Prospect Park – Home – Lost

A shocking performance. We won the toss an decided to bat. All was going well with Evans and Martin putting on 40 for the first wicket, Paul smashing the ball to the boundary in his own particular brand of defensive stroke play. Young Jim Alexander then took to the crease and in his solid fashion was looking strong when one slipped through his defence and he was out for 22 with the total at 105 for 3. Then came Fennell and so began the collapse. All of a sudden we were 121 for 6. Only Evans’ 52 and Barker’s 13 showed any resistance. We were all out for 156.

After tea, Prospect proceeded to punish a barely average spell of bowling and they were 84 for 2 with only 16 overs gone. The rest was a formality and they got the total with the loss of only 4 wickets.

We deserved to loose and didn’t disappoint.

Lamorbey Park – Home – Lost

OK, it was always going to be difficult to find players on Cup Final Day. So on Thursday night with only a team of five and no real prospect of any more, Stacy made the only decision he could and picked up the phone to make That Call.

Lamorbey Park – Away – Lost

Not too sure what happened here, basically, we started off in great form. Tight fielding and even tighter bowling and Lamorbey were 87 for 7 and we were confident. Then somehow we took the our foot off the pedal (how many times does this happen!) and allowed the number 8 to score 36 and they were all out for 139. Still it was a good performance and Buss ended up with figures of 4 for 34 off 10 – a good effort. Paul Martin went one better and started off his spell with 5 maidens in a row. Never have I seen him bowl as well. He ended up with 2 for 12 off 12 – a great effort.

After tea, Evans and Dodds strode manfully to the wicket. Thump … Evans dispatches a 4 and things are going well. Two balls later he provided some catching practice and strode manfully back to the pavilion. This trend of walking in and walking straight back out continued and after seven ducks we were all out of 54. The only resistance was offered by new boy Jim Alexander (19) and Tony Miles (14).

Much grumbling was made about the pitch but in the end the opposition scored runs and we didn’t. Dropping five catches didn’t help either.

Old Elthamians Granby III – Away – Won

We all met up at midday in “The Clubhouse”. OK, so it was The George & Dragon but we did meet up. There we were, ten good men – yes, it was the start of the season and we could only rustle up ten players! Still the weather was good, the sun was out and we were ready to don the whites and take to the field.

Anyway, we all piled into the cars and set off like excited puppy dogs. No sooner had we arrived than so did the downpour. There we all were, all kitted out and ready to go and sitting under cover waiting for Noah to pass by and rescue us.

The rain passed and we went out to bat. On a slow (and I mean sloooowwww) wicket the going was tough but a 59 from Evans and 93 from Fennell put us in a strong position with 249 runs on the board.

The story changed slightly when we went out to field. Winter beer bellies coupled with rain-induced apathy meant we did not distinguish ourselves. At 100 for 2 it looked like we had a game on our hands. Then the svelte Tony Miles took the ball and proceed to mesmerise the opposition batsmen with a display of varied bowling the likes of which have not been seen since … well, a long time indeed.  We had the upper hand now and managed to knock over the remaining wickets to win by 60 runs. All in all, not a bad start to the season.

Moment of the match had to be the look on our captain’s face when an agricultural heave ho from Fennell ricocheted off the fleeing bowler to hit the stumps and leave him stranded a yard outside the crease. It was hard to decipher what he said but it went something like “oh poo”…