Produced by Cricket Statz - www.cricketstatz.com
Last updated 11-Aug-2009.
Match Report
After a dissapointing last month (weather/performances), we went to Liphook aiming to put things right again. Pre game we talked about it almost being a game in May with the amount of cricket played and the need to be patient.
Patient we were. After winning the toss and having a bat, Colin and Si eased us along to 32 with opener Slade coming in for paticular stick (3-0-24-0). At the other end, Rissik quickly set into a good line and length which proved difficult to get away. Colin fell lbw in the 7th over for 14, followed 1 run later by Si (15) caught behind. With Pete out due to illness, I was bumped up to 4 where, with Jocky put on a patient 31 before he was adjudged lbw (14). Fred came in at 5, duly smacking the spinner back over his head for 4 before I fell to the first poor shot of the day. Trying to work the spinner around the corner (against the spin), I only acheived in getting a leading edge to square leg (16) leaving us on 68-4. Fred fell to a little bit of a slog, caught at cover (5) followed by Sammy Free (5), who was adjudged lbw despite looking in really good touch. Jimmy Davies, in his first apperance of the season scored a fluent 20, with some crisp shots for 4. Alex fell caught at mid off (6) followed by Jimmy caught at mid on, then Jewelly (2) and Toolie (0), both run out. We'd lost our last 4 wickets for 2 runs!!! All out for 104.
Rushed teas (they only just brought them) were had: no egg, egg watchers!!
Our plan was to make a game of it. We started well, for probably the first time this season, we got a couple of early wickets, both lbw to Tom leaving them 17-2. The first 11 overs yielded 25 runs from Jewelly and Tom. The 12th over produced another wicket, Jimmy taking a catch at square leg off Toolie. Then came a match winning 50 partnership with Toolie struggling with his run up (12 foot fault no balls), Alex unable to build any pressure and Freddie's first over going for 10. This 5 over period knocked the stuffing out of us and despite getting 2 more wickets, Toolie bowling Woodland (42) and Sammy taking a super running catch on the boundary off Fred. So they won with more than half their overs remaining despite us giving it a good go.
With 3 games to go, we quickly have to address our performances. Not for the first time, batting has been poor. On a pitch that was not easy to bat on, losing 8 wickets for just 40 runs is not really acceptable. Some hard training come Friday should go some way to putting it right. Also, some comments that I've heard going around need to stop. Over hearing someone going up to a player and saying 'runless again', is not really needed when confidence is low. How's that going to help? Dropping down to 5th bottom is not what I expected 6 weeks ago. Although we have to play 2 teams below us, we are still not safe so to be able to field a full strength side for the next couple of weeks is very important otherwise we could well be sucked deaper into trouble.
