The Wick v Wine Trade - Match Report by Bobby

It was a glorious day and the toss was vital as when I looked round there was a grim realisation that there were insufficient leather chasers! Naturally I won the toss and decided to ignore the almost total lack of bowlers in the team as was hoping for a big score!

Smudger Smith and Andy Mooray opened up and against a tidy couple of wine trade bowlers managed to bosh (Smudge) and caress (Mooray) a 46 run opening partnership. Smudge falling to a straight one however opened the door and the Wine Trade stuck their foot in it and the aggressive appealer (Friar (maybe another name) Tuck) squeezed an LBW out of Junaid to remove a surprised Andy Mooray... quickest finger prize certainly went to Junaid there as he was too quick for Mr Mooray as he didn't even see it!

Mackie was the man we were all expecting to hold the innings together, but he tested gully rather early in his innings and went for not many, leaving the skipper to salvage something with Greg Unsworth... Leggsy smote some glorious drives, but then fell to a brilliant catch in the gully... these Wine Traders could certainly field! Graham Adamson came out at six and played a few nice shots before edging behind, so when Mr Culham came in next... he was on the dog and bone when he should have come in we were struggling at 90/5.

Mr Culham however is having an Indian summer and despite turbo senior being 5 years + older than a number of our team (Junaid, Alex Smith) he set about the Trade slow bowlers with a gusto. The skipper went with an out of form swipe at the slow bowler for 18, so Jelly provided some support until ambling a three destroyed his concentration and ended with his demise... turbo senior doesn't usually miss the boundary!

Junaid however came in and gave Mr Culham good support but disaster then struck when the bowler appealed to Mackie for LBW. Nobody knew why, not even Mackie, but as he woke he lifted the dreaded finger and despatched our saviour for 43 when we needed more! At Tea Mr Mackie admitted to being a very bad umpire - next week it will be the score box and bar! Freddie Linter got in on the smiting as did Junaid and Alex Smith (on debut) got off the mark and ended 1*. The view was that 155 might not be enough...

The Trade opened with a very tall left hander, who smote it many a mile I remembered from last year, and a right hander and Freddie Linter and Junaid were chosen to get amongst them. Junaid bowled beautifully with immaculate length and late inswing. A silly mid off and silly mid on were posted to encourage the right hander to drive and he obligingly missed to give the Wick an early wicket, followed by another to make Trade 27/2 with the game on. Linter bowled quite quickly and was unlucky not to snap up the leftie, but he hit very straight and hard and was scoring quickly. Junaid is only used to five over spells as is only 14, so was tiring. Mr Culham was called for as needed control and a couple of wickets... I wanted 10 overs. Disaster struck however as after three immaculate overs the Culham groin caved in.

Time for plan B. Oh no, we hadn't got a plan B!!!!!

Mackie was called for and he had a theory that he should bowl "death bowler" style - full tosses and leg theory! The older members thought line and length might be worth a try, but we were wrong as the Trade skipper slapped one of his death yorkers to Leggsy at mid on. (80/3) and with Junaid now bowled out Jelly was called for to take the pace off it. He certainly did that and the leftie who was in full flow played with much suspicion as could see more in the very slow non turning "please hit me" balls than any of us. Amazingly they played Jelly like Shane Warne on a "bunsen" for three overs when the less patient of us might have given in after one ball.

With the score on 111 for three I admit to missing the obvious as cow not posted to the frustrated leftie and Jelly too slow to go anywhere else... what were we thinking about? The moment was missed and Jelly was sussed, so nothing left but to get Alex Smith on to see how he fared. Three good overs was the answer and an unlucky Freddie Linter who got the lefties edge a couple more times only to see fly over gully and just past the 'keeper down leg.

Game over at 7.00 with leftie 86 not out. Well played we all agreed. Thankfully our ageing team not put through too much misery as the Culham groin, Jelly, myself, Smudge and Andy Mooray have been more mobile in recent history! Mackie was the star in the field though and was exceptional. Having recently come back from tour though the committee agreed he batted like a bowler, bowled like a batsman and umpired like a bowler! Yes.

Pratt of match: Mark Mackie Man of Match: Junaid

In the bar it was a close thing between myself, Jelly, Mr Culham, Mr Marshall, Leggsie, Mooray, Cransey (who turned up to watch) for drunk of the day.

In the end Mr Culham and I dead heated as we ended up currying and drinking Cobra til we couldn't talk in the "flying brick" curry house