Friendly
6th May 2006
The Ploughman arrived at Harefield, chomping jam donuts before the game, the weather was terrible with rain pouring down from the heavens. It was going to be a 10 V 10 affair today as both teams were a man down.
Robert wiping his mouth after a jam explosion made his way to the middle with the opposing skipper and won the toss, much to our bemusement he elected for us to field and field we did. Tim and Robert opened the bowling in what can only be described as horrible and wet conditions. We didn’t have much luck fielding with the ball slipping and sliding all over the place for the first 10-15 over’s, in which time Harefield racked up a respectable opening stand of 70 odd runs. Robert had had enough and decided to introduce Harry and Paul Peters to the attack, they didn’t have much luck in their first few over’s, however they managed to weather the storm a bit and then Paul Peters struck the first blow, he totally bamboozled the opener with his delivery, the batsman left his crease in an attempt to slog a shot but totally mistimed his effort and looked back helplessly as Feeney promptly stumped him out. It wasn’t long before we were celebrating another fall of wicket as Harry joined the melee by bowling out their no.2 for 27. Harefield had built up a good score of around 110-2 at this point, Paul Peters took another wicket a few overs later. The runs started to rack up again as Harefield no.5 “Petley” was in full flow smacking the ball all over the pitch. Plough managed to pick up a couple more wickets towards the end of the innings before a declaration was made by the oppo
on 214-5.
After tea there wasn’t much hope of getting much out of this game, however our opening pair Leon & Rich had other ideas, they went out into the middle and took the game by the scruff of the neck and started playing some majestic shots and were bossing the Harefield bowling attack for the first 10 over’s or so, the on looking Plough started to get some positive vibes from the perfect start we were given by this pair, the miserable day started to get rosier as we got to 75 without loss with the effervescent Leon and Rich cruising in tandem. Then we lost them both in quick succession and were 82-2. we still had a good chance of getting something out of the game with Feeney and Nicholls continuing the good work started by the openers, just as both players played themselves in Nicholls tried to play a safety after a couple of boundaries and was bowled by Wood. We lost regular wickets after this point in the game, but Feeney made the most notable contribution chipping in with a quick fire 42, still looking for that ever elusive 50, its proving to be quite a mission for Chris to get to this milestone, but on this performance it wont be long coming we hope.
It was a valiant performance by all in the end, we got down to the last 4 balls and Sha decided to go for a run with Harry knocking the ball square, there were 3 balls to see out for the draw, but Sha was bowled out by a good delivery next ball, Robert was not happy about that and that’s why I have had to write the match report….Of course Harefield took home the spoils and they deserved it on the day!
SH