Match Report
By El Secretario, Tim.
First game of the season and an important fixture in Crap Cricket's Champion's League race. A loss would bring us and Salix back to a 2-all, a win for us to a commanding lead of 3 games to 1.
Salix can be two very different teams depending on who turns out on the day, but on this occaision it was immediately obvious that it was 'Salix, serious bowling side' who had got out of bed that morning. A daunting task, but what a start the new Sozi-Page opening partnership gave us. After a watchful few overs against this testing attack, Paul, delighting the degenerate gamblers for whom he was an automatic 'Back The Wanderers' choice this year, produced an innings of frankly Goweresque elegance and aggression, driving and lofting many a good ball into infinity and beyond.
Could this REALLY be happening? It was.
Bob, playing the wise uncle at the other end, dropped anchor in classic support mode. Together their near-century partnership seemed to've dared us to dream already of a big target and a famous victory. But that would've been far too uninteresting and, sensing this, the rest of the team wisely decided to spice things up by falling like nine-pins for a thimblefull of runs. Eric the Viking was an honourable exception with, by his standards of last season, a pitiful 47. Come on Smithers, pull your socks up! Otherwise it was largely jogging practice to and from the pavilion for the rest. It was appropriate in this anniversary year of the Dam Busters raids that yours truly fell to one of the all-time great Barnes Wallis deliveries, made all the more comical by the heads-down Malcolm Marshal steam-in by the bowler that preceeded it. Despite all this, 191 was posted which, although we felt the lack of the magic 9 runs to 200 at the time, in truth was always a good total, and one, it emerged later, that had Salix rending shirts and gnashing teeth in woe. Sadly, they were quite wrong. Just as last year the Wanderers' genie had rubbed our lamp to defend a truly tiny total, so this year he had flown away on Easyjet, and our bowlers, although keeping things reasonably tight, never, shades of the Whalers last year, looked like repeating the trick. It was just one of those days.
Nonetheless, there were some real positives to the day. Bob made a smart return behind the timbers and opened the innings with aplomb; Paul truly produced a knock for the connoisseur and we notched up our highest score to date against Salix's best attack, which is no mean feat. Wanderers junior debutant Peter Dawson, a product of our youth development programme, bowled with exemplary line and length and displayed a dog-out-of-the-traps approach to quick singles that made Dominic Cork look like Inzamam Ul Haq.
BACK TO MATCH LISTS
BACK TO MAIN PAGE
|