Tears Are Not Enough

When was the last time you made a child cry? Many children have been moved to tears by the gyrations of The King of Pop; for one unlucky lad the gyrations of Simon Pritchard had the same affect yesterday on an oppressive, sticky day at Long Marston.

No inappropriate touching involved, you understand; just the combination of the fearsome animalistic howl of "How's That?" as the ball took a thick inside edge and the ball rapped against the pad. The umpire's finger did the rest.

The young lad trudged off inconsolable and told his Mum he wanted to move clubs or give up the game altogether. Another career destroyed and a heart broken by the vagaries of deaf umpires. 

The firsts collected another 25 points at what has often been an unhappy hunting ground. Long Marston is an almost perfect cricket ground, it just lacks a pub on the corner and a duck pond. Skipper Gates called correctly again and we invited Marston to bat on a belter of a wicket. they were overjoyed, the fools. Only opener Mike Lyons had an answer to the Didcot attack. Two early wickets from South African infidel Sean (call that a beard?) Willmott gave us a great start. Lyons then tucked in and batted with power and timing, this guy is pure class and had only dropped out of their first team because he needed to be near to home. We stuck at our task well, taking regular wickets at the other end and didn't once let our heads drop. Crab Hands finally got his reward for an excellent spell of bowling and picked up 3 for 30 from his 15 overs. 

It took the introduction of the golden armed heart breaker Pritchard to account for Lyons, a premeditated flick to deep backward square falling towards Willmott who took a fine catch to see him on his way for 88 from a total at that stage of 130. Undoubtably helped by some All You Can Eat bowling from the Caretaker he played beautifully. Marston's slender hopes followed him back to the pavilion as Pritch then polished off the tail, ending with a superb 3 for 11 including the aforementioned LBW. A professional, high quality performance in the field left Marston 80 short of par and us eating tea at 3.15. Rock On.

It got hotter and hotter. Shade was at a premium. It takes more than baking hot sunshine to make this Didcot team wilt though. Vishane was adjudged LBW by the same umpire, thereby proving he needs glasses as well as a hearing aid. A bold move by Skipper Gates saw Tee Kay promoted to three. He and Crab Hands took the score to 84 before  the old war horse was out. Some powerful batting and sweet timing from Matt saw him collect 41 runs to add to his 3fer.

By now Tee Kay had broken Long's spirit; had there been more Mum's at the ground I fear we may have seen more tears. Tom went on to make 74 fine runs, driving superbly through the vee off both front and back foot he was pure class. When he was out we only needed 16 to win, just to rub salt in to the wounds he ran off the field in 90 degree heat, they breed them tough in Didcot.

Bernard and the Monster knocked the last few off and we were done by 5.30 with 32 overs left.

Our best performance of the season so far was rounded off by the team singing the new Didcot song 'Under the Shadow of the Towers' lead by Didcot's King Of Pop. Splendid.

Didcot II v Stokenchurch II played at Didcot on 27/6/09

Stokenchurch won the toss and invited Didcot to bat first. Didcot went on to score 221 for 6 declared (46 overs) with Viraj Perera scoring a hundred (110) with 15 fours and 5 sixes supported by Connor Morrison (33)

Stokenchurch lost early wickets to the Didcot opening pair Dan Alderson and Stewart Green (2 each). From there onwards Stokenchurch shut-up shop early as the 13^th over. Henry Latimer (17-4-43-3) bowling his off spin from one-end created chances but Didcot failed to finish off Stokenchurch and it ended in an unexciting draw

Didcot II 16 points Stokenchurch II 7 point.

A draw was also the result for the thirds, batting first, knocking up 257 for 7 with contributions from Haydn , Elvis, Shaun Stewart and a fine 60 from Rob Kenworthy. As is often the case with unadventurous teams Abingdon never really went for the win and we fell 5 wickets short of another win.

The fourths had a game of two halves. Cumnor were bowled out for 163, with Jack (Get him on earlier) Broughton taking 4 for 17 and James (Get him on earlier) Bywater 3 for 31. We started well and at nought for nought were still in it. 46 runs later it was all over. Oh dear.

Until next week you lovely bunch.

Skip