Whalers lose by 3 wickets
The Whalers gathered
together at their ‘new’ ‘home’ ground of Ealing
Central Sports Ground for their first ever match against the Wessex Eagles. ECSG had been picked (as CSSG is being
downsized) due to its location right next to Perivale Tube Station. However,
due to this match taking place on a Sunday, and the
vagaries of the London Underground engineering programme,
gathered together meant arriving in a
fairly disorganised manner. I’m not sure who won the
toss, but the Whalers were going to bat first on the unknown pitch (also
unknown until 2 minutes before the match which pitch we should be playing on).
The oppo
were pretty much ready to start, whilst the Whalers were still faffing and trying to set up the ancient scoreboard. We
shouldn’t really have bothered, as there was not much use for it, except in the
wickets column.
Dickenson and Forte opened
up for the Whalers, but Dario was back in the hutch with the score on 4, with
the Eagles’ number 2 bowler getting some strange ‘tennis ball’ bounce. Al went
next, followed by Toby, whose only scoring shot was a massive 6. The Eagles’
bowlers did not seem too dangerous, but the team appeared to bowl to a plan
with well placed fields and as the Whalers kept on falling into traps for low
scores; we were 19/5 at one stage. Giles (24) and Hanmer (15)staged
a middle order fight back and then
Khalil (25) and Osgood (10) made the
tail wag to bring the score up to 102. It was dreadfully below par.
However, after some tea provided
by Sainsburys, care of Rich (more of that shortly),
Whalers set about making amends for their poor batting performance nd we got off to a fantastic start - Khalil and Lucas
opened up the bowling and with a fired up Whalers team fully supporting them in
the field. Their numbers 2,3 and 4 were all out for
ducks. We really thought we were in with a shout of making this a competition.
However, their number one weathered the storm, despite several close shouts and
although we continued to take wickets, their big hitting numbers 6 and 8 took
the game away from us. Pete damaged his hand while keeping,
and three balls after giving up the gloves, their number 6 skied one straight
to him – he held his nerve, gritted his teeth – and took the catch. Not too much
later, their number 8 won the game with a straight six which lost the ball onto
the nearby A40! Khalil (5/3/9/3), Matt (4/3/1/0) and Dan (7/0/27/3) had great
figures, but the damage had been done earlier.
So to the awards, Khalil was
MOM due to his bowling figures and also high scoring, Pete got Champagne Moment
for his catch with broken finger.
Rich was awarded Muppet
moment for a drinks faff (involving a jobsworth barman, jugs but no glasses, and drinks being
called twice, all while he was out in the middle) which was pretty
representative of the whole of the first innings.
Whalers: 102 ao (38? overs)
Man of the match: Khalil for top scoring with bat
and 3 early wickets
Champagne moment: Pete taking high catch in outfield with
broken finger sustained wicket keeping
Muppet moment: Rich for a drinks faff that occurred entirely while he was batting