Venturers Vs Bradford-on-Avon CC, Wednesday August 16th

Bradford 111, Venturers 74-9

With unusual efficiency we were all ready to play at 5:30, which wasn’t really necessary because the sun had appeared for the first time in several weeks and conditions were playable some while after the match ended. We also had a pink ball, which helped, but most of the team took the field in a slightly confused state because Martin, despite being Irish, had somehow started a conversation in Dutch with Gregory. He was new to the team: at the other extreme Matt, once a regular, appeared for the first time this year.

Bradford proved to have only one effective batsman, but that was all they needed. Tom, and to some extent Dinesh, struggled with the shiny ball and the slope at first: there were a few wides and, at Tom’s end, a couple of wayward leg-side balls that were picked off. But generally it was fairly tight, and soon Joji held a good low catch off a loose cut off Tom. Dinesh flattened a stump at the other end, but he didn’t want a fourth over yet so Gregory took over. Two batters swiped at consecutive balls and missed: a third prodded uncertainly as the next thumped into his pad, clearly heading down leg. Next over he pinged Tom for an effortless four; back at Gregory’s end he hit one back down the ground and lofted the next to cow corner, weighting it so perfectly that it actually landed on top of one of the boundary flags and exploded it. Joji was treated in much the same way, with less precision. His partner also hit a couple of good shots but Joji bowled him with a straight full toss. After a bit more hitting of Gregory and of Krish he skied one, just out of Dinesh’s reach, and almost immediately afterwards retired on reaching fifty, a rule that Bradford had not mentioned to us and that we therefore didn’t consider ourselves bound by. Krish and Joji worked their way through the order, helped by a well-judged skier taken by Dinesh, and when Martin was given a bowl he skittled the number 11 and thereby unretired the one who had done the damage earlier. But Martin limited him to a single and Dinesh bowled him a few balls later.

We didn’t have to worry about reaching fifty, but perhaps if fifty wides had been reached some exotic rule would have come into force. As it was, there were about twenty-eight of them, not all separate deliveries. A few no-balls, one of which bowled Martin, and a handful of byes and leg byes, brought the proportion of our runs made in extras to close to 50%. The highest personal score, and by far the most remarkable innings of the day, was Steve’s 10. He opened the innings, and at the beginning of the seventeenth over he was six not out, all in singles: his partner, by then, was Bruce. He then hit a four, and was caught and bowled at the second attempt off the last ball of the over. Dinesh, who hit the only other boundary, made seven including one overthrow; Tom, Akash and Martin five each. Everybody was bowled except for Krish, who edged to slip, and Bruce and Gregory, who were not out. Overall there were nineteen dismissals in this match, fifteen of them bowled, plus Martin’s escape because of the no-ball. There were no dropped catches either. Nothing about the pitch, or the bowling of either side, can explain this.