Bristol T20 tournament, Sunday July 4th

Bath Venturers 174-4, UWE Venturers 129-3

Last year we won this tournament spectacularly, chasing each time. This year we expected to have a harder time of it and the first sign of that was when Simon lost the toss against UWE and they put us in. The pitch was fairly green but the outfield was dry, hard, fast and uneven, and we thought we would need a lot of runs. Roger and Richard soon reassured us. Richard was a little uncertain starting and it was Roger who settled first, but soon Richard overtook him and the run rate rose to about seven an over. The first bowling changes made little difference: the tall off-spinner at one end bowled well but the medium-pacer at the other was the first of many to have difficulties with the sharp slope, and was very expensive. He did have one piece of ill-luck: Richard hit high to long-on, where the fieldsman judged the catch perfectly and took it above his head, only to be knocked off his feet by the momentum of the ball and sit on the boundary. By the time Roger narrowly escaped being bowled off his pads but was easily stumped instead, the score was 97, in the twelfth over. Richard didn't outlast him by very much but had 85 out of 119 by the time somebody managed to keep him quiet for three balls and he impatiently knocked the next one into point's hands. Rob and Alex contributed a rapid twentysomething each, Mark added a few at the end and our run rate was approaching nine by the time we ran out of overs.

Paul and Stuart soon made that seem enormous. Paul quickly bowled one opener and Stuart got enough bounce to make the normally obdurate Ivor back away from him, though he may just have been trying to create room to swing at the ball. If so he never succeeded, and Stuart bowled him, then flattened the off stump with his next ball, the batsman playing no shot. But we got no more wickets. Gregory and Rashid both bowled poorly; Gregory lacked control and Rashid tried to bowl six different balls an over, including bouncers - a very bad idea on a slow pitch. But we fielded well and the run rate never got out of control. Alex and Simon, at the end, were slightly better but no cheaper or more effective at getting wickets. Both batsmen made fifties and they added 102 unbroken for the fourth wicket, but it all made no difference: we had far too many runs.

Cardiff 105-3, Bath Venturers 106-6

We didn't do very well at getting people out. The Cardiff openers found Stuart and Paul very uncomfortable to bat against, but managed to stay there and it wasn't until the tenth over that a wicket fell, a good catch by Alex W standing up to Gregory. The score was still below 40 at the time. Gregory and Rashid both bowled better than they had in the previous match, though not especially well; but Gregory grew wayward and Simon replaced him and was no better. Stuart dropped a catch off a full toss bowled by Simon but later caught another in the same place off the same kind of ball; Alex effected a smooth stumpng when Simon did get it right; and Santha bowled a couple of final overs that kept the runs well down and suggested that perhaps he should have bowled earlier. 105 seemed like more that we should have conceded but not enough to worry us.

It wasn't so simple. Alex was out quickly. Rob, becalmed, was suddenly bowled and Mark, who had been the main source of runs edged to the keeper. At this point it began to rain, creating problems for both sides. Ours got worse when Richard simply missed a straight one, losing a stump dramatically. Vijay and Rashid talked matters over, but Vijay soon failed to respond to Rashid's call for a second run, apparently fearing he would lose his footing. He could have walked it in the time available but ended up making a desperate dive which left him sitting on the pitch, still not in his ground. We had made half the runs in half the overs but we had lost half our wickets.

The weather, which made control difficult for the bowlers, Rashid's aggression and Stuart's calm saved us. Without doing anything very risky Rashid and Stuart kept the run rate where it needed to be. The rain poured down and the scorebook became unusable: we kept the scoreboard going run by run instead. Stuart miscued to mid-on with a dozen needed, but Santha's usual robust approach together with a few extras gave Rashid all the support he needed to bring us a rather uncomfortable win

The weather was now so bad that after some debate it was agreed that the final, decisive match between us and Bristol would have to be played at a later date. Soon after, the sun came out; but we were drenched and they, having been batting and had the pavilion to sit in, weren't, and in any case we were running out of time.

Fixtures & Results 2010