Venturers vs UWE
Sunday 2nd September 2007
Author: Ian Gillard
Lost by 5 wickets. Venturers 161-9 UWE 164-5 off 34 overs
Nearing the end of the season and the weather has finally settled down to allow some cricket, leaving us to wonder what might have been with more fixtures played rather than missed. There have been some great matches this season and some that looked close early on only to slip away from us somewhere in the middle. Others have been like this one, where we thought we were in it but never really were – but following Bill Owen this season one can never tell for sure. With the passing of matches also comes the passing of players from the side including some of the more regular faces. The exciting match at Bill Owen was a suitable send-off for Duncan, but with careers taking players away seemingly at the rate of one per match, it was the turn of surely our best dressed umpire Lee to don his Venturers whites for the last time.
We batted first and it fell again to Roger and Kevin to make the majority of the runs, with Richard unlucky to fall LBW again without scoring. Roger top-scored in the match with 64 and was unlucky to be dismissed by a really brilliant diving low catch from their top bowler in his follow through. This was their one very good player who moved the ball into the right hander off the seam and perhaps this helped him account for our 3 most dangerous batsmen, but after the 4 early maidens from the opening bowlers we settled down and scored some runs. Adam Paz and later Simon both got a pair of 4s as their first scoring shots and looked in useful form before getting out unexpectedly, and Ian supplied his now-customary straight-ball dismissal on just 6 after seeming untroubled. Lee rose to the occasion though and scored a steady 11 which included 2 boundaries. When he was removed it left the tail plenty of overs to prod about, but the runs dried up despite some casual bowling. The tail did successfully keep us from being bowled out and so when, at the fall of the 9th wicket, Gareth had just 2 balls to face he was free to swing and hammered the second to the leg-side boundary to leave us with a total of 161. Perhaps the score was not too impressive as we saw 8 maidens pass us by, but it was a determined effort by the tail to hold off a persistent, if not daunting bowling attack. Their main bowler did the real damage with 3 for 25 off 8 overs, including 3 maidens, but only 3 of our batsmen got into double figures, which suggests we were probably too keen to throw the bat at reasonable deliveries.
Now last year against a Bristol team we posted a fairly unimpressive score and then defended it easily with some exciting bowling, but this year we were missing almost all the regular faces in the bowling department. The problem was then compounded when our remaining regular bowler (Kevin) tweaked his back between innings leaving him unable to bowl. The responsibility thus fell to Ian to open the bowling, which he duly did with 4 wides. His second over was better – 3 wides. The third was the best yet with just 2 wides although the decent pace meant there were no runs off the bat at all, despite bowling close to 30 deliveries. Simon was superbly controlling the other end with his usual tidy spin bowling and conceded just 11 off the first 4 overs which set the game up for the first change attack and after 10 overs the score was 41.
With so many regular bowlers missing the duties then fell to Lee and Richard and both bowled 2 tight overs to start followed by a wicket in the third over. Lee was a bit more expensive in that over, but went on to dismiss their number 4 through the gate 2 overs later to record his best figures for the season – 2 for 22 off 5 overs. Lee’s first wicket was the opener through a simply stunning catch by Adam Paz who’s one-handed reflex catch from 10 yards surprised everyone. Richard bowled the other opener and was not to be outdone in the field either, claiming an excellent catch diving forwards on the other side of the wicket and we felt we were still making headway.
It took us 12 overs to get the first breakthrough and thereafter the first 4 wickets came in an 8 over period to leave them 98 for 4 after 21 overs. We thought we were almost in it but then they dug in and put on another 50 odd by the 30th over when the 5th wicket fell. Ian and Simon had come back on in that period in an attempt to remove the stubborn partnership but despite a number of edges and streaky boundaries the partnership held, although they didn’t always know much about it. When both bowlers ran out of overs Adam and Roger did their best to hold them down, with the latter claiming that 5th wicket (to finish 1-10 off 3 overs) but with only a handful needed from quite a few overs it was a hopeless task and in the 34th over they completed a solid victory.
Some good things to come out were the really excellent catches and some decent fielding despite a drizzle that started about 20 overs in and persisted until the finish. Also the standard of bowling in these wet conditions was a far cry from Kilmington early in the season where Ian especially struggled to find the square with the ball, much less trouble the batsman. The prevailing problem this season is still that we need more runs though, and we must find a way to get another 30+ into the top half of an innings to put more pressure on the other team’s weaker bowlers, while finding a way to practice against consistent bowling.