Venturers vs Bradford 39, Wednesday July 21st

Venturers 99-5, Bradford 39 100-4

Bradford 39 had several schoolboys playing for them, but any idea that that might be a weakness was demolished by the end of the first over. At least one of them was an excellent bowler, left arm quickish and getting steep bounce. Generally we couldn't get the ball away, at either end. Chris M and Rob at least stayed in for a while, which was as well as we didn't have a lot of batting (only ten players anyway), but it wasn't until Kevin arrived and a different schoolboy bowled that we showed much aggression. Kevin hit him for four fours, which seemed a bit unkind, and his day got worse when he dropped Alistair, first ball, at mid-on. That was the second fairly easy catch they had dropped but the other, letting off Chris M, was off a no-ball anyway. Alistair, Kevin and the other Chris gave the innings some spurious respectability, but apart from that one over we were never dangerous.

William Cowper pointed out that a fool must now and then be right, by chance. This is reassuring if you find yourself temporarily in agreement with someone whose views you are embarrassed to share (Sarah Palin, Ricky Ponting...), though it doesn't work if you are embarrassed to share the views of William Cowper. In a similar way, bad bowling occasionally produces a good ball, and for much of the time that was our only hope in this match. Gregory was the main culprit, bowling very randomly, but Simon and Chris M were also wayward. Kevin and Rob, on the other hand, were excellent, but we were defending 100 and couldn't afford to bowl rubbish.

What we needed to do, and didn't, was to get Dan out. We know he's called Dan because it says so on his shirt. More precisely, it says "Dan 2", raising the possibility that there is a Dan 1 somewhere, like Thing 1 and Thing 2 in The Cat in the Hat; but one of him was quite enough. His first scoring shot was a six, off one of Gregory's more respectable deliveries as it happened, and he scored almost all his runs between wide mid-on and fine leg. His opening partner succumbed to Rob, and two schoolboys followed, for Kevin to york; but after that Dan found a reliable second who contributed substantially himself before skying Chris, by which time it was too late. We were a bowler short even counting Gregory, and we only delayed defeat as long as we did because the scoreboard was too far away for anybody to read and we had to go back and concede another run.

Fixtures & Results 2010