Concorde v Temple Sheen

Match Report

My apologies for the late delivery of this match report which is due to the requirement for enough days to pass to allow my overall feeling of despondency to fade into a distant but rather bad memory. To be honest, I can never remember feeling quite so low after a game not because of the scale of the defeat but rather because of the manner of it.

Let me get the excuses out of the way immediately. With only 8 players on Thursday the fixture looked as though it would have to be cancelled but Woking & Horsell rode to the rescue with three players which enabled us to field a full team. While it was obvious that our batting order was not deep, it looked to have sufficient quality to post a decent score and our bowling looked strong.

The second excuse is that it had rained heavily during the days before so the outfield was slow and although one end of the wicket was dry having been covered, the other end was mysteriously wet. This inevitably meant that whoever batted first was likely to have to deal with a two paced wicket and it was no surprise when Temple Sheen, having won the toss, asked us to bat.

There really is not much to say about the Concorde innings except that runs were very difficult to come by and batsman after batsman holed out trying to force the pace. The honourable exception to that was Nick Freeman who played a superb innings driving powerfully down the ground with timing that no one else seemed able to produce in making 74 precious runs which in the circumstances, was one of the best innings of the season. A late flurry from Pat Wells who struck a quick 17no including a fine six over long on was was also crucial in getting the final score up to what looked like a competitive 178.

The Concorde bowling effort was almost completely uniform in being a mixture of good balls combined with two very bad balls per over which rocketed Temple Sheen to 100 almost before we had digested our tea. To be fair, the pitch and outfield had by this time dried out and batting conditions were very much easier than had been the case at 2pm. Certainly pace did not seem to be the answer in spite of a whole heated effort from guest Johnny Ayling but spin fared no better and Temple Sheen cantered to an easy 10 wicket victory very soon after 20 overs had begun.

Our thanks must go once again to our friends from Woking & Horsell without whom we would not have been able to fulfil this fixture.