This fixture is Aggro for me
I work at the yellow dot on the right and can't get away till 5pm and had been told to get to the ground at Tillingham by 6pm. Luckily Joe the 6th captain had also signed up for this and lives in Benfleet near the other yellow dot (Benfleet railway station). So I was able to get there for 17.10 to get a lift with him to the ground.
Being at this game was a miracle. I signed up for it pretty sharpish, but when the teamsheet was released I was the No.12 a spare. Others that were aware of the selection on Sunday when I played a friendly were incredulous that others had been picked in front of me and started a campaign "Justice for Tomo". To be fair I was in the Sunday game, so I'd imagine others were being given the chance to have extra game over and above their Saturday game. Despite not being picked, I didn't imagine anyone would bail out and my only chance might be if I went and watched and took my gear as the 12th man.
Complicating the matter further was after a week of blazing hot weather with the temperature exceeding 34c in some places, this week was far cooler with predictions of rain for every day this week. Last weeks weather broke the existing record for the hottest May and as I've said before May was also exceedingly dry.
On Monday I got a message early from Luke saying that I'd got a place in the team and then started weather watching. Monday was showery and grey with some heavy rain and it didn't look promising.
Tuesday morning early, Luke messaged again saying that he was unceratain whether the game would go ahead and that Tillingham would update during the day. In the meantime I confirmed I'd play and started to sort a lift with Joe and he said it was fine, so it was arranged he'd pick me up from Benfleet station, so I had to take my gear into work. The rest of the day in Southend On Sea where I work, I was watching the weather circling us and passing over head. At one point under leaden skies thunder rumbled in the distance and then 20 mins later it was bright and sunny with blue skies.
I left at 5 and sitting on the platform in a freezing cold brisk wind I realised I didn't have any additional layers, so it might be a miserble cold game in prospect. As the train approached Benfleet massive Cumulo Nimbus clouds were evident in the west over my town, but NE it looked fine, the last report from Tillingham was that it hadn't rained and it was set fair.
Met Joe after a bit of a faff at the station and drove to the ground with him. It was then that he revealed that an hour or so earlier he'd nearly cried off because of a family committment, but was then told there were no spare players and realised that if he did cry off, that would have left me with no way of getting to the game without being really late, I'd have had to go home and drive from my house.
Thankfully the weather at Tillingham was better than Southend - fairly warm with little wind and sunny with broken cloud. We batted first and the opening bowling looked pretty fast and accurate... back of a lenth on the off-stump and swinging. Nauman took a measured approach and Basky went for it with a strike rate of 100, but was caught having scored 11, but then there was a procession of wickets falling in quick succession and the game looked a bit sketchy. Nauman hung in there and was joined by Scott Noble and then some headway was made with Scott retiring on 25 and joined by Liam once Nauman was dimissed. Liam made a valuable contribution before retiring leaving me and Luke Dawe to finish the last over and a half. Luke was out for one LBW bringing Scott back having just sat down. One of the faster bowlers was back to finish off the tail so I figured I need to run down the wicket at him on the charge to mess with his head and that worked with 5 runs off of 3 balls ending with a not out.
We now had to defend a fairly low total of 121.
The captain Dan Gray Jnr got us off to a good start...
He then got Sham & Joe into the attack and they too kept things really tight supported well in the field and Joe made the breakthrough with the first wicket of C.Lawless.
Then Dan turned to spin, first unleashing Luke Dawe, me and Scott Noble...
Luke took the 2nd wicket with his off-spin and then I got into the act. I would say that because of the hip and lower back injury I sustained at the start of the season I haven't bowled that well so far. I also feel that the lack of rain and the dryness of the wickets has made them conducive with batting and difficult to actually get the ball to turn off the wicket on. As a result, I've gradually phased out bowling leg-breaks in favour of Top-Spinners and started this spell with an over of 50/50 "Toppies" and Leg Breaks
Glen Hylton, was the player that was scoring runs and needed to go as he's a reasonable batter as you can see here left, loads of 50's to his name and at least 5 hundreds. I bowled a couple of Leg-breaks to him and then bowled him with a decent one on middle and leg, that actually turned a bit, hitting the off-stump.
In the same over bowling to Butterwick a leg-break slightly wide of leg was mis-hit to fall just short of Basky at fine leg (Halfway up). With Hylton gone a younger C.Hylton came to the crease
Butterwick
T.Shipton
Shipton comes to the crease (Leftie), he's another young-un who looks like his intention is to hit me back to Basildon, he's the last of the decent batters. Luke has one at him. Then we changed ends. I get him with the next ball bowling a stock ball (Which for him is an off-break) a bit faster outside of his off-stump, he goes down on one knee has a massive swipe and is bowled the ball hitting his leg-stump.
The next wicket is Butterwick - a leg-break outside of leg which he goes after and mis-hits and is caught by Joe Hill running in from backward of square leg. The next bloke in Riley Campion hits me legside for my first 4. I'm now 3-0-11-3 and into my last over...
Continuing with a mix of 'Toppies' and Leg-Breaks I go 1-1-Dot and get Campion with a slower loopier leg break on leg-stump that turns and hits off. Next in is F.Lawless I bowl another rubbish full toss and the kid hits it to mid-wicket for Sham Patel to run in and take a good catch. I'm on a Hattrick! The next kid in I bowl a Leg-Break to on off-stump hoping for him to defend and edge through to Luke or Rouse. It's a bit too full and he defends it with a good block. I end up with 4-0-13-5.
The team bowling figures.
So eventually a decent bowling performance and nearly a game I didn't play in. But also another example that shows that if have half decent fielders that can catch and make an effort in the field I'm far better than my figures suggest. In the car going back both Dan and Rouse said exactly the same thing. This now means that overall among all the bowlers, I'm now in the top three behind Yannick Leonard
and Lee Lewis. But the best news is the strike rate now is on par with the rest of the people around me. If I can get these games against better batsmen in situations where they have to come after me and I've got better support in the field, I should be able to maintain this 3rd place overall?
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In terms of matching myself against the other spinners, this game was significant and I'm only 2nd to Yannick, but that's down to the fact that I'm playing so much more cricket than most of the others. But, as above. Look at the Economy, Strike rate and averages... I'm getting there, I've caught up massively.
