Venturers vs Bradford 39, Thursday 19th July

Bradford 39 149-7, Venturers 75

We always knew we hadn’t enough batting. In fact we hadn’t enough players and Bradford lent us some. We did have bowling, so as long as the bowlers did their bit we had a chance. So our chance pretty much disappeared when Jay and Mike started off with a string of full tosses. They were the last two bowlers not to have done that this year, so their turn had come round. A rush and a dive by Gregory might have got Mike a wicket but he chose to stop the ball undramatically instead. David replaced Mike and also bowled full tosses, one of which did for one opener, who lofted it to Mike at mid-on. Gregory raised the tone a bit, not merely pitching the ball but bowling to a plan. This quickly did for the other opener, whose counter-plan was to wipe everything towards cow corner: he missed. He, a loaned Bradford player (who has the useful ability, as we have often seen, or getting batsmen to play back to full deliveries) and Simon kept things calm for the rest of the innings, but there was no way back from 91 for 1 off nine overs. Having to chase 150 was as good as it was going to get.

That we got as many as half of them was almost entirely due to the loaned players. David missed a straight one and Alistair was run out, and that was our native batting gone. Bradford needed a splendid return catch to break the partnership of loaned players, but it never threated their score. A second run-out added to the feeling of disintegration, and Gregory rounded off the whole thing by playing defensive shots to the last three possible balls of the innings, missing the last and being blatantly leg before.