Bath College vs Bill Owen XI, Sunday
3rd June 2007
Author: Gregory Sankaran
Lost by 30 runs. Bill Owen 181-6 Venturers 151-9
Steve did his job too well. As he hadn't bowled he was pushed up our none too robust batting order and asked to keep their bowlers busy trying to get him out. He went in at the end of a small explosion by Andy Watts, which had brought him thirty-five runs from about twenty balls, before skying to square leg. At that point we were fifty-odd for 2 after about nine overs, chasing 181: Alex, unaccountably playing down the wrong line, had gone early, but we were well placed.
Steve blocked, which was what he was supposed to do. Richard, who had been quite lively at the other end, though not on Andy's scale, slowed too. The bowling became more accurate; they blocked it more. The scoring rate sank almost to nothing, and by the time Steve deliberately lost patience we were behind the rate, and Richard was out. Still, thanks to Steve's obstructiveness, we did have wickets in hand. The bowling remained accurate, though perhaps not quite as accurate as Steve, by now kibitzing the scorer, maintained; and as neither Kevin nor, especially, Duncan could time the ball, we made little progress. By the time Duncan was out we were in need of serious aggression. Simon provided it for a while, and Kevin also started to move things along. Then, for the second time in three days, Kevin was the victim of a reflex return catch. After Simon's effort at short mid-wicket that cut off their most threatening batsman, we could hardly complain of our luck in this respect; but it finished the game as a contest. Simon survived, but apart from him, Kevin, Andy and Richard, most other people made three. Only Gregory, coming in after Paul's ludicrous run-out, did more, edging a four and playing a couple of partly successful swipes; but he missed too much, and Simon didn't get enough of the strike.
We ought really to have kept them down to about 160. The eponymous Bill Owen opened the batting with a jet-lagged young man, and they both scored slowly: the young man because of his jet-lag, and because of the unpredictable bounce found by both Paul and Duncan, and Bill Owen because he always does. We tried to keep the jet-lag victim off the strike, with some success, but perhaps relaxed the pressure a bit by doing so. After Duncan's first couple of overs, Rob looked the likeliest to get a wicket. He did, thanks to a sharp catch by Kevin, who bowled tidily himself; but it was Bill Owen's.
This brought in the father of the jet-lag victim. He is not such an obviously good bat as his son, but he is very effective. Duncan achieved a record of sorts by dropping both of them in exactly the same place, off the same bowler. Dropping the son looked like an expensive mistake, but Simon's remarkable catch, from a well-struck pull off Duncan that had travelled about ten yards, very fast, limited the damage. Dropping the father, though, did have effects beyond making a mess of Gregory's bowling figures, because he started the acceleration in the last few overs. He didn't stay to complete the job. In Simon's second over he simply forgot to play a shot to a perfectly straight ball. Simon, whose day it was, picked up a couple more wickets at the end, but in between he got hit around a bit, as did Paul; and Gregory somehow conceded five runs an over while giving the impression of great accuracy. Nothing went badly wrong; but they had wickets in hand when they needed quick runs, and we, despite Steve's efforts, didn't.