Venturers Vs Bristol Venturers, Sunday May 19th

Bath Venturers 170-9, Bristol Venturers 166-9

For the first time, it wasn’t cold. Matt R, watched by assorted family, drove his first ball straight to cover, and Richard swiped the last ball of the same over up in the air. Square leg, who called for it, and fine leg, who didn’t, collided, and Richard escaped. They were actually two of Bristol Venturers’ best fielders, but generally this was a day when a lot of catches went down, although the ground fielding of both sides was good. Chris helped Richard recover, before getting too ambitious, and Kevin and Richard built a good partnership, dominated by Richard against accurate bowling. Shortly after the halfway point Richard, who had just reached fifty, was caught (the only good catch of the match, almost) and Kevin was dropped. We worried that this might be the beginning of a collapse but, apart from Murali, who wandered across his stumps, and Anand, who doesn’t really do batting, everybody at least made themselves difficult to get out. Alex and Kevin, especially, did rather more than that, and Aby provided some quick runs when they were needed. Simon, though, spent most of his innings at the non-striker’s end, watching Anand and Gregory fail to hit the ball very far, if at all.

Richard and Anand found so much movement that it was some while before the ball hit the bat at all, and Bristol’s very competent opening pair found scoring runs almost impossible. When Richard did find the edge the ball failed to carry anywhere near slip, who probably wouldn’t have caught it anyway, but he dislodged a bail soon afterwards, not seeing it fall as he was appealing for leg before; and Anand actually won an LBW decision with a big nip-backer. Richard conceded a few runs, mostly via edges, but Anand gave away only one run off the bat in his first seven overs. Wides spoilt his figures a bit, and a positive-minded Australian attacked him a bit in his last over, but they still handed over to Gregory and Kevin at 35 for 2 after 16 overs. Bristol’s best chance was if the Australian stayed in and stayed positive; his partner was showing signs of attacking Kevin, but they both got out trying to attack Gregory, who had been only a little less economical than Richard. After that, Kevin’s economy improved and Gregory’s deteriorated, and there began to be a threat in the form of Bristol’s captain, Rohan. He had a steady and occasionally aggressive partner, too, and they pretty much kept up with the required run rate, which was around a run a ball.

This was not really a situation for Murali to bowl in, so Simon and Matt were to bowl the final four overs from each end. Simon immediately had the steady partner stumped, but that didn’t improve matters much because his repacement played in much the same way. Matt, at least, kept the runs down enough to keep the run rate high, and as the pressure grew Bristol began to make mistakes. Of course we dropped the catches that resulted, but when a run-out chance appeared we took it. In due course Matt bowled Rohan, but it was still close and they needed ten off the last over, bowled by Matt. The tailender who was facing managed a single off the first ball; the second produced two, the third nothing, and the fourth two more. The fifth led only to another run-out, at the nonstriker’s end. There being no rule against it, we ringed the boundary with fieldsmen for the last ball, from which five were needed. The batsman struck it hard and high, but straight to Kevin at long-on. He only needed to keep it in play to win us the match, but he did it the proper way, simply catching the ball.

Scorecard <table id="scorecardframe"> <tr> <td> <table id="scorecard"><tr> <td>Chris M</td> <td> 12 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Matt R</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Richard M</td> <td> 51 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Kevin</td> <td> 32 (1ct) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Arvind</td> <td> 9 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Alex</td> <td> 26 (1st) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Murali</td> <td> 4 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Aby John</td> <td> 13 (1ct) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Anand</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Simon</td> <td> 1 n.o. </td> </tr><tr> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 0 n.o. </td> </tr></table></td><td class="gap"></td><td style="width:250"><table id="scorecard"> <tr> <td>Anand</td> <td> 8-4-14-1 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Richard M</td> <td> 8-1-19-1 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 8-0-39-2 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Kevin</td> <td> 8-0-42-0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Simon</td> <td> 4-0-31-1 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Matt R</td> <td> 4-0-17-2 </td> </tr></table> </td> </tr> </table>