Venturers Vs Bristol Venturers, Sunday August 15th

Venturers 165-3, Bristol Venturers 44-0 (18 overs)

It may not be apparent, but we completely dominated this match. We didn’t actually win it, and although Duckworth and Lewis would give it to us, they do so only by a few runs. In reality, scoring at five and a half an over, as they were by then required to do, was a complete impossibility because they couldn’t get the ball off the square. Or rather, they could, but only by a few feet, because after that the long wet grass stopped it. The huge boundaries meant that aiming for sixes wasn’t going to work either.

There were eight of us: not usually enough for dominance and barely enough for a match. Several people were away and Gaurav felt unwell on the morning of the match. Of the eight, only four can actually bat, though Hugh provided good support when it was needed. And of those four, Robbie immediately played all round a straight ball. That left us with Farooq, Yameen and Simon to get the runs. The forecast was dry and we had been put in: we thought it might all end very quickly.

It didn’t, because Farooq, Yameen and Simon did get runs, and the forecast was wrong. Farooq attacked the bowler who had removed Robbie (Ajay, who appeared against us for a different team not long ago) and even hit a boundary – a six, of course. Actually he did later hit two fours as well as another six, and was eventually caught in the deep attempting a third six. Simon also hit one four, and there were a few wides and no-balls but not many: we must have run close to 130 runs. One over cost 14: there was a no-ball, and Farooq and Simon ran two 2s and three 3s. That was exceptional: four singles was a commoner return. 166 was a big score, and Farooq’s 89 would have been a hundred under most conditions.

Attack was dangerous, though. We needed someone to keep calm, turn the strike over, and prevent Farooq from getting too aggressive. Yameen kept calm. He always does. Eventually he missed a sweep and was uncontroversially given out, but by then we already had a reasonable score and Farooq knew what to do and needed no further instruction. Simon took over the rest of Yameen’s role, and then the first lot of rain came. This was difficult. Last time it rained at Sulis there was a tumbledown shed that we could throw the kit into, cautiously so as not to bring the shed down, but in the meantime it had been partly replaced by a new shed. This curious construction was incomplete in the sense that it had roofbeams but no roof: it did, however, have walls, but no door. So you could throw the kit in, but if you did it would still get wet and you wouldn’t be able to get it out again. We moved the kit into cars and the scorebox instead, and waited for the rain to stop. It did, and we played the last ten overs of the innings, Hugh supporting Simon admirably after Farooq was out, and the first four overs of theirs.

Then it rained again. Simon had opened the bowling with the unlikely opening pair of Steve Dent and Bruce, because he thought Steve’s reliable wicket-to-wicket line would be hard to hit. Hitting Bruce is always dangerous and would be unprofitable with a long slow outfield. The rain was so heavy that we almost called the match off there and then, but it let up after a while and the pitch proved to be in better condition than we expected. Neither Steve nor Bruce runs in hard: we weren’t sure how Yameen would cope. In the event, by the time Steve and Bruce ran out of overs, having conceded barely two an over but not threatened to get any wickets, it was raining again. Gregory bowled one maiden in the drizzle; Robbie bowled one more expensive over in heavy rain, and we gave up.