The Venturers vs. Belvedere, Friday 1st
June 2007
Author: Ian Gillard
Belvedere 272 all out Venturers 150-odd all out
We were on pitch 3 at Sulis for this encounter with a touring side who started early – at least they started drinking early. Pitch 3 has looked better as it was clearly recovering from a previous match and cut up quite badly. Now the Venturers often get off to a good start, and this match was no exception. Kevin opened the bowling with Ian G, and the former was typically economical and finished his 5 over spell with a maiden. Ian managed to bowl in a similar vein but unexpectedly took the wicket of an opener with a slow ball first up that hit the base of middle stump. In a rare spell of decent bowling he went on to remove the other opener with a bouncy length inswinger that destroyed the stumps. It was quite an uncharacteristically good delivery which will surely never be repeated, and with 10 overs gone and 2 wickets down the score was a miserly 40-odd. Rob B followed with a tight 6 over spell with Phil E and Lee supporting, with the latter being the only one not to take a wicket. Phil bowled the number 3 while Rob B got the number 4 LBW finishing as our most economical bowler at around 3 an over. None of these batsmen got to 20 and things were looking quite good with 20 overs gone and the score around 100.
The game was poised to go either way as their number 5 walked in. He was well fortified from some tins on the boundary edge which made him quite confident and prepared to slog. We nearly had him early on and Ian G was denied a really close LBW shout, while Kevin was denied the usual hatful. He made 61 hitting the middle of the 3 balls he saw coming towards him before Gregory slid one past him and Toby applied the finish. This was repeated on the number 6 before he could really hurt us to leave Gregory with figures of 6-0-48-2, which was creditable considering the batsmen were throwing both bat and caution to the winds.
We were almost back in it with our opponents about 140 for 7 but their numbers 8 and 10 could bat and although Steve dismissed the 7 and 9 we missed these key wickets. Andy Y bowled accurately at the death going for 4 an over and finally collected their last wicket, but the damage was done and he had already got 82. Their remaining threatening batsman made 47 before being run out short of his half century, but all this meant we were somehow chasing a mammoth total of 250, with only two bats getting single figures and 3 of them responsible for 190. We bowled them out with a couple of overs remaining leaving us a run rate in excess of 6 an over.
The reply began with Andy Y and Fluffy who put on 50 between them off about 15 overs, but when Andy was bowled Lee had to retire hurt soon after after getting a top edge in the teeth about which he was remarkably phlegmatic. Roger replaced him and got a decent 25 against their leading wicket taker, before he was also bowled.
Phil followed his wicket with a successful innings of 22 and the top 5 got us over 100 in about 25 overs. They had spectacularly accelerated from that point but we lost a couple of wickets when we needed to push on and it was downhill after that. Somehow no-one could quite get a handle on things. Kevin and Ian G both fell for 6 despite looking fairly comfortable, but were both trying to push the run rate which was well up by then. It was against a pretty accurate attack with 7 maiden overs in the innings, and the need for quick scoring didn’t let our batsmen settle in. Rob B got a second golden duck against their wicket taking ace and Steve crashed a boundary before having his stumps surgically removed by their bowling machine. Toby went out with 3 balls left in the innings and fell victim straight away leaving Gregory (0 no) stranded.
Their top bowler finished with figures of 8-0-27-6 which seemed consistent
with other performances in their scorebook indicating he is too good for
other teams too. Special credit was due to Lee who went back out to score
9 after taking some overs to recover, and actually the batting was pretty
decent against a very reasonable bowling attack. It was worth noting they
bowled 8 of their team without any of them going for more than 30 in a spell,
and although they collectively conceded 20 extras 150-odd against quality
bowling is always well deserved. Perhaps for the future a Venturers cool
box with some tins of light refreshment should be provided for a big run
chase as it seems to loosen the arms, perhaps in conjunction with some blankets
(with the Venturer crest of course) for those scoring during overcast run
chases at Sulis to keep the writing legible.