BaNES Vs Venturers, Tuesday May 17th

BaNES 87-5 (16 overs), Venturers 86-6 (16 overs)

Both Simon’s and Gregory’s mobiles rang as they drove to Peasedown. Of course they couldn’t answer, which was just as well as the call would have been to cancel the match. By the time we got there the rain had stopped and we thought we might as well go ahead. In view of the already dim light we agreed to play sixteen overs. Both sides had only nine players, so we also agreed to lend each other a fieldsman. In the event, BaNES acquired a tenth player by the time they came to field, so we did not need to lend them anybody.

The only real problem at Peasedown is the short square boundary. Mohammed kept the pink ball well away from it most of the time, but when it did go that way Ian fell over before it got to him, resulting in an embarrassing four. In the second over there was a mix-up, and a better throw might have produced a runout. So, oddly, might a worse throw, because as it was Imran thought that Gregory was going to hit the stumps and left it. Soon afterwards, though, the same batsman decided on a second run on Mohammed’s arm and got about three-quarters of the way. Mohammed followed this up by bowling the other opener, a bail spinning far into the deep field, and then produced a slower ball that had the batsman acknowledging defeat even before it arrived and bowled him. Gregory took over from Imran and kept the batsmen even quieter than Mohammed was doing. There was a left-hander in now, so the short boundary was a danger whichever end you bowled from, but the few fours there were at this stage went the other way. Somebody tried to hit Gregory over square leg and presented Mohammed with an easy catch. Dave gave away a few runs early on but soon found his line, and also bowled a batsman who seemed to be getting going. This was the only wicket that Mohammed didn’t have a hand in. Towards the end they managed a bit of acceleration, and in the last over the left-hander hit Bruce over the road and into the bushes. This part of our game, though, is one of our real strengths. The search party (Simon, Gregory, Akash and Ian) emerged with two balls, both in good condition, one of them the one we had been using.

Akash slogged happily for an over and a half before missing one, but unfortunately never made full connection. Ian kept missing his intended leg glances outright, very nearly getting bowled on one occasion. When he connected with something more direct still nothing much happened, because of the broken bat he for some reason insisted on using. He and Jack kept up with the run rate, but had to run almost everything and never got ahead. So when Ian missed an ambitious swipe, then new batsman, Mohammed, did not have long to settle. He and Jack seemed to be taking us home, though, but with thirty needed from six overs, Jack also missed. The rest of the team should, at this point, have instructed Simon to bat, but instead he sent first Imran, who missed as well, and then David. David has a decent defence but scores in ones and twos rather than fours. He and Mohammed also managed to maintain the run rate, but not more, and the trouble started when they looked for more and began to miss out on the singles. Three runs came from the fourteenth over, and only two from the fifteenth, the last ball of which bowled Mohammed. Now Simon did go in, but he was off strike and we needed eight from the last over. Dave could do nothing until the third ball, from which he managed a two, and then he was run out at the nonstriker’s end attempting a desparate single off the fourth. Simon missed the fifth and Gregory decided against attempting a bye, although he would probably have made it. Thus Simon needed six off the last ball, rather than Gregory needing five, and he edged it to the third-man boundary, all along the ground. This was our fifth boundary, compared to their thirteen, and that, presumably, is how we came to lose despite Mohammed and Gregory having bowled half the overs and conceded only twenty-three between them.

Anyway, it didn’t rain very much, and BaNES, forewarned against offering pork sausages to a team full of vegetarians and Muslims, supplied us and themselves with pizza and chips.