HWRCC 1XI lose to Cobham Avorians 1XI by 28 runs
Saturday was one of those days when the Wick felt like an evening
party of a safari holiday in South Africa. And not only because Tid was there. Thankfully the cricket matched the
setting, and even though the 1s lost a keenly fought contest, there was enough
to shout about towards the end of the day to keep two balconies and plenty more
besides happy. #Magners as Goldie would say.
Cobham Avorians batted first on a flat deck. Despite some good balls, the Avorian openers were well suited
to, and well drilled in, batting on such surfaces. Very much a Warner/Rogers
combo. Warner flayed away (proper cricket shots I might add), whilst Rogers
hung around for people batted around him. The #3 (a bit of the Dilshan about
him) made a few in very quick time, and the #4 (a brand of forward defensive
Colly would have been proud of) made a few less in a bit more time, but the
score was ticking along - 103-2 at one point. Tanveer returned for a second
spell of fast and got 2 in 3 balls to bring the Wick back into the game, the
second a proper strawberry plucked by RobbieO at square leg (with MattyD watching
on at point…the joys of left/right hand combos).
Enter big Bailey (body of Kieron Pollard, face of Sue Pollard),
who showed remarkable levers, yet also constraint in managing a potentially
difficult situation. Junjua (dot dot dot) and Tughral (again bowling
beautifully without reward) plugged away. 201-5 and Cobham were in the lead. As
Im looking at the scorecard I note the #7 scored 36 – not sure where these runs
came from, but clearly they did. The innings never really kicked on, but 236
was still a decent score and normally you be big favourites with that down the
Wick.
Bowling was improved on last week, but nothing special,
other than perhaps Tughral who is due something big very soon.
Teas – coronation chicken. Not something you want just
before going out to bat.
The reply started quite well. Nothing to do
with the opening bats, more the fact that there were more wides than legitimate
balls in the opening 20 minutes. The law
of sod then kicked in and one pitched bang on and nipped back to clean up Davies
with a good one, and then Rashid was stung with one that similarly nipped back
in. Immo is never out lbw, and he is
goolie. Ahmed played a typical Ahmed knock. A few biffs and then carelessly
getting out. Enter the Dragon, with Bonay and Ali (Bomaye) combining well,
before Oliver and Tong offered similar support to Ali (Bomaye) as he set about
chasing down a score that we were always second favourites for, but never out
of it (until the end, when we were all out…then we were out of it).
Ali’s knock came to a very disappointing end – plopping one
to mid-wicket as if he was throwing an egg to him. This came after a wonderous
innings full of flicks and drives to all parts. Sheer power and grace, and hopefully
a sign of things to come for the rest of 2014. As it happened, his demise was
probably curtains, although like last week many a batsmen made double figures
(everyone else in fact other than Usman), but no one was able to make the big
score needed to get us over the line. As with last week, plenty of positives,
but some toughening up is needed before the season starts to get really
difficult. Thus far, the standard of play has been slightly down on last year,
but the boys are currently at 80% - this needs to be more like 90% to get some
points on the board and start the charge.
Fair play to Cobham – a good bunch of lads and enjoyed the
banter, and the day as much as we did. Probably more, as they won! #6 and #7
batted excellently and it was a good watch to see our bowlers put real effort
in and see it repelled with integrity and grit. There’s a lesson in there
somewhere.
Oh, and Arsenal won the FA Cup, which is nice.
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