01/05/2005 v Stoke D'abernon

won

Excellent Win for Dartechs

First cock up on the fixture front, saw Old Dartechs on the road to Stoke D'abernon in Surrey’s stockbroker belt.

We arrived early at a lovely little ground and bar. Anthony Howard tried to find somewhere to hang up his wet cricket trousers, whilst others had a beer or entertained children. When we did get started the skipper elected to bat, prompting suspicions of early evening appointments elsewhere. Clive opened up with Stuart on a green top, and they were soon in trouble as Stuart played all round a straight ball. Chris came in and the score started to tick over until Clive cracked an attempted chop through gully. Unfortunately gully got in the way and held a stinging catch in front of his face. Further trouble ensued as Richard and Chris went relatively cheaply. However Anthony dug in playing some classical drives and the odd six. Tim looked less cultured but did manage to hoist a huge six which almost hit the treasurer’s car which had been secreted in a supposed place of safety behind the pavilion.

Once Tim was out, Adam settled in top play a supporting role to Anthony, who continued to dominate the bowling. Anthony was out short of a maiden century, and Mark chipped in with some useful runs at the end.

An unlikely score of 170 was posted and Stoke set about their task in a rush against the bowling of Stuart and Richard. Pete took a steepling catch at mid on, to get rid of the principal attacker, but this brought in another strokemaker, and for a while it looked as if the opposition would cruise to the total

An inspired piece of captaincy saw Pete Smith come on at the river end, and after a few disappeared over the short boundary, he produced a fine spell of slow bowling which slowed the scoring down to a trickle and brought a couple of wickets. Meanwhile at the other end "no nets" Martin came on and started bowling well, he produced a couple of genuine leg spinners which removed the skipper and another principal batsmen.

As the scores got closer, it became apparent the Richard was running into difficulties with the number of bowlers at his disposal, made worse by Anthony losing all confidence in his action. Mark stepped forward and delivered a tight over at a crucial time and the victory was achieved with ten runs to spare.

A good start to the season and perhaps one of the Richards best victories in the circumstances.