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11th June 2006

The sun shines bright...

Saturday 11 June 2006 was a lovely day for cricket. Unfortunately Yeading CC, visitors to the Broadfields acres, played most of it.

PCC were invited to field after losing the toss again. Lonnen steamed in and Cox trundled in. The bowling was tight, the fielding sharp, the scoring slow (Lupton was on nought for 27 balls before taking his first run). The batsmen tended to decline running in favour of boundaries, of which there were many: Ejaz scored 20 out of 28 over the ropes before Lonnen bowled him. The stay of Hashmi was shorter but similar in ratio. Benn had a lower ratio before getting a beauty from Reed. Peters spun his usual magic for another three wickets but Janjua restored, nay overtopped, the balance – four maxima in 48 during his nine over stay. Azad flat-batted everyone into despair after Wilkinson and Feast had failed to make a significant impression. The returned pair of Lonnen and Cox accounted for the remaining victims but Azad was unbowed, ending the innings with three consecutive fours.

After tea tradition was maintained as the roles were reversed. Parks battled manfully as Cox, then Reed, departed the scorched earth. The demise of Parks heralded the best stand of the innings – 19 by Follows and Lonnen. After Follows departed the not-so-long slide to ignominious defeat saw all remaining Ploughers fall with the inevitability of dominoes in a row – six wickets in only 8 overs. The demise of Feast brought the proceedings to a sorry end as only Peters had fallen to a real killer blow – a very good catch by silly mid-off.

The bounce didn’t help but all the 64.4 overs were bowled on the same strip. PCC had proved unable to bat, bat, bat then bat some more.

Yorkshire