The Venturers vs. Shenley Church End, Saturday 26th
June 2007
Author: Ian Gillard
Venturers 129 (40 overs), Shenley 130-6
What the Venturers have been lacking lately is runs. Lots of runs. So it was with high hopes that Roger and Richard opened against the touring side on an overcast day at Sulis. Roger was in good touch, hitting several boundaries off the slower of the opening bowlers and timing the ball well. Unfortunately their main opening bowler was a South African who clearly knew what a cricket ball was and how to use it. Richard was unlucky with a difficult LBW decision going against him early on, but with the ball swinging and seaming down the hill it was really looking likely that the lower order might be padding up earlier than we would like. The imported bowler sent down five overs, including four maidens, taking two wickets for only four runs.
Despite this quality the batsman dug in and made good use of the bowling from the other end which was decidedly less spectacular. Hajee made some decent runs, with Chris and Kevin contributing a share. Around this time our opposition began to take pity, and likely realised that to continue with their exotic bowling attack would spell an early and most disappointing end to the game. On came their part timers. Now, some bowlers have explosive pace while others do not. Similarly some can turn the ball while others can’t. Incredibly, (and despite some hefty sledging from his own team), the most pedestrian slow bowler to grace a cricket pitch managed to unseat the entire middle order. The first to fall was Kevin who cut the first ball straight to point. Rarely has a batsman looked more forlorn, nor a bowler more incredulous. But worse was to come as both Fluffy and Chris fell LBW to the dizzying slowness. This can be blamed on their inability to stay awake until the ball arrived, but short of Pro-Plus being issued as the bowler delivered it was hard to combat. In fact only Chintan steadied the ship with some strong hitting, but he spent some time at the non-striker’s end as the wickets fell, with Andy Watts, Rob Branston and Stephen all falling cheaply. The other bowlers were more bat-friendly and the runs were building, but despite a brief late surge from Ian and Chintan it was lean times again. Chintan was able to keep the strike for two more overs until his excellent stand was brought to a close by a solid catch at deep midwicket.
As we headed for tea it was suggested to the opposition that a reverse of either their batting grip or batting order was called for to give a contest, and after the usual tea, (albeit adorned with West Indies wickets falling to a resurgent England side), the lower-order batsmen took the field first. (I personally would have liked to see them take the former option which would certainly have made things interesting).
Kevin opened the bowling down the hill, with Ian supporting him for the first time in a forty over game, both conceding around four an over. A few overs in and a ball kept low and went through the keeper in the wet. One of the batsman rather greedily decided to take a second bye and Fluffy’s flat throw from the deep allowed Andy W to whip the bails off with his man still short of his ground. This rewarded the Venturers for steady commitment in the field which has been good this season, apart from the usual avalanche of dropped catches which continues to cost us.
Fluffy has had a quiet game or two already this season, but was in the action here and followed his run-out by bowling two batsman in an inspired spell that kept the game alive. Unfortunately four or five wickets falling did not change the situation enough and their best batsman were still taking cover from the light rain rather than our erratic bowling. Consequently their batting quality improved as the match went on and the contest progressed towards an inevitable defeat. Despite the result, (which was predictable from the first over of the day), some good things to take from this match were the continued improvement of the newcomers to the bowling attack, and the quality of ground fielding all round. If this can be matched with catching and heavy hitting when facing the part-timers some victories are in sight. In all it was a good-humoured match and the gift of a signed junior bat from the tourists was a nice touch in the bar afterwards.