Valley End Cricket Club

Saturday 24 July 2010

Valley End “Casuals” (5^th XI) vs Thorpe

Valley End:

Adrian Gale (Capt); Jeff Townsend (Wk); Ibby Akhtar; Charlie Barkham; Etienne Boston-Townsend; Anil Chauhan; Alex Cocherane; Chris Hetherington; Stuart Morgan; David Parnell; Mitch Sutton

Details:

Thorpe won the toss and chose to bat

Thorpe 224 for 6 in 40 overs

VECC 179 for 6 in 40 overs

Commentary:

With a wary glance to the opening game of the Casual’s season the players were concerned that an access problem may exist with the new ground, despite only having to travel six or so miles from Thorpe the early elements of the visitors team arrived bedraggled after spending a long time on the M3 forced to watch the aircraft stacked in readiness for the Farnborough Air Show.

The worse tosser in the Club once again failed with the coin and Thorpe decided to bat allowing the rest of their team to catch up.

Ever generous in the field at least 6 catching opportunities were grassed to help a batting side in little need of further assistance. The bowlers toiled with out success Chris H and Stuart M being particulary unlucky with their “choice of fielders” and not taking a wicket despite bowling well.

Then the change came in the closing overs the captain turned for a ball and, whilst “sprinting” towards the rope to save another four, went down as if shot by an elephant gun and forced to leave the field.

Strangely at that point with the captaincy transferred to David P wickets started to fall and each bowling change brought with it a wicket until Thorpe were five down at the end of their allotted 40 overs with Ibby A and Mitch S picking up the wickets their efforts deserved.

With fielding over the teams retired to the tented village for tea, the usual plan of “stuffing” the opposition with a huge teas being thwarted because they had cheated and read last weeks match report. So in future no Club Secrets to be included in match reports.

Having starved themselves, hiding small piles of tea around the changing rooms for later Thorpe got into their stride un-gentlemanly quickly having Alex C in his first innings for the Club in 4 years clean bowled with the first delivery after tea.

Etienne B-T and Mitch S batted well but a little slowly is trying to set up a platform for the charge from the 20^th over. Unfortunately the Valley End train never left that particular platform and we continued to score well behind the required run rate.

Towards the end of the innings with some generous bowling from Thorpe trying to buy a few wickets the run rate improved but for far too long the innings remained a little slow.

In his first senior game Chris H scored an unbeaten 54 and would have moved on to “the predicted ton” had we not run out of overs; he will have to finish it off next week. He was ably supported by Ibby A towards the end.

Anil C and Charlie B did much of the spade work against the tight Thorpe attack; but the figures of the two middle innings bowling spells of 8-2-12-1 and 6-0-13-2 by Routledge and Wells shows how Thorpe were always in control of the innings and ultimately the match.

Despite the comments of 2^nd XI durng their visit to steal the remainder of the teas and end of innings samosas the team continues on its path of development, even if fielding practice may have to be made compulsory.

Acknowledgements:

The days seem to get better and definitely longer, sorry for the late finish everyone, but at least there was plenty of room in the showers!

So moving on to next week, the incentive to sharpen up fielding will be a pint for all catches taken or the infliction of pain for each one grassed! - let’s see if that improves things.

Thanks to:

Ian “Ted” Wordley for the pleasure of a new strip, John Williams for “seeing the light” and not playing at all this week and Rebecca for teas.

Prediction for next week:

The score book will add up for the first time!

First five wicket haul!