The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers

I am now officially annoyed with the Jet Stream. Ok, it may have brought an end to the hose pipe ban and the worry we had back in March that matches would be cancelled because the square was too dry to play safely on!! Other than that though, what has the Jet Stream ever done for us? Nothing, that's what.

Each of the last 3 weekends has arrived with the threat of torrential rain looming out West. Each has passed with a sigh of relief that we have managed to play a game of cricket.

Yesterdays game against Horspath 3 was accompanied by gale force winds as well. Nice one Jet Stream. That we managed to play at all is down to the work put in by our grounds team and the willingness of two teams and umpires to get a game on. The outfield was just about fit, and the pitch was a tantalising mixture of dry and dusty with some very wet patches. Good toss to win then.

The toss duly won we battled out to the middle to have a bowl. Sladey took his squeaky cough with him up to the Matt Jones end and bounced in with the wind in his sails. Something of his approach to the wicket reminded me of Tigger.

Meanwhile Northern Gravy puffed up the hill and into the wind, his approach to the wicket reminded me of Eeyore. His return of 2 for 21 from 12 overs included some of the finest LBW appealing seen in many years. After the umpteenth unsuccessful pleading yowl I expected the umpire to start crying. The fact that he still looked hostile at the end of his spell is testament to the hard years working down t'pit in t'Rotherham as a young lad before heading south to seek his fortune.

Meanwhile Tigger was skipping in without a care in the world, the 30mph tail wind almost compensating for coming off the short run. The normal run up had to be abandoned as it started in almost knee deep water.

Horspath were seeing demons in the pitch. demons that could be largely defeated by getting forward and playing straight. Almost comically at times a succession of batsman felt that staying rooted to the crease and playing across the line was the way forward.

49 for 8 suggested that this strategy was at best risky and perhaps needed tweaking. Tigger made them pay with another fine spell of fast bowling and had figures of 6 for 22 at the drinks break. This included 3 double wicket maidens. incidentally 7 of the 10 wickets that fell yesterday were bowled or LBW, not one ball shot at all. Yes it was a little low, but poor technique was the culprit, not the pitch.

Jules replaced Gravy and started with a ball that bounced 3 times. He blamed the wind, we knew that it was part of the well proven Hitchman plan to lull the batsman into complacency. It worked of course as he got his customary wicket with utter filth that ended up with a fine diving catch from Boggy.

Tigger finished up with 7 for 37, not surprisingly he was later spotted taking an active interest in the honours board.

Tea was taken inside to get some respite from the weather with Diddy on 20 odd for 3. We were perhaps a little nervous, especially as the seconds had successfully defended 77 a few weeks ago on a similar pitch.

We need not have worried as Peter Pan Pritchard carried his bat for an innings that was both battling and fluent and always determined. He was ably supported by Boggy who hit a crucial 15 runs in quick time to give us momentum just when we needed it.

25 points in the bag. Hopefully better weather next week we see us welcome Kimble to The Bog of Dreams.