Combe Down Vs Venturers, Thursday June 20th

Combe Down 134-7, Venturers 127-4

The Venturers bowled first. Our usual opening bowler, Ian, had decided that on this occasion he would be playing for the opposition; this was completely reasonable as he does play league cricket for them at the weekend and we had a surplus of availability.

Jamie started the innings with a wicket maiden, followed by Olly opening from the other end. It started nicely with some tight overs. After 15-1 off the first 5 overs Combe Down began to find their rhythm and started playing some shots off Olly’s third over. The batsmen were set when the change of bowling occurred with CB and Ashwyn coming into the attack. Unfortunately this did not provide a breakthrough until Ashwyn’s last over; the bowling had not been bad, in fact it had been fast and aggressive but the batting had been good and the batsmen enjoyed pace on the ball brining up a second wicket partnership worth 114. This put Combe Down in a commanding position.

Early during this partnership one of the Combe Down team had brought a boom box to the boundary and proceeded to blare out a selection of rather unnecessary ‘beats’. These ‘beats’ seemed to have motivated the batsmen who were scoring at a similar pace, but definitely became a general annoyance for anybody accustomed to an enjoyable, tranquil, relaxing game of cricket.

A combination of the hundred partnership being broken and the introduction of Ritvij (2-8 off 3 overs) and James (2-7 off 2 overs) resulted in the Venturers ended the innings strongly. Both death bowlers bowled very well and managed to restrict Combe Down to 134.

Jamie & Ritvij started the Venturers response. Combe Down opened with experienced bowlers who restricted the scoring opportunities. Nonetheless, they were making reasonably progress until Ritvij struggled returning for a second and was run out. Jamie started to play a few more shots and decided this was the only approach to take when Ian C coming on to bowl against the Venturers, this came off more often than not, though he survived being comprehensively beaten a few times.

The Venturers were always struggling with the run rate, Matt was struggling with timing, probably as a results of trying to hit the ball too hard and find the boundary. Jamie holed out to cover playing one too many aerial shots; Steve came in and tried to pick up the run rate to chase down the total. Matt was still swinging hard and although he was not scoring fast he was quick between the wickets which led to Steve being run out. Farooq came in and tried to play some expansive shots ultimately coming down the wicket and being stumped. CB came into bat with the Venturers needing 23 off the final over; CB gave it his best with a 6 and two 4s. The Venturers ended on 127, losing by 8 runs. The game was close, but probably not as tight as the final score suggests given CB final over onslaught.