HWRCC vs Haslemere 2s
HWRCC 199-5 Fudge 95*, Hibberd 39, High 30 (49.5 overs)
Haslemere 134-8 No 3 bat – phenomenal innings (46 overs)
Golby, Saycey, Fudgey, Hibby, Clark (get some nicknames boys FFS!), Delboy, Jimmy C, Billy, Hilly, Lownsy
Saturday’s game against Haslemere – which promised to be a thriller after 20 overs of both innings – was ultimately a disappointment. A feisty Haslemere team gave up the chase when well set and walked away from The Wick with 3 points. It leaves the 2s requiring 9 points to win the division and 6 to gain promotion. A win away at Old Hamptonians would seal the issue outright but no one at The Wick is taking anything for granted.
Rain all week (the final burst on Friday morning) had rendered the Wick track like a sponge. Not a nice light fluffy Victoria sponge like your Grandmother used to make before she started buying the Kipling version – the one with the dusting of icing sugar, tasty strawberry jam and a layer of cream. No. This was a nasty sponge. The sort of sponge that you might use to clean the showers with. A sponge that was very wet, with a light covering of pubes and caked with the mud off the football boys’ boots.
It was a stinking toss to lose. Sadly for the future of the game, opposition skipper Hooker won it and inserted us. He wasn’t a very jolly chap, didn’t enjoy the game one bit and this was the only thing he enjoyed all day.
He opened up with two very useful youngsters - Eastment the more rapid of the two. Sayce and Goulborn – both introspective at the crease even when the sun is blazing and the track harder than the sort of army issue biscuit that Pinball eats by the hundredweight to bung up his bowels while on manoevres found going tough. Both opening bowlers put the ball on a length in the channel outside the off stump. The lack of pace, tennis ball bounce and ring field kept us so under the cosh that after 20 overs we had only assembled 25 runs. Sayce had perished driving at a tempter to find cover at shin height and Golby couldn’t clear mid-off. For the record young Eastment bowled 5-1-0-5 and Hooker Mi 6-2-0-8.
Replacing the quick young right armer who looks a fantastic prospect was a cricketer of some experience, McCally. On the hottest day for cricket since April this middle aged stager, reminiscent of Boxer from Animal Farm, bowled unchanged for literally hours and plugged and wheeled away from back of a length keeping things tighter than a gnat’s chocolate hostage delivery bay. He turned in amazing figures to start with. His first 8 overs brought 1-21. At the other end the wily Hooker, like a weathered pimp in a Marrakesh souk, procured for Haslemere the services of various young boys who danced prettily to the wickets and delivered an accurate off stump line.
It was effective. For 30 overs everyone on the field wondered where enough runs to make a game of it would come from. Hibby and Fudge assembled, through nudges, nurdles, sweeps, edges, misfields and other similarly undashing means, 25 each and gradually dragged The Wick ship from beneath the waves to the surface. Furiously baling they then cut loose and even hit some boundaries before Hibberd was removed trying to take apart McCally – frustration getting the better of him.
Clark arrived in the middle having spent more than an hour watching this. He found it hard to locate the edge of the square with the ball and grew too quickly frustrated as Fudge accumulated. He perished trying to break the shackles, bowled through the gate trying to propel the sixth ball of an over into the long grass. Oh the ignominy.
Charles High esq joined Fudge in the middle and there followed the most fluid passage of play in our innings. Fudge – seeing it like a beach ball – was manoeuvring the ball around the outfield playing all manner of outrageous sweeps. High used the long handle and together – running like the demented habitants of Fraggle Rock – Fudge and High put on more runs than a salad dodger puts on calories at a village fete tea tent. Eventually Charlie smote some big boundaries as the bowlers wilted in the oppressive heat and we passed 180 for the loss of 3 wickets at over 47 and a bit. McCally – kept on too long – bowled the rest of his overs 12-1-2-64. An amazing performance in the conditions nevertheless.
High perished and Soppitt joined Fudge at the crease to press the advantage and see if the skipper could make his second ton in three weeks. Sadly with the overs ticking by, Fudgey was forced to declare on himself five runs short to set Haslemere an equation they might fancy on what was a now dryish deck (even if it was still very slow). A special mention here for young Williams who Hooker was also forced to over bowl. Again his first spell was excellent – 8-3-1-17 but he ran into High in aggressive mood and conceded heavily late on.
Make no mistake, Fudgey’s innings was a masterpiece in the conditions. To reach 95 and only score six 4s shows how hard he had to work. It was the stand out performance of the day. Even if we had bowled the oppo out and someone had taken 6 for it would still have stood out like Camilla at Diana remembrance service.
Haslemere’s in fielders had a lot to say for themselves which is always pleasant. It started as early as over 5 – not in time honoured fashion with a dispute over an LBW – but when Clark wided Eastment. Yawn, yawn, yawn. No names, no pack drill as they say, but one of the comments (when Hilly felt unable to give a run out decision because he couldn’t see whether the keeper had removed the bails with the ball in his gloves) that we must be top of the league due to cheating was a bit off beam. We’re top of the league because we can recover from 20-2 after fifteen overs and 31-2 after twenty overs to post 199-5.
Tea. DBW. Salami!!! 7.
With 46 overs to bowl out the opposition and Haslemere only needing to score at 3.98 the game was neatly poised. Nice tidy equation. Even a relatively good chase – getting to 183 – would have given them the winning draw.
The top six made a battle of it. Williams, who batted at 3, impressed us all. I can’t give too many actual details because we were unable to copy out the book before Haslemere left at the end of the game and they didn’t put up the individual scores - so we’ll have to wait for Play Cricket. But he only gave one chance (which was spurned) in a lengthy stay at the crease and he, more than any other, guided Haslemere to their draw.
But why, when they had reached a good, solid, base (approximately 100 for 4) with plenty of overs to go, did Haslemere shut up shop? Hooker first sent in Hooker junior and then an entertaining biker from the North East to defy us before he came to the wicket at 9. We know he can play because he’s opened the batting against the Wick in the past. He proceeded to cream the bowlers around when he eventually arrived. But by then the chase had been turned down and we bowled fifteen overs towards the end in the pursuit of five wickets with no one on the Haslemere side looking to get the ball off the square. McCally – who by this time must have been hoping to be putting his feet up – defied the last two overs successfully.
It’s the old story. Win the toss and bat for a draw. Why bother? Williams, (and the guy with a red stripe in his hair – no, not the tramp’s beer of choice) and the gritty Sturt who could have guided them home had Hibby not conned him with the slowest, slow bouncer ever, deserved a thrilling victory not a bore draw.
We’ll say no more of it.
Another good performance stuttered in the field despite the manful efforts of the bowlers. Previous oppositions who have given Barnacles a run for their money have trained the boys to bowl at the stumps more often than not. In the final analysis we have fallen two wickets short again and perhaps this week it was the lack of pace in the pitch and three spilled catches (Clark standing up and two others in the ring) that cost us valuable time. Once again any runs beyond 180 were superfluous and the margin of draw was more than 50 runs. There’s got to be something wrong.
Perhaps next year the Fullers people should increase the number of points for a winning draw as long as the batting first skipper declares at 47.5 overs. This wouldn’t encourage anyone batting second to have more of a go. But it would reward teams that lost the toss (let’s face it EVERYONE sticks the oppo in apart from Effingham) for dominating until the side batting second loses their cojones.
Wonderful news arrived from Merrow. Old Tenisonians had been unable to get a side out! Brilliant! Merrow could probably have expected to hammer both sides (Merrow are good cricketers and we have no beef with them) but they may well go up at the expense of us or Lingfield having won fewer games and lost more.
Odd… but somehow very 2007 given the extraordinary season we've all had.
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