2006 Season - Woodborough - 2006/09/03
Spinno writes:
On a pleasant Sunday afternoon the Dorchester juggernaut rolled into Woodborough one of the more pleasant satellite villages situated to the east of Nottingham.
No Norman this week so stand in umpire Lou of Basford Hall took his place. Congratulations to Basford Hall on achieving their second promotion in two years. No Nick either - obviously he's woken up sober on a Sunday morning and imagines there's more to life than Dorchester CC .
As the toss ended up heads, the usual negotiations took place and Dorchester batted first.
The skip had a cunning plan up his sleeve mainly due to some lack of confidence in his own form (and ailing back) and probably too much misplaced trust elsewhere - we shall see.
Jez and Smudge opened up or rather they crawled along watchfully for a few overs - so much so that the new Statto, Brown Major, said there was a danger that the pedestrian run flow of the last match would be repeated.
Smudge did his best to force the pace by getting out but unfotunately for him he was dropped three times whilst at the other end Jez played his normal thwack the very bad ball a long way to good effect.
At this point the spectators were treated to a display of aerobatics by a couple of light aircraft over the adjacent fields which it has to be said was more exciting than the cricket.
Suprisingly enough, the opening pair managed to put on 59 in 16 overs before Smudge perished finally caught out for 31. This brought Ian to the wicket who after a steady start heped put on 60 for the second wicket before Jez was bowled played on for a good 56.
[Comment from Jez: Surely our well run 2 to long on deserves a mention here? Crossy clubbed the ball out towards yonder boundary and lent back on his bat, admiring his work. Jez, who was more acclimatised to the prevailing conditions by this point, legged it to the striker's end while yelling verbal encouragement to Crossy to get a bloody move on.
Needless to say, despite booming out of the middle of Ian'sbat, the ball had semi-plugged on landing and was now nestling some 10-yards inside the boundary, soaking up moisture. Jez turned for the second and comfortably made it back to the danger end... only moments after Crossy completed his first run. Both batsmen running towards the same end is rarely good in cricket but this was a perfectly judged 2 by two players who always run well together and Ian made it back well enough, despite hoots of laughter from the sidelines.]
Brown Minor came to the crease and after a couple of lusty blows departed for 13 with the score on 143 in the 28th over.
Six balls later came the highlight of the innings.
Facing his first ball off Lane, who it has to be said had a long run up (so long in fact that Crossy completed a sudoku puzzle between balls), Spinno decided to leave a ball well alone. Given his penchant for following balls that really should be left well alone, this decision was probably not unreasonable save for the fact it was straight and on off stump. Well, when you bat in the wrong glasses what do you expect - certainly not sympathy and there wasn't too much of that.
Enter the Skip but after some nudging and nurdling Crossy was finally out bowled by Lane off his long run up for a useful 32, Skip followed after giving valuable support to Jamie for a couple or so and at 185-6 with 7 overs to go Messrs Kiwi and Brown Major set about establishing a reasonable total of 223, which was marred only by the fact that Kev was bowled off the last ball of the innings.
Jamie ended up 56 not out, which included some lusty blows on a track that was not easy to bat on and later confessed that his current bat of choice had remained dormant in the loft for the last couple of years - never thought that bats were like wine and needed to be laid down and aged to be appreciated - perhaps a lesson for Ian there.
The tea interval presented a further complication - rain - so to fill in time a friendly game of chase the ace started. After a few rounds it was easy to see where friendship and camerarderie were words to be forgotten. Further damage was avoided by the rain stopping and going out to bowl -well almost. We reached the middle full of enthusiasm unfortunately the clouds were still full of rain.
After a short delay Woodborough commenced their innings. Andy and the Vicar opened up, Andy somewhat in trepidation of doing himself a mischief on the slippery top and the Vicar managing a steady line and length that probed away and brought the reward of two wickets courtesy of catches by Silver Gauntlet Smudge and also a terrific effort by Kev Brown at deepish cover.
After 15 overs Woodborough were 48-2 and spin in the shape(?) of Benno was introduced.
Two wickets in his first over - one of which was due to another fine catch by Kev Brown - and the almost impossible task facing Woodborough frankly became a task nothing short of a miracle.
Rich Brown replaced Andy and was rewarded with two wickets including another take by the Silver Gauntlets of Smudge. Spinno did his best to avoid contact at short extra, Benno bowled another and with the help of Crossy ran another out.
It was left to Kev Brown and Spinno to wrap the innings up which Spinno did with careful use of the non bounce. Woodborough finished on 91 - a win for Dorchester by 132 runs with fine bowling figures of 2-24 for the Vicar, 3-14 for Benno, 2-14 for Rich Brown and 2-5 for Spinno(including 3 wides).
Not much of a report - I've run out of things to say - hang on talking of run outs......
In the middle of a Vicar over, the batsman plays to leg, bit of a misfield/fumble by Rich who recovered with a super throw to Smudge. Both batsmen in a state of confusion neither at one end or the other. A somewhat effeminate lob from Smudge to the Vicar at the bowler's end. The ball evades Mick by running all round his body and the final act in this farce, Spinno lobs gently from mid on and misses the stumps by the width of all three lanes on the M1. Nuff said.