Venturers Vs Combe Down, Wednesday June 3rd

Combe Down 127-7, Venturers 127-4

On arrival at Sulis we found it in a state of Ethelred-like unreadiness. A woman from Winsley, expecting 22 twelve-year olds, was pacing around looking for the 21-yard pitch they were supposed to have marked out and wondering where the boundary markers were. She did at least have the small stumps she needed. We lent her our boundary markers and used the main pitch, which still had a rather faint boundary line painted round it. What we didn’t have was any stumps. We eventually located them in the scorebox, which Nikhil burgled rather more easily than should have been possible.

Rather belatedly, we started playing some cricket. Chris H was fantastically economical, his four overs costing only two runs: he also cleaned up one of the openers. Rob, at the other end, was profligate by comparison but not absolutely: in fact he had very good figures and after eight overs they handed over to Omar and Gregory with barely twenty on the board. Not that we had a board. We had expected to be on the other pitch, where the scoreboard works, so we hadn’t brought the portable one.

Nobody matched Chris for economy but Gregory just bettered Rob and also collected two wickets, both bowled. In fact all the wickets we took were bowled. Omar was expensive, straying down the legside too often. Then out of nowhere he produced a perfectly flighted googly, which beat the batsman in every possible way. It seemed unfair that he got only one wicket for it. Nikhil and Chris finished off with two overs each. Nikhil’s were inexpensive; Chris’s were not, but he got three wickets, which made it difficult for the new batsmen trying to score off Nikhil.

Roger dominated the opening partnership until he was out to the last ball of the sixth over. At that point the score was 40: we were not running away with it but we were certainly in good shape. The next seven overs brought only twenty-one more runs, for the loss of Ian’s wicket after he had made an uncharacteristically painstaking 10. Omar, also struggle to score, followed in the fourteenth over, but then Matt, who had been in no trouble, found the partner he needed in Nick. Together they brought us close to victory, but the required rate was still quite high when Nick was run out in the nineteenth over. At the start of the last over, ten were needed. Matt was on strike, but managed only a single off the first ball, exposing Charlie. He, however, got a two and then a single, leaving Matt on strike again. After a dot and a two it came down to whether Matt could hit a boundary off the last ball. It was short and he pulled, sending the ball high but safely out to the long square leg boundary. The fieldsman ran left; then, hearing the despairing wails of his teammates, right again, and cut the ball off on the boundary. The third run was risky, but had to be taken. A flat throw to the keeper would have run Charlie out, but few at this level can do that from sixty yards. Charlie took no chances and dived anyway, sliding home as the ball dribbled in, and the match was a tie.

We disburgled the scorebox and went to the pub.