Whalers vs Westcott CC

South Bank University – 23rd May 2004

Whalers: 211-6, Westcott: 125 all out
Whalers win by 86 runs

Following the rain off of our previous South Bank fixture, the Whalers turned out in force for Captain Bayne’s home debut as holder of the reigns, and the compulsory attendance for the pre match fielding practice was also unusually well attended, perhaps due to the fact that we had a number of new Whalers on show who couldn’t be expected to know better…

Westcott arrived with the usual mixture of young colts of great potential and wizened older heads, and the Whalers viewed their opponents with memories of the last thrashing by Westcott’s youngsters coming flooding back, particularly to those previously dismissed by a kid who at the time was not much taller than the stumps.

The new skipper lost the toss (clearly well trained) but to our relief Westcott decided that it would be clever to bowl first on a flat batting track, saving the worst of the light for their response.

The Whalers did not look quite so pleased with themselves at 0-1 at the end of the first over however, Dickenson losing his off stump to follow up his fifty from the previous match, nor indeed shortly afterwards at 28-3 following dismissals to straight full tosses of Osbourn and Terrell…Captain Bayne was not amused.

The skipper stepped to the crease and with Adam Hanmer made a solid if rather dull start to rescuing the innings, grinding out runs slowly and studiously, particularly through Ads shot to mid on.

Nevertheless, the sticky patch was seen through and as the Fuhrer grew in confidence, so the flow of runs began to increase, until in fairly short order, he was confidently taking the bowling apart. Ads was lost at the other end and there was further calamity from new boys Mike Graham (glorious duck).

Ex-skipper and family man Paul Mildon did his best to prevent Il Duce from becoming the fourth Whaler to swell the ranks of Whalers Centurions, by trying to run him out on 97, and finally by demanding a bye be run on the penultimate ball of the innings with Bayne on strike at 99 not out, but an overthrow from the now disheartened Westcott fielders allowed the skipper back on strike to obtain the single he required from the final ball, leaving the Whalers on 211 at the end of the 35 overs.

Joking aside, congratulations should be passed to the cap’n, who had previously demonstrated not a hint of the flowing strokes and elegant stroke play displayed in reaching 100* in some four years of previous Whalers appearances. If memory serves me correctly Ollie’s previous best Whalers score was somewhere in the 20-30 range (actually 35 – ed), which underlines the achievement.

Westcott started their response but found Daddy Mildon and Danny Osgood fired up, particularly when Mildon was called for a no ball straight up for not declaring his action. Retribution was swift with Paul picking up the pace and aggression in his bowling with a quite superb spell, and Osgood plugging away at the other end with his little tweakers.

With fielding drills paying off, Westcott always appeared to be struggling to make the required runs and were soon losing regular wickets. We saw Sandy show some promise as he shook off the rust on his Whalers debut and Mike Graham demonstrated that his bowling could on this occasion make up for his dreadful batting effort, though the editor thinks he still has some work to do on mastering his one-liners in the field (example – “Your flight is my delight!” in attempting to cajole a wary Kamal into giving his bowling a little more chance to turn).

With Osbourn offering batting tips to the younger Westcottians from behind the stumps, wickets continued to fall and the Whalers wrapped up a solid first win of the season despite the skipper dropping a couple more catches and Ads being reverse swept by a Wescott youngster, and retired to the outdoor bench for beer and fines.

Man of the Match: Ollie Bayne
Champagne Moment: Ollie hitting century off last ball of innings
Muppet Moment: Ollie calling for dolly catch, only to drop it

Oz

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