, Simon and Iggy all came and went barely troubling the scorers. Then Mark was out for 24, Then Angelo for a duck! We were 62 for 6!!

Well in the end Gary hit 60 (10 4’s and a 6) and with Evan playing and missing at the other end got us past the post inside 34 overs, SteveO changed his underwear, drank a gallon of beer and all was well with the world.

Man of the match – Wilko

Cider Moment – Garys fielding fiasco.

See the full score card here

18/07/2010

The still undefeated Sunday 1std Team beat Stratton on the Foss

The Sunday 1sts arrived in their non-flying cars at Hogwarts (Downside school for the terminally Catholic), glad to get a game in against the Stratton team that had defaulted a win to the Cowboys earlier in the season. Much to skipper Bolts’ chagrin, there seemed no option but to bowl 1st if he won the toss which, as usual, he duly did.

Stratton (not Martin) started brightly but a superb spell of bowling from Stratton (Martin) and Sadat reeled the Stratton (not Martin) team in and

with the usual talented and varied Cowboys bowling attack now in full swing (geddit?) the Stratton (not Martin) batsmen could only stagger to 40 overs having posted a mere 148 – 8. Stratton took a deserved wicket at Stratton and ended with figures of 8-0-19-1.

The Cowboys set to their task without aplomb, Justin out 3rd ball for a duck. Bolts and Wilki pushed on from there and had Stratton (not Martin) on the back foot. Stratton (not Martin) did not crumble and, although the Cowboys (Sunday 1sts) seem to have forgotten how to lose, they certainly haven’t forgotten how to make things tense. Reaching their target in the 34th over makes the victory look slightly more comfortable than it was.

Well done boys, gives me a bit of a headache for selection next week I reckon.

See the full scorecard here.

The Sunday 2nd Team lost to Bristol Bangladeshis.

Nobody has submitted a detailed account of what happened but if the the league website is to be believed it went something like this:

BB won the toss and batted. They hit 262 for 9 from their 40 overs including 46 extras.

The Cowboys only managed 78 in return with Iggy hitting 36 and Stevo hitting 31 although we know for a fact  that he wasn’t playing. The only other player to hit a run off the bat was Dave Crowle (2 Not Out), all the other player got ducks. According to the scorecard Chirag Agarwal took an astonishing  7 wickets for 4 runs with 1 maiden, but this is of course impossible since he would have to have gone for at least 7 runs or bowled 4 maidens.

The full scorecard can be found here.