Bristol Academicals Vs Venturers, Wednesday June 1st

Bristol Academicals 64; Venturers 65-0

It takes time to get to Coombe Dingle, especially if you get stuck on the Toll Bridge (Simon) or held up by a herd of cows (Gregory), and we didn’t get started until nearly half past six. Even so, the match was over before half past eight, which left us plenty of time to get the first aid kit and repair Mohammad, and to ring Imran and inform him that he had driven off with Mohammad’s mobile and cards in his car.

The main new feature of this match was Marco keeping wicket, following an idea of Gregory’s that was supposed to spare Jack’s knees (not playing today anyway) and involve Marco in the game. It was an idea not without risk, to the score and to Marco’s knees, but it worked well.

The first four balls of Ian’s opening over, and the sixth, were played with great care. The fifth, not obviously different, disappeared over the long-off boundary. The other opener got something unplayable from Mohammad, who swung the ball enough to have difficulty controlling it but got it right this time. A left-hander appeared. Ian got one to bounce more than he expected and Pratik collected the catch. The opener who had hit Ian over long-off tried to do the same to Mohammad, but had failed to pick his slower ball. Later in the same over Mohammad got bounce steep enough to hit the bat handle, though the ball landed safely, and in his next over the other batsman understandably stayed back to a back of a length ball and had no chance when it did not bounce. This unpredictability did not bother Marco, though. Or rather, it did bother him but he managed to stop, and sometimes catch, the ball anyway, and conceded only two byes in the innings.

The fifth-wicket pair resisted for a while. One likes to sweep and pull, the other to cut, so a different line is needed to each. Rich tand Gregory proved to be up to that, and the sweeper before very long picked the wrong ball for the shot. At this point we started dropping catches. Mohammad, whose evening had started well but was already getting worse, put down an awkward low one and was sledged by the passengers in a Cardiff minibus that happened to be leaving. Gregory got fingers only to a looping top edge off Rich, who had no luck, and Bruce also back-pedalled insufficiently. But it made no difference. The last proper batsman chipped a checked drive off Gregory to cover, where Ajay caught a difficult catch with some style, and Gregory, Imran and Bruce finished off the tail.

We needed 65. Matt broke his bat early on but just carried on using it. The opening bowlers commanded respect from him and Ajay, but Bristol Academicals also had an untried wicket-keeper and he let more through than Marco had. After a while Ajay started to move along and by the seventh over, when he hit his second six, he was trying to score off every ball and usually succeeding. Academicals for some reason allowed Matt singles, and Ajay three times ran threes on the last ball of the over, retaining the strike. One of Ajay’s more ambitious shots got a top edge that rose high into the sky, but when it came down the wicket-keeper turned out to be standing about three yards away. He fell over, and they ran two. At the halfway point the scores were level and next ball we won, by ten wickets with almost ten overs to spare. Matt, as has happened before in such occasions, contributed about one-fifth of the runs, but four-fifths of the defensive technique.