2nd XI division four
29th July 2006
It was a beautiful sunny Saturday, and the 2nds arrived at the ground with a spring in their step, despite the withdrawl of Laney due to injury. Upon inspection, a nice green wicket made the toss a crucial one. Unfortunately Parks –standing in for Coxy and the injured Khan- lost it. Youth Wing promptly inserted us to bat as expected.
Parks and Fasil Hussain stepped out to open the batting, and with the first couple of overs going for 4 or 5 runs, looked steady enough against the accurate bowling of the opening bowlers. This wasn’t to continue, as parks got a bit under a square cut and hit it straight to the man at deep point. Will Barras came in at 3 to shore up the innings, and was looking very comfortable. Fas soon followed Parks when he was caught close of the accurate Jagdish. Barras and Hargreaves looked to recover the innings and were playing very sensibly (Hargreaves ignoring the pain of his hangover!) until Barras was caught behind from the dangerous Duffy, who was continuing to bowl with decent pace on a good length. Pring came to the crease and was looking good, one big leg side boundary off Duffy in particular. Hargreaves soon ended his stubborn resistance when he also edged Duffy close, and the innings was really starting to wobble now. With Ben Brown coming and going in the same over, and Pring playing across a straight one a few balls later, PCC were in real trouble on 35-6. Despite some dogged defence from Sha, Tabberer and Peters soon feel, again to that man Duffy, and Sha couldn’t resist having a go at the other end to be caught behind, the innings closing on 43 for 9 (all out). Duffy took 6-14 off his 10 overs, great figures indeed, but almost all of his wickets came from forced shorts from frustrated batsmen.
A quick tea later, (a whole sandwich and packet of crisps!) and PCC were back out in the middle trying to defend their tiny total. Despite Wilkinson taking an early wicket in a tidy first over, the Youth Wing batsmen were soon going for every shot in the book, and despite the ball flying past the edge on numerous occasions from Barras in particular, there was to be no miracle, and the runs were knocked off in a mere 7.3 overs for the loss of just the one wicket.
A 10-over beer match soon followed, with Ploughmans keen to salvage some pride on the day, and an entertaining 88 off of the 10 overs not only lifted the morale of the side, but proved how we could have batted in the real game. Brown and Pring in particular with some big hitting. Youth Wing valiantly tried to chase but some tight bowling from the Hussain brothers restricted them to 77. An exciting end to the day, amazing how much better everyone plays when they are relaxed!
LP