Yesterday brought yet another glorious hot, sunny day and the usual saturday rituals of knotted stomach, putting on left shoes first, buying of red bull and tabs and for some lucky souls buttering endless loaves of bread and slicing quiche and pork pies. Cricket must be the only situation where men and boys gather to share pork pies. (apparently 78% of them are eaten secretly).
Didcot's finest gathered at the Field of Dreams with a shared feeling not experienced for some years; how would we respond to having beaten the villains and dames of Brackley and winning two games back to back.? The answer? Emphatically!
I cannot remember a more satisfying win in my short time at this club of ours. Inviting the opposition to bat first again, stand in skip Simon Pritchard demanded a repeat of last weeks disciplined, professional performance. Watching from the boundary I would have given us 6 out of 10. Not very good you may think. What was different was that despite catches going down and some sloppy ground fielding the team stayed positive and together. Fine spells of bowling from Judge Jules and Caretaker Morrison wrestled the initiative back; taking 3 wickets apiece and bowling 31 overs between them they restricted Tiddington to 213 from 53 overs. Had the fielding been sharper either of them would have the pfieffers they deserved. The innings finished with crab hands Jones limping around the boundary having pulled a muscle that most of us don't even possess (adductor, anyone?). Many lesser men (not from Yorkshire) would have cried into their sandwiches. Matt rubbed some Gout cream in and strapped on his pads.
The pork pie interval was somber, partly because it was damn hot, but mainly because chasing over 200 at 4.5 an over was something Didcot don't do anymore.
We had a talk about personal responsibility and who was going to get the runs. The consensus seemed to be that 'Someone Else' would. Mr S. Else doesn't play for Dicot, so we were doomed.
As with many prophecies the next 8 overs seemed to be self fulfilling. 36 for 4. We were shooting ourselves in the feet again. What followed was the new Didcot, the Didcot that fights and believes.
Cookie and Pritch both started looking like they had never played the game before. They toughed it out though and gradually the fluency came and the runs followed. By simply leaving the good balls and putting the bad ones away they scored at 5 an over and finished the game off. Both played the best innings I have seen from them (although I am sure they will tell you about better ones). An unbroken partnership of 181 saw us home by 6 wickets. Spare a thought for The Judge, he spent 34 overs padded up chewing his fingernails.
How do we follow that? We go to Horspath next week and make it 4 on the bounce.
Mixed fortunes elsewhere...... The seconds racked up over 200 again, another 50 from Vishane and 30 odd from 'Didcot Legend' Dave Allen with useful knocks from the lower order. It wasn't enough though and we wilted in the heat.
The thirds will want to quickly forget about their day, 86 all out didn't look like being nearly enough. At 36 for 6 in reply it was starting to look like we may pull off an improbable win. Catches win matches however..........
The fourths had their best result of the season, drawing at home. A career best score from Jonathan Hall no doubt making his day in the sun well worthwhile. It is onwards and upwards for the future stars of Didcot.
Tally Ho...........
No comments:
Post a Comment