Concorde v Pirbright

Match Report

On a blazing hot day with the thermometer reaching temperatures exceeding 90 degrees (34 Celsius), Skipper Jerry Wright made the decision that, were the toss to be won for the first time this season, Concorde would take the unusual decision to bat first. I must have done something to please the gods this week, as the toss was duly won and Jordy and Edgar were sent out to open the Concorde innings.

With a scorched outfield, scoring was always going to be fast and with Jordy finding the middle his bat very quickly, we got off to a splendid start. Runs flowed from Jordy’s bat against a not especially threatening attack and while Edgar was a little slower out of the traps, he too added some big blows such that the opening partnership had passed 100 before Edgar fell for 43.

Nick Wright joined Jordy and runs continued to flow, mostly it has to be said from Jordy, whose voracious appetite for runs could not be assuaged, culminating in an over of donkey drops which was rightly punished to the tune of sixes off the first 5 balls. With all holding their breaths to see if Jordy could emulate the great Gary Sobers, he mistimed probably the only ball of his innings to get only a single from the last ball. Perhaps he took pity on the bowler and chose not to condemn him to a lifetime of being bracketed Malcolm Nash of Glamorgan? Only Jordy knows!

With Nick providing good support, the total rose past 200, Jordy passed the century mark and an early declaration looked imminent. A number of catches went down, one of the Pirbright fielders took himself off to hospital to have the split webbing on his fingers stitched and the level of excitement was raised to fever pitch by the wail of despair which arose from Sachin Wilde when he realised that Juno, the house dock, had eaten his lunch!

Jordy passed 150 and as Nick approached 50, the Skipper communicated to him his desire to declare imminently which regrettably led to Nick, ever the team players, pulling across the line to be bowled for 47 at which point the skipper declared with the score on 251 for 2 and almost half an hour before the half way point leaving Pirbright approximately an hour and a half plus 20 overs to bat. Unfortunately, it was then realised that due to a scoring glitch, Jordy had ended on 146no, an unforgivable error but one which hopefully will maintain his hunger for runs.

After a leisurely tea break, without tea of course, the Concorde attack was open by the contrasting styles of Dukie and Ben Western. Dukie, bowling at what seemed the speed of light, was played bravely by the two Pirbright openers but perhaps softened up by this unexpected assault, the first played Ben straight to gully where Chris Patterson made no mistake and the next batsman was bowled in Bens next over off an inside edge.

This brought Pike to the wicket who unfurled a couple of lovely shots through the covers and looked a different class of batsman altogether but Sachin coming on at the other end to replace Dukie with his leg breaks, induced a big shot from the no 4 batsman who succeeded in sending it heavenward before Jerry Wright took the catch as it came down.

James Thompson now strode to the wicket, someone who has enjoyed Concorde bowling on many previous occasions, and so Dukie was recalled to replace Ben and again bowling with great pace, he hit Pike on the glove and Nick Freeman took an excellent catch behind the wicket. Having thought that this was the critical breakthrough, we were to be rudely disabused as his replacement, Percival, set about the bowling with some enthusiasm and in company with Thompson, began to take control of the game.

During the tea interval, we had been treated to a display of catching by Chris Patterson’s 19 year old daughter who has considerably safer hands than some of our fielders because as the pressure rose, the Concorde fielding began to fall apart with catches dropped and missed in abundance and a Pirbright win began to look likely. Jerry Wright came on at the Sight screen end and the scoring rate dropped a bit but it was the introduction of Edgar that did the trick with Thompson shimmying down the track and being bowled off stump for an excellent 57.

The pressure, however, was now on Percival to keep the rate up and although he kept going and Pirbright remained in the hunt, it was too much for him and he holed out at deep long on off Jerry Wright and into the safe hands of Jordy. This was quickly followed by Law doing much the same off Edgar to be held by Dukie.

The momentum had now shifted to Concorde and it was now our game to win. Another wicket for Jerry well caught by Nigel to atone for an earlier error gave us hope but the last two batmen held on (they were short of the batsman who had gone to hospital) for the draw though not without taking some knocks from Dukie in doing so.

Another excellent game of cricket in which all three results remained possible almost to the very end, another vindication of the declaration cricket format! The Pirbright innings closed on 229 – 8 which gives an indication of how close they came to scoring the required runs.