Stone CC vs. Wateringbury CC, 11.07.15

I have not really got much to mention in the preamble this week, as I did not have to chase around after the kids, so let’s get on with the cricket.

I won the toss, but I’m afraid that that was about as good as it got for me.

We took to the field on a pitch that looked a belter from a distance, but turned out to be a typical Stone pitch, with even the spinners bowling bouncers

Jordan & Slates bowled consistently, with the old ball beating the bat or keeping low – anything short was dispatched for four on the lightning outfield. Both finished with one wicket apiece from seven overs each, for 38 & 32 respectably. Geoff & Glenn both bowled eight overs with Glenn picking up 3 for 46 and Geoff 1 for 41. Myself & Dino bowled the remaining ten overs – I remained wicketless for 35 from my 5, while Dino took 2 for 24. It was a difficult day for bowlers, with anything not on the money being despatched to all parts of the Rec. Equally, if we are all honest, we did not help ourselves, with five dropped catches, a few misfields and a few questionable field placings, allowing two of their guys to reach 50s and probably about 30 runs too many in total, allowing Wateringbury to reach 222 for 8 from 40 overs.

After a nice tea in the sunshine supplied by Mr & Mrs Goldenhair (thanks very much to you both – you can come again), with lots of home made stuff, including wine and beer, a few players from both teams did participate with the booze.

Bateley and Krish went out to bat for the big chase. We started like a house on fire with Krish hitting some lofty blows, but then disaster struck when Krish given out LBW for 29. If you ask our batsmen, this was the first of three poor decisions, all given out by us LBW – as the skipper said, maybe we need some umpire training to go with the scoring training. By all accounts, our opposition were laughing in the field as they had a few such LBWs but did not give them out when they were batting. Still, enough of a rant – let’s get back to the cricket! Within the next few overs, we found ourselves 56 for 4 with Chungy, Bunny and myself all out cheaply – I played one of the worse shots you would have seen at the Rec.

Kelvin in typical style bashed the ball around and pushed the score on to 109 until he fell to the next (dodgy) LBW decision for 27. Slates was out in the same over for the first duck of the innings, but Bateley was still at the other end, holding things together as usual (in case you thought I had forgotten about him). Glenn was next in and supported Bateley well until he went for 21 with the score on 144. We were still in with a shout, albeit needing eight runs an over.

Bateley was the next to fall foul on the umpiring decision front for another fine 60 – in my defence I would have always given him out LBW as I did not think he had hit it (as I said earlier, the stand-in skipper #baddayattheoffice if I used Twitter more). Jordan (Mario) was smashing the ball to all parts of the Rec but unfortunately he ran out of partners with Dino & Geoff falling in the 38th over, leaving Stone 194 all out and stranding Mario on a fine 28*. It meant that we were short by the 30 runs that we let them have in the field.

Still, a great chase and a great team effort from everyone, apart from me that is.

All that was left was to go to the Lads [in the Village], although we did not get there until 8.45pm, as Wateringbury took forever to bowl their overs. Shaun laid on food including chips (all good stuff) and the team were all there apart from Glens & Bunny, with a good fining session to boot.

– Dartsy