Scorecard

The Vipers v Erratics Cricket Club Erratics on Thu 30 Aug 2018 at 2.00pm
Erratics Cricket Club Won by 8 runs

Match report Jim Thomson reports...

This game was the cricket adage "catches win matches" made flesh. The
Vipers, by their own slightly harsh reckoning, dropped eight catches
whereas we caught everything. We won by just eight runs in the end, and
surely if the Vipers had held even half of their catches, we would have
been dismissed for a score that they could easily have overhauled.

This was the first fixture between the two teams and was, for me at
least, comfortably the best game of the tour. Of course, I'm biassed as
it was me that set the fixture up. The Vipers play evening cricket
normally, and we were their only afternoon opponents of the summer. We
batted first, with Fraser Chave and Martin Wright our openers. Chris
Hill opened the bowling down the slope, generating good pace and
conceding a couple of involuntary singles in his first over. Harry
Latham, left-arm over, laboured up the slope. His second ball swung
into Martin, beating a forward-defensive lunge and hitting the front pad
on the line of middle stump. A better umpire would probably have given
it out, but I felt there was a chance that the ball might go over or
past the leg stump. Martin, however, spared my blushes with a very
peculiar piece of running. He placed the fifth ball of the over behind
point, where Simon Fowler ran around, picked up and speculatively threw
at the bowler's end. A couple of feet short of the crease, Martin
stopped running, and the ball thudded into the stumps. It took a while
for anyone to appeal, but when they did, I had to give it out. Two for
one. Martin's explanation for the aberration was that he saw the ball
heading his way but judged it to be missing the stumps comfortably.
This report's second hoary old cricket adage is that the secret of good
batsmanship is knowing where your stumps are. I'd never realised that
the cliché also applied to the wicket at the bowler's end.

Clogpouch walked out at three, and the Vipers had two left handers to
bowl at. And bowl at and bowl at. The partnership lasted almost 20
overs, generating 85 runs (15 of them to Peter and 58 to Fraser) and
four or five of the dropped catches. Dave Odell dropped a skied caught
and bowled and Harry Latham made a mess of a similar chance at mid on.
Adam Ferraby dropped at least one of his three behind, and Rick Harrison
ran into the long-on brambles in a vain effort to take a catch.
Eventually, Fraser picked out Chris Hill at extra cover with a well hit
drive off the crouching leggies of Simon Fowler. It was a shame as
Fraser had started to pick up the scoring rate as he neared and passed
his fifty.

Chris Ferro joined Peter, and we went to 100 in the 24th over. Another
direct-hit run out, this one by Andrew Meadows throwing in from
distance, and Chris Cook came out to join Ferro. The Vipers bowling
gave little away. Tony Pope was the one that Fraser got after, but they
weren't bad balls, just good shots. Hill and Latham returned to bowl
the last eight overs. Ferro fell in the 33rd over and then Cook and
Mark Hailwood in the 39th. Duncan Chave hit a six in the last over and
we finished on 189. It felt a good score, especially given how hard it
was to reach the boundary along the ground. Hill was the pick of the
bowling with three for 20 off his eight overs. He swung the new ball
away from the bat at a decent pace and bowled very little loose stuff.

James Colclough ran in down the hill, starting with a wide, but bowling
a really tight spell after that blemish. I took the new ball at the
bottom end and persuaded Phil Robbins to hit one of my full tosses
gently up to Phil Power. I really don't know why batsmen get out to my
full tosses and hit other bowlers' for boundaries. Maybe it's just
because others don't bowl as many as I do and so the batsmen feel the
need to make the most of the opportunities. Adam Ferraby then fell to a
blinding catch by Duncan at second slip off James. It was almost past
him at slip when his right hand intercepted the flashing edge. Alex
Tait came out to join Nick Smith at 17 for two in the seventh over.
Smith hit me out of the attack and James needed a rest.

Power and Hailwood came on. Tait took a liking to Phil's first over and
took 11 off it, as well as another seven off Mark's first. The last
ball of that over, however, induced an ugly Smith swat which looped up
and gave the wicket-keeping Cook plenty of time to jog around and take
an easy catch. Cook did a very good job at what was, he said, his first
time with the gloves. Martin and I, comparing notes at mids on and off,
thought that the ball just seemed to melt into his hands. The simile we
settled on was that it was like watching a greedy toddler accepting the
gift of a Cadbury's Creme Egg.

Vipers skipper, Rick Harrison, came in at 44 for three. Rick's a bowler
by trade, but he has a frozen shoulder and so he plays instead as a
batsman: rather a frozen batsman, it must be said, as he contributed a
55-minute innings of eight while 39 runs were added and 16 overs bowled.
Tait was bowled by Hailwood for a battling 32 and Tony Pope came in at
number six. Pope too started slowly, but he looked as if he did have
the shots to accelerate when he needed to. Andrew Meadows replaced
Harrison and looked to increase the scoring rate through some good
running and some muscular leg-side shots. He needed to as it was 83 for
five, with 107 needed off 14 overs. It was Peter Colclough, reluctant
bowler, who had taken that fifth wicket, bowling Harrison when a
straight ball met a very crooked shot. I came on to help the Vipers
rebuild the innings. In my last over, with my job mostly done, I
dismissed Meadows with another Cook "caught in front". 120 for six, and
70 needed off nine overs.

Dave Odell and Pope then put on an effortful 31 before Pope holed out to
midwicket off Duncan and it was down to Chris Hill, who looked the best
of their batsmen, and Dave Odell. By now, both Chaves were bowling and
40 runs were needed off 22 balls. Fraser's fifth over went for just
four runs, and five came off the next over as James Colclough replaced
Duncan.

28 runs were needed off the last over, and that's a tough proposition
against a bowler as good as Fraser. Dave Odell hit a crisp six off the
first ball but was undone by the second, a fizzing dipper that yorked
him. It was the sort of wicket that Chris Cook has been taking ever
since his back stopped him bowling proper seam-up stuff in about 1989.
Simon Fowler had a couple of swing-and-a-misses, one of which scuttled
through for a bye. Hill hit the last two balls for glorious sixes,
looking as if he could carry on doing the same as long as there were
balls to be faced. Sadly for him, those were the last two balls of the
innings and we had held on.

It was a fabulous game of cricket where every player on the two sides
did at least one thing they could be proud of and at least two to be
ashamed of. The Black Horse was a short stroll away and hosted the
perfect end to a perfect afternoon. I sat there with my Otter Amber and
something of the feeling that a father must have at the birth of his
first child: proud of my involvement in the conception of the fixture
but aware that the real hard work had been done by others.

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 6 wickets
0
189		        
Fraser Chave Caught  59 9 1
Martin Wright Run out  1
Peter Colclough Run out  28 1
Chris Ferro Caught  28 1 1
Chris Cook Bowled  32 2 2
Duncan Chave Not Out  17 1 1
Mark Hailwood Bowled  0
Phil Power Not Out  1 1
James Colclough  
Jim Thomson   1
N.O. One  

The Vipers Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

The Vipers Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 8 wickets
0
181 (40.0 overs)		     
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Erratics Cricket Club Erratics Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
James Colclough5.0013113.002.60
Jim Thomson8.0036218.004.50
Phil Power8.022400.003.00
Mark Hailwood8.0027213.503.38
Peter Colclough2.0012112.006.00
Fraser Chave6.0048148.008.00
Duncan Chave3.0016116.005.33