Broughton Gifford Vs Venturers, Sunday July 21st

Venturers 207-9; Broughton Gifford 109-8

Broughton Gifford play proper village cricket, on a green next to a pub. The pavilion is a partly converted barn and you must not open the front and back doors at the same time or the ducks will get out. Nevertheless we had had some trouble getting a side together, and when we did we discovered that it contained no wicketkeeper. Paul Wilson saved us by volunteering at the last moment, displacing Alban who hadn’t really wanted to field anyway.

Simon usually bowls if he wins the toss, but he wasn’t playing and Kevin had more confidence in our batting. In fact his confidence went so far that he acceded to Anand’s request to open the batting, despite the evidence so far being that Anand was, if anything, worse than Gregory. It didn’t work badly, either, as Anand made a brisk 21, including a six. On the other hand, he also gave himself a life when he failed to walk for an edge to the keeper, which is not the way to behave in a friendly match when the umpires are your own team-mates. If he does it again we will arrange for him to be comminated on Twitter by Richard Dawkins.

Sanket made thirty with some fluency but the main contribution to our very good score was Kevin’s aggressive 66. David, and later Aby, supported him, and (the scorebook suggests) there were 45 extras. Eight no-balls, thirteen byes and twenty-four wides, including a set of five wides. Certainly there were a lot, and Broughton Gifford dropped a few catches.

Until the end, we didn’t. In fact our bowling was far too good. Broughton Gifford had at least one highly capable batsman, who opened, but they all found Yameen impossible to score off. The other opener hit Anand around a bit but then got out to him before we had really found out how capable he was. The new batsman fell immediately to a splendid catch by Arvind at second slip. Yameen asked to be taken off as it was Ramadan and his reserves were pretty much exhausted (it was a hot day), but bowled one over too many and spoilt his figures slightly. The very capable batsman, under pressure to score quickly now that Yameen was off, swiped incapably at Gregory and got bowled. Akhil took out the last remaining proper batsman with the aid of another catch by Arvind, if anything even better than his first one.

After that a series of progressively less capable batsmen came and went. Akhil had to be taken off after only three overs, because the Broughton Gifford pitch, though carefully tended, is exposed to the elements, livestock and escaped ducks and behaves oddly if you bowl fast on it. Some dropped catches meant that we stayed in the field for the full forty-one overs (somebody lost count) but they barely managed half our score.

Scorecard <table id="scorecardframe"> <tr> <td> <table id="scorecard"><tr> <td>Sanket</td> <td> 31 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Anand</td> <td> 21 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Akhil</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Arvind</td> <td> 4 (2 ct) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Kevin</td> <td> 66 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>David</td> <td> 17 (2 ct) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Yameen</td> <td> 2 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Aby</td> <td> 12 (1 ct) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Paul W</td> <td> 4 n.o. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 5 n.o. </td> </tr><tr> <td></td> <td> </td> </tr></table></td><td class="gap"></td><td style="width:250"><table id="scorecard">