Bradford Town Vs Venturers, Wednesday July 22th

Bradford Town 112-6, Venturers 107

We had a competent-looking side out, at least until they started trying to play cricket, but Bradford Town also know what they are doing. In particular, they know how to catch, and our failure to emulate them (we dropped at least six catches, plus a stumping) made all the difference. So did several other things, of course.

Ian C started off with two maidens, in the second of which a batsman ran out of patience and had a slog. He connected and hit the ball quite a long way, but almost vertically. We called Nikhil off and let Alistair, with the gloves, catch it. He did. At the other end, Dhuvra was a bit more erratic, but didn’t give much away either after his first couple of balls. The ground slopes up sharply as you approach the square and it takes some bowlers a little while to adjust. It’s not very easy for wicket-keepers either. Gregory also took three balls to adjust, costing us eight runs, but Chris M had no such problems and generally bowled very well. Gregory compensated for his occasional looseness with wickets, the first an exact copy of Ian’s, but this was where we started dropping catches. There was a left-hander we dropped three times, who did quite a lot of damage, especially to Dave (who didn’t really deserve it). Things never got out of control, as Dave quickly recovered and Nikhil bowled tidily at the end, as well as making an excellent catch on the run.

Bradford’s opening bowlers did as well as ours, maybe even better, but didn’t get wickets. After a couple of overs the left-armer was taken off and replaced by a spinner called Swann. That didn’t make him any good, of course, but he wasn’t bad and Ian G, who had had a bad time in the field, found his day got worse when he hit a full-toss to mid-on. Jack and Roger kept things moving. A leg-spinner appeared, turning it extravagantly. Unlike everybody else who bowled he started off accurately and then lost it a bit; but he picked up wickets, including having Roger stumped, something of a rarity. Nikhil was out to a copy of his own catch. What brought us back into contention was the partnership between Alistair and Dhuvra. Somehow Dhuvra looks awkward at the crease, like somebody who can’t bat. Bradford therefore crowded him, and found out rather too late that it isn’t whether you look all right, it’s whether you hit it. Alistair, playing his first match for over a year, wasn’t quite as confident of his ability to make ridiculous singles as he sometimes is and maybe we missed a few runs that way, but we were favourites when the left-armer returned with three overs left. Alistair got nothing from his first four balls and was bowled by the fifth, and despite a firm thump or two from Dave we were left with too much to do. In the end we were bowled out with a ball to spare, Simon getting run out trying for an impossible single and Ian C skying his obligatory slog.