Atworth Golden Fleece vs Venturers, Sunday May 15th

Atworth 296-5, Venturers 194-7

We gave one of our less distinguished performances with the balls. The plural is correct. The boundary at Atworth consists of some nettles and other vegetation and we spent a lot of time getting balls back or, sometimes, failing to. On the whole sixes, which sometimes bounced back, were easier to retrieve than fours, which buried themselves in the undergrowth like adders.

This match was arranged at short notice and we were slightly short of people as a result. Atworth lent us one player and a neighbour of Ian G's turned out, as well as Ian himself and Paul Wilson, both occasionals these days. Even that wasn't quite enough and Alban fielded throughout. Indeed one of the few occasions when the Atworth opener was troubled during his innings was when he decided that Alban, being nine, probably couldn't throw accurately and had to hurry slightly when he found out that he could. He wasn't in any danger, though, neither from that nor from anything we bowled to him. Santha and Satheesh were at least tidy and reasonably economical, but were pulled firmly when they dropped short. Satheesh fairly soon bowled the other opener: for the second time this season the square-leg umpire was needed to give a batsman out bowled, as the ball had bounced back off Paul's gloves but after the bails were already off. Gregory was expensive, bowling consistently a little short (fatal on this slow pitch) and things got gradually out of control. They stayed out of control. Ilyas picked up one wicket, caught by Satheesh, but the new batsman, after a wobbly start, soon became almost as big a menace as the opener. We did drop the opener (a hard chance) relatively early on, and again off Simon later. By that time he had reached a hundred and his main aim was to hit at least one six. When he succeeded he did so twice in succession, losing the ball both times. Eventually, for lack of other options, Gregory was brought back at the other end, where he overpitched instead but did at last get the opener, neatly caught by Paul (keeping) as he tried to cut. Another wicket followed next ball, and shortly afterwards Santha eventually bowled the other menace; but it was far too late, and although the rest of the batsmen were a bit more agricultural they were almost as effective.

We didn't make too bad a job of chasing. Chris Middup dominated an opening partnership with byes (Paul held an end up), being ridiculously dropped at mid-wicket but otherwise playing very well. Paul struggled for timing initially but became increasingly fluent, and Ilyas batted sensibly as usual once Chris was out. We were just short of 100, in the nineteenth over, when somebody started bowling a tighter line. Paul lost his patience and got bowled, and there was a rapid slide. It was arrested by Satheesh and Santha, Satheesh taking most of the strike whether Santha liked it or not. Between them, and with some contributions from Simon, the loaned Atworth player and Phil (Ian's neighbour), they helped us put together a score we'd have been quite happy with if we hadn't known it was a hundred too few.

Satheesh had a good match, and Santha, Paul and Phil did nothing wrong, but except for Chris with the bat the rest of us failed to back them up. Even that might not have mattered against sufficiently incompetent opponents, but Atworth batted really well and bowled at least reasonably, so we lost heavily. The detailed bowling figured have been redacted but either Julian Assange will hear of them or somebody will mistake them for a banker's divorce settlement and read them out in the House of Lords before long.

Fixtures & Results 2011