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| How Smithy Saw Clarky's 1-33 |
Walton on Thames 3xi - 195-9 (50.5) Dom Jones 4-35
The Wick 89 all out
WoT win by lots
And so to Walton on Thames – the next stop on the 3s’
journey through Surrey Div 2. Wickman awoke to thunderstorms, Clarky to dreams of dusky
maidens and (ahem) – sorry – thoughts of victory in a near top of the table
clash.
Walton 3s play on the old Olinda Vandals island, home now of
the Weybridge vandals – in a ground share. The deck was sort of mottled. Hard
in places. There was a suspicious damp
patch on a length (Clarky’s dreams again (ahem, ahem)) sorry – and the track
was sweating after a night under the covers (like er… Clarky). All in all it’s
not a bad place to play cricket – the weather was hot and humid and both
skippers fancied a bowl. But Clarky, standing in for Saycey, called correctly.
Prawn and Smith were handed the new ball and Smith promptly
outbowled his junior partner, enjoying the rare luxury of not being 4th
change. He swung and seamed it and was unlucky not to remove either opener in
what was a fine spell. Prawny too beat the bat regularly and kept a tight lid
on proceedings. However the slight lack of pace in the pitch early on possibly
reduced his wicket taking potential on the day and we were forced to sit in and
see if we could fashion a breakthrough.
That was achieved through a genius piece of teamwork, Mackie
and Lloyd spotting a technical flaw in the #2 and the skipper responding by
placing Mackie at short midwicket… only for #2 to clip one almost immediately
to him off the impressive Smith. The ridiculous (Smith) was then exchanged for
the sublime (Dom Jones) who promptly removed the other opener caught behind. Things didn’t look too shabby at this point.
Drinks were taken after 20 and both sides could be convinced
that they were doing well, the Wick limiting the runs, Walton with wickets in
hand. To fiddle a few overs in the middle, and from the sublime back to the
very ridiculous, Clark employed himself in lieu of a by now exhausted Prawny
and with a mixture of filth and more filth immediately convinced the dangerous
looking #3 to hole out at midwicket, pouched by Mackie to accompanying
groans of anguish and an audible-all-over-Surrey bellow of "noooooooo" from Smith who could hardly believe that so much good bowling
could go unrewarded only for Clark to golden arm a wicket with a pie.
At the other end Talman was employed to bowl left arm around
and did so very neatly and with some guile. Almost immediately he too took a
wicket, inducing a skied pull to midwicket where a composed Will Taylor took a
running pluck. However, dear reader, if we are honest, at this point there was
very little threat or spite in the wicket and the Wick through Clark and Talman
hurried through some overs to limit the scoring insofaraspossible. There was
heroic fielding in this period from Blanchard and Taylor in particular to limit
the damage to Clark’s figures and Smith galloped gamely in the outfield to do
the same for Max.
When Walton reached for the accelerator, we turned to Prawn
and Dom Jones again to stem the flow. Prawny settled in after a few looseners
were despatched and Walton and Christie established the game’s major
partnership, but Prawny will not mind this correspondent saying that it was the
younger members of the team that pulled wickets out of the hat. Blanchard took
another screamer at slip, Max ran out the most dangerous oppo bat from the boundary
and then Dom Jones mopped up in the face
of batsmen who were intent on smiting – having one caught at slip by Smith, now
hiding there from exertions of galloping - and then clean bowling two lower order swingers.
Walton declared promptly on 50.5 overs having amassed 195-9.
The skipper was quite pleased right up until he realised that tea was do it
yourself ham and cheese buns. Poor we felt.
So – the plan was to bat 30 overs and put together about 75 for
the loss of perhaps two wickets and then bosh 120 from the last 20 as Walton
wilted in the humid afternoon air.
Erm… a fairly confident start from Blanchard and Talman –
who both clubbed various boundaries – seemed to suggest that the target could
be overhauled. However. Hobbs for Walton bowled full, quickish and straight and
the Wick seemed to suggest that this was not on. Three of the top five were
bowled by him and another LBW to a Yorker and a further bat, seeking refuge at
the other end, could only nibble one behind. Hindsight is a clever barstard but
he would suggest that just keeping this bowling out until drinks would have
been a better strategy. By drinks we were five down for – let’s say – 40 – and the
game was gone.
Lloydy swept his way to 20+ but the rest were undone by the
magnitude of the task (we did need 120 from the last 20… but only two wickets
remained at this point) and we rather meekly subsided to 89 all out.
Sooooo. Comprehensively taken down by a good Walton bowling
performance.
Lessons to be learned:
1. Keep out the straight ones.
2. If there isn’t a bad ball see 1.
3. A bad ball from Clark is as effective as a good ball from Smith
MOM certainly Dom Jones. A very impressive swing and seam bowling performance showing great promise for the future
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