Match Report
40 OVER FORMAT ENDS IN HEAVY DEFEAT
Last week saw us make the short journey up the road to face Woking and Horsell. In Jerry’s absence I made my comeback from wrist surgery as stand in skipper and home captain Johnny Ayling confirmed at the toss that they only played 40 over cricket on Sunday with two new balls, so I predictably asked them to bat on winning the toss.
The first thing to report is that the strip was right on the edge of the square resulting in a very short boundary to the pavilion side as well as the very short straight boundary down the ground towards Woking town centre. Same for both teams of course but the home team were to exploit this rather better than us!
On paper we had a pretty decent side with the 3 Camberley boys, Ashley and Jordy giving us 5 seam bowlers plus my military medium although we lacked a specialist spinner with Jerry, Edgar, Nikhil and George all absent. It started well enough with Adam and Brandon operating in tandem and both soon settled into good line and length. Adam made the first breakthrough when the tall opener who had played several good cover drives, just mistimed a straight drive off a low full toss and Jordy picked up an excellent catch off his toes at at mid-off. However it was to be our last success for a while as the experienced opener Neil Cheetham and the aggressive no.3 Tom Sharpless began to build a steady partnership, with the latter in particular using his power in the drive & pull to good effect to the short side of the ground. With a maximum of 8 overs per bowler, Adam and Brandon gave way after 5 each to Josh and Ashley, (although Ash was nursing a shoulder niggle so bowled something between medium pace and fast off spinners). Initially it worked quite well but as the partnership grew both ended up taking a fair bit of ‘tap’ as both batsmen passed 50 and then really started to throw caution to the wind with us spending a lot of time retrieving the ball from the trees and bushes down the ground or over the pavilion although Josh finally caught Neil Cheetham for 60 odd from a skier off his own bowling. With both Ash and Josh bowled out, Jordy and myself came on for 4 over stints and managed to slow the scoring rate slightly, with Jordy managing to nab 3 wickets, one caught behind by a delighted Nick Freeman and two from excellently judged catches at wide long on by Rob Symondson making it all look very easy, the first of which depriving Tom Sharpless of a century, out for 98. With the scoreboard mounting I felt I couldn’t risk the occasional off spin of Pat Wells or Nigel Wright’s seamers and both Adam and Brandon returned for the last six overs with Brandon picking up two late wickets, Nick Freeman pouching a top edge and Ashley taking a good catch at long on. At tea Woking and Horsell had reached 260-7 but I told the team that with seven batsmen in our line up and the short boundary, we could successfully chase it. Brandon returned excellent figs of 2-22 from 8 overs, Adam very good with 1-42 from 8, Jordy 3-28 from his 4, Ash 0-58 from 8, Josh 1-81 from 8 and myself 0-21 from 4, but it must be said Josh and Ash bore the brunt of the strong batting in the middle of the innings.
I had planned to open our reply with Nick and Jordy with Ash at no.3 but after a testing stint behind the stumps Nick asked to drop down a bit and Ash had hurt a finger trying to take a catch so they became nos.5 and 6. We got off to the worst possible start: after Jordy nearly inside edged onto his stumps second ball, Adam played two immaculate, almost ‘text book’ defensive shots to his first two balls but then flashed at a wide one and nicked it to the keeper! 1-1. Brandon came out to replace his disconsolate friend and continued his excellent early season form scampering quick ones and two’s whilst dispatching anything loose and he and Jordy looked a good combination. It is great to see Jordy back in the team this year and he despatched 6 sixes and 2 fours before mistiming a drive and looping a return catch to home captain Johnny Ayling for 25. That turned out to be the beginning of the end of our hopes of a win as, despite batting down to no.7 on paper, none of our other batsmen were able to make an impact with Rob, Nick and Ash all falling for under 16 having got a start, Josh went for 4 and the last four batsmen managed 1 run between them and we ended at 129 all out! Brandon was 7th out for 47, unlucky not to chalk up another 50, and was our best player on the day.
All in all, an enjoyable game against a friendly bunch but I came away with the feeling that we really underperformed with the bat, Jordy and Brandon aside, and although 260 was a tall order, we should have got a lot closer to the target but that’s cricket!
Woking and HorsellConcorde 