Concorde v Putney CC

Match Report

GOOD LINE UP ON PAPER BUT PUTNEY TOO STRONG

Last Sunday saw us host our third match of the campaign when a number of old faces returned to action including Jordy, Edgar & Ashley. When the visitors won the toss and elected to bowl first on a hot sunny afternoon we were pretty confident, with our batting line up containing four Concorde centurions and club record run scorer, skipper Jerry Wright coming in at no.9! Unfortunately, despite our impressive looking team sheet it didn’t account for our lack of match practice and we were soon reduced to 28-3, with Jody for 7, Edgar for a duck, then Jordy, for 10, all cleaned bowled! We badly needed a partnership and Nick Wright & Nick Freeman provided it, in a very controlled performance by both players, mixing careful defence with the odd loose ball ruthlessly despatched. With the two ‘Nicks’ in tandem, the running between the wicket was ‘interesting’ but they took the score to a healthy looking 110 before Nick Wright was caught at deep mid on for a well crafted 52 with 10 boundaries. As often happens, one wicket brings two and next over Nick F. was adjudged lbw for a gritty 29 with five boundaries, and young Alec Browne, who looked so good in opening the previous week, fell second ball for a duck caught at point. At 110-6, we were ‘wobbling’, but Ashley, in tandem with Justin Row set about repairing the damage and they put on a fifty partnership before Justin fell for a quick fire 29 with 6 fours, and Ashley finished on 25 n.o. with 4 fours, with Jerry 4 n.o. at the end. At 178-7 at tea we felt we had something to bowl at but maybe 30 -40 runs short!

And so it proved! We were able to field a very young seam attack led by Justin Row supported by teenagers Ben & Alec, but Putney flew out of the blocks with their Australian opener very strong on anything pitched up which he hit down the ground or despatched through the leg side. However we checked their progress when with the score on 30, Ben W. struck twice in rapid succession, the first well caught above his head by Jerry at gully, then the second cleaned bowled. Unfortunately our next success didn’t come until the visitors had added another 82 runs, when the ‘Aussie’ opener attempted a sweep off Jerry Wright’s first ball, a loose full toss, which he somehow top edged to Nick Wright at slip, and departed for 71. At 112-3, we had a glimmer of hope but steady middle order batting by the visitors took them comfortably to their target after just 27 overs, although good work by Jordy Dyer and Alec Browne produced a smart run out at 133. Putney finished on 179-4.

A nice game against friendly and sociable opposition but in truth their fielding was
very good when we batted, their bowling was much more accurate and we really weren’t at our top level with bat or ball. Bowling figs. Justin 7-0-59-0, Ben 6.4-0-42-2, Alec 7-1-35-0, Jerry 3-0-12-1, Ian 3-0-9-0, Edgar 1-0-16-0.