Venturers vs Bath Spa College, Thursday May 29th

Venturers 110-4 (20 overs, rain) Rain stopped play

We won the toss and put a strong batting side into action against the Bath Spa students. Ajit and Alistair opened against some very decent bowling, and Alistair was bowled early by a beauty that swung and clipped the top of off stump. Roger strode out to continue his impressive 20-over form, but couldn't really get going, edging one safely through the slips in the second over. There were some well-judged singles by both batsman and they put on a few before Roger clipped a swinging ball to cover in the 6 th over.

Max came in to bat for the first time for the Venturers, and faced some quality bowling before he was unlucky as the ball barely trickled under an otherwise solid block onto the stumps. In the pavilion Kevin had commented on the size of the slip cordon used for the opening bowler, and had suggested it might wind the bowler up if he played a late cut past them. He promptly did so second ball, and that stroke for 2 may well have annoyed the opener as it came off the last ball of his spell, and significantly added to his total runs conceded.

Meanwhile Ajit continued steadily at the other end with the sky growing progressively darker and threatening thunder rumbling away in the distance, so when Ajit was caught at mid-on in the 15 th over for 31 it really was getting pretty murky.

Ian G joined Kevin and the pair continued until the end. Kevin got his fifty with a boundary and followed it with another past the flags next ball for good measure. The conditions were about the darkest seen at Sulis, and after a single off the final ball the rain arrived in force. A sustained torrential downpour kept us in the shed rather than the bar for 10 minutes, but we were able to reflect positively on 110-odd for 4. It looked like a balanced match in the making, and was a double shame as the rain cost half the team a game of any sort.

Fixtures & Results 2008