Match
report
With a majority of Whalers sheltering from the rain somewhat beyond the allotted meet time it didn’t take us long to realize that we were missing some vital ingredients. The first was an opposition whose strength in number was greater than 4, there was also a small issue of any kit plus the debut captain Duncs Osborne, oh and he also appeared to have Mike Dennis – so we didn’t have any opening batsmen either.
The fines
were already building up for the new captain and he hadn’t arrived yet. But
this was just the start.
Duncs
arrived with 10 minutes to go, luckily arriving with the other opening batsmen
and the kit. They had all been waiting at the
By this
point most of the opposition had arrived and the rain had stopped. Time for
Cricket…
After
sizing up the oppo and a quick toss in the middle which was won by Duncs,
Gentlemen’s Relish were asked to set a total for us to chase down on a pitch
that any Whaler should have felt at home on – it resembling something like a squall
in the Southern Seas.
Dan Osgood
opened the bowling on a slow pitch with a fare amount of bounce. Dan bowled
with pace and with an accuracy that had been lacking in earlier games. Rich
Giles started from the other end, the batsmen taking advantage of the odd short
ball on the slow pitch. We just couldn’t seem to get a wicket!
Time for a
change of bowling with Ed Kirkness coming into the attack. Having decided to
slow down his medium-ish pacers and develop the “swing” and “reverse swing”
balls that the conditions provided (!!) the accuracy was much improved – with
not one “Oh my God!” ball bowled! But like the proceeding bowlers wicket
avoidance fines looked like they might be order of the day.
A change
at the other end brought the in form Kamal on to try and upset the rhythm of
the men at the crease. Sadly the 3-wicket haul of 2 weeks prior was not
repeated. It wasn’t until Piers Morgan was brought into the attack that a
wicket finally fell, the No 2 (Hughes) clean bowled on 25.
It wasn’t
until now that we had a full compliment of players - our new Antipodean
recruit, Waz, had finally made it to the ground. Chiswick is a long way away
isn’t it? Surely it was time for the Whalers to take some more wickets. Luckily
Waz produced some accurate bowling which allowed us to remove the middle order
– although wickets tended to fall to the worst ball of the over apart from one
beauty that pitched on off and removed the leg stump bail.
Finally
the no. 1 batsmen (Harrop) fell when Ed Kirkness was reintroduced to the
attack. An unlikely “genuine cricket wicket” with the batmen nicking one and
Mike Dennis holding onto a smart catch (smart only because he caught the ball
rather that it knocking out his teeth) at 2nd slip (ish).
The runs
dried up as wickets fell, and with Osgood finally getting a deserved wicket, he
fell to the ground Mohammed Yousuf style paying homage to the crickets gods.
Giles
finally wrapped up the innings and Gentlemen’s Relish were all out for 143.
Time for
some much deserved teas (sadly there were no
With the
weather still holding up the Whalers went into bat with the unknown opening partnership
of Mike Dennis and Duncan Osborne. Dennis had clearly decided not to let
Osborne see the ball, with a quick single at the end of each over. This tactic
clearly worked as Dennis accelerated the score leaving the captain on zero for
what seemed like an eternity.
Dennis and
Osborne, when the latter was allowed to face the attack, both took advantage of
some wayward bowling and scored a succession on boundaries. Finally Osborne was
bowled on 22 with the score at 99. This brought in Geoff Judd who was so intent
on winning the ‘six challenge’ that he used the mighty Power Bow.
From this
point very few singles were scored, with both Dennis and Judd scoring quickly.
After some punishing batting from Geoff he finally found the middle and hit one
of the biggest sixes in Whalers history to wrap up the game with a very quick
34.
Key stats:
Teasell
(Waz) 6 ov - 0 mdns - 27 runs
- 3 wkts
Kirkness 7 ov - 0 mdns - 14 runs - 2 wkts
Dennis 58
not out
Judd 34
not out
Extras 30
Man of the Match – Mike Dennis general batting performance
Muppet – Duncs – Skipper
turning up at wrong ground