Venturers vs Bradford Town, Wednesday 25th July

Bradford Town 132-9, Venturers 89

The Bradford Town innings looks more plausible read from the bottom up. Apart from the number 9, who missed his first ball (a straight long hop from Gregory) their tail-enders did much better than their batsmen. One of their openers was also out first ball to a bad ball, oddly from the first change bowler. Harsh’s first over had been very erratic, including three no-balls for height and a wide as well as a two and, off the last ball, a single when Chris for once dropped a straightforward catch. Jey removed the number 1 with his second ball and conceded a 2. Harsh was replaced by Kevin, who started with a full toss. The number 2 clipped it confidently to square leg, where David held on to a good catch; and two balls later David repeated the trick, a better catch off a better ball. Kevin got tow more wickets, one bowled and one LBW; a threatening partnership was ended by John’s direct hit; a left-hander signalled his intention to charge Gregory and was stumped. After Gregory’s second and more fortuitous wicket, the score was 75 for 8, but somehow they escaped to 132 for 9. The fact is that the Bradford numbers 8 and 10 batted better than anybody else.

In particular they batted better than us. Bradford also fielded better than us, but only Chris and Kevin made any runs and they did it rather slowly. Bradford’s slow left-armer demolished us, as he has done before. Most tellingly, when Kevin hit him back over his head for four he remarked to the umpire (Gregory, another slow bowler) “I don’t mind that. If he does it again he’s likely to give a catch”, and next ball Kevin did exactly that. There was some more erratoc stuff at the other end, but we got out to that too, and fell far behind the rate. In the end we were bowled out: Gregory, who had unsuccessfully blocked the last over of his previous match, decided to attack this time and was just as unsuccessful that way.