Venturers Vs Star Midweek, Wednesday August 24th

Star 152-7, Venturers 111-3

Bruce’s second ball hit the top of the middle stump. Unfortunately the batsman had backed away before the ball was bowled, distracted by talk in the field, so it rightly didn’t count; and Bruce’s real second ball disappeared to the boundary, as his first had. This was not a good start, although the rest of Bruce’s spell was fairly tidy and he picked up a wicket at the end.

Imran, from the other end, was similarly variable, but he did remove the opener who had faced Bruce at the start. By that time he had made 32 and we were beginning to get worried, and to regret momentarily having declined the suggestion of a retire-at-25 rule; but in reality our best chance of winning the match was if Ian G or Abishek or Jack made a big score quickly, so such a rule would have been disastrous. Apart from this lack of batting (Matt and Chris were there, but they are less destructive) the main problem at the start was a lack of bowling, combined with a lack of fielding, there being only nine of us in the first place. Ian or Matt was going to have to bowl - they both can, but don’t do it often - and there was nowhere to hide if anybody had a bad day. So when Gregory’s shoulder seized up partway through his spell, we were in trouble. He carried on regardless, as there was nobody else (Chris should have taken over really), but bowling harmless donkey drops instead of the apparently harmless donkey drops he usually bowls. He couldn’t bend to pick the ball up either, so a cardboard cut-out of him at square leg would have been just as effective as the real thing was. Ian, when he bowled, couldn’t find the pitch and had to be removed after one over, but Matt and Chris both bowled well and we did after all keep them in something like reasonable bounds. Relatively - this was an eighteen-over match.

Ian and Duncan coped all right with the first over, taking six off it, but the first ball of the second jagged back in at Duncan, so much that a ball he thought might perhaps have hit off actually ended up bound for middle and leg. LBW, anyway. Nothing further like that happened for a while, but Abishek never got going and eventually ran himself out, looking for a non-existent single. By that time half a dozen overs had gone and the score was 24, so some urgency was needed. It was also getting rapidly dark. Jack and Ian did raise the run rate, by quite a lot, but accurate bowling, the recollection of what had happened to Duncan and the weird pink light of evening all prevented any major acceleration. Only one more wicket fell, when Ian got one that not only came back but also kept very low, and Jack and Matt batted increasingly confidently in the Barbara Cartland glow, under a huge rainbow from rain that never fell. It wasn’t enough to get us close to the required score, though.