The Venturers vs. Bradford 39, Tuesday 24th
May 2007
Author: Gregory Sankaran
Venturers 91-7 (18 overs), Bradford 39 92-5
The main trouble at Victory Field is the light. If the sun does not shine you cannot see the ball at all, and if it does you are blinded if you look into it. For this reason we agreed that if necessary the bowling would be entirely from the eastern end if necessary.
Duncan won the toss, so we had no possible grounds for complaint about what happened next. We started with our usual light collapse. Rob was invited to open the innings but got an actual good ball early on. Kevin made runs, but slowly: most others just occupied the crease, if that. Duncan wafted to mid-off. Only Chris showed much sign of aggression, but he frequently missed the ball so he was only moderately effective. He did hit the straight ones, though. It was left to the Ians to bring us back to what turned out to be respectability. Just as Kevin Pietersen finally exceeded his often-made highest score of 158, so Ian G finally got past a score he had made several times for us but never bettered. In his case the score in question was 1, but he bettered it by quite a lot, making 10 not out in a few balls; and Fluffy did something rather similar. A score of 90-odd, made from one end for the last few overs, didn't seem enough, though.
Duncan ran up to bowl the first ball. He had no idea where it landed, as he was looking straight into the sun. Kevin, looking south, had no such excuse for making a total mess of the very simple catch that came his way. He did everything wrong except drop it. Duncan, blinking and feeling for his shades, had it explained to him that he had just taken a wicket.
Other bowlers found the conditions equally baffling at first. Gregory's first ball was a long hop; Kevin's was a high full toss. Neither could see the batsman. Both, however, improved and got a wicket early on and we were really doing quite well after a few overs. But a mishit went begging because Kevin, temporarily sightless after absent-mindedly opening his eyes while bowling, couldn't find it. Bradford had one really capable batsman left, but we couldn't shift him until, as the sun set, we were allowed to use the western end again and Lee trapped him LBW. By then it was almost too late, and a couple of slightly fortutous slogs took Bradford home with less to spare than had at one time seemed likely.