Bill Owen vs Venturers, Wednesday August 4th

Venturers 189, Bill Owen 190-6

We never quite got a grip on this one. It started well enough, with a partnership of fifty in a dozen overs by Rob and Tom Rosoman. Tom dealt patiently with a bowler of left-arm darts who was addressed as Sam Weller, who gave very little away but bowled too flat to pose much of a threat. He complained that there was no turn, which wasn't a great surprise at that speed. At the other end the bowling was more wayward but also more dangerous. Rob attacked it capably, taking only small risks, and accordingly dominated the scoring. He was threatening to build a big score when he drove a ball straight back, hard, at the slower bowler who had just come on and was unlucky when he parried it and caught the rebound. Ian G was hit on the back leg in front of middle and our momentum had gone. Not for very long, though: Kevin, after a shaky start, and Tom, gathering pace now that the dartsman had gone, restored it; but again we stalled when Tom chopped a wide one into his stumps. Iain and Kevin kept us moving but eventually Kevin got carried away and hit a catch to long-on. At that point the innings fell apart: Alistair hit across a straight one, which was a pity as his aggressive running could have done a lot of damage to their rather shaky fielding, and nobody else stayed with Iain for long. Iain did enough on his own to ensure a respectable total but was left stranded in the last over when Gregory got stumped for the first time since he last tried moving his feet when batting, which was in the days of Johnny Rotten, Idi Amin, Kerry Packer and Virginia Wade.

Santha, with some help from Agnelo, quickly demolished the top order: two catches by Kevin and one by Iain, several near misses, a good batsman castled by an inswinging yorker...well, all right, full toss...The problem was Sam Weller, who came in at the fall of the fourth wicket, when the score was 31. He could obviously bat. He wasn't immediately very destructive, though, and we could and should have won the match just by chipping away at the other end; but somehow we made no progress. In fact we had more chances against him than his partner. He miscued both Kevin and Gregory over the keeper's head, in both cases not very near a fieldsman. The nearest, though about twelve yards away when the ball landed, was probably Alban (age 8) who fielded, fairly competently, because there were only ten of us. Early in Sam Weller's innings Alistair was convinced he had got bat on a sweep. The umpire could hear a sound but his (and the bowler's) view of the ball was blocked by the bat and there was nothing for it but to accept the batsman's belief that he had missed it, perhaps in a Pickwickian sense. Eventually Kevin removed the remaining opener, but the new batsman was just as stubborn and by the time Simon had him well caught by Ian the match was practically over.

Fixtures & Results 2010