06/05/2001 v WILMINGTON

Drawn

The 50 partnership was reached without great mishap, and was greeted with generous applause from the frozen onlookers. Tony then accelerated the scoring hitting a huge six over long on, which seemed to get swept away in the wind. Clive was also scoring relatively freely, and no amount of gully fieldsman (I’m sure there were three at one stage) could prevent him scoring with his trademark cut behind square. The second fifty of the innings came much quicker than the first, and the hundred partnership was reached with over an hour still to play. Soon after Tony tried to dance down the pitch to the spinner and was bowled.

As to the aforementioned preparations, this did not extend to the provision of any socks, on Clive’s part, and the ones he did have were woefully inadequate for the job. A call for replacement socks, was met with much hilarity on the boundary edge, and the fall of Tony’s wicket, brought a frantic change of socks while the new batsman Steve Lawton came to the crease. (The bottom pad strap was causing terrible chafing….!) The long grass caused the second wicket to fall, as Steve called for a second run just as the ball was to get stuck in a long clump, leaving Clive to race back to the strikers end , just failing to beat the throw.

Even though Neil Priddy looked a bit out of touch, he and Steve managed to keep the score ticking along, Steve hitting some well timed pulls to the legside boundary.

The final total of 171 for 4, was a very good one in the conditions, probably worth well over 200 on a faster outfield.

Hot pasties for tea were I’m sure designed to warm everyone up, but it still seemed awfully cold as we went out to field. Clive once again forgot to put a box on as he went out to keep wicket, as he had when he went out to bat. (I’ll get the hang of it all by the end of June). Andrew Cruicksahnk opened the bowling from the Pavilion end, and despite a few wide ones for starters, soon began to look dangerous. Richard opened from the other end, but the first wicket did not come for some time, despite a number of lofted shots, that either just fell short of fielders, or cleared their heads. The first wicket came from a poor ball from Cruickshank down the legside, Coverty pocketing a fine running catch from long leg.

The second wicket came from a fine spell of bowling from Andrew who shook up the batsman with a quick delivery hitting just above the knee roll. The batsman did not seem to be so keen to get into line after this, and soon nicked a straight forward catch to the keeper.

More lofted shots were to elude the fieldsmen, and Dartechs never looked liked bowling Wilmington out, with Mark Oliver scoring a resolute fifty. Pete Smith came on at the end to pick up a consolation wicket, and Martin also picked up a well deserved wicket after a spell of accurate and testing leg spin.

The draw was a slight disappointment, but all in all we played well, and as long as the batting line up performs to this standard, wins will surely follow.