Game 3 for me (16/5/26)
Apparently this team gave Rayleigh a run for their money and had a close game, but word is the two Young-uns that took the game from us last week with their 7 wickets for 36 spell at the start of the game didn't play. So maybe we're in for a shout?
A couple of new blokes again, but for the most part the team is starting to shape up with some regulars.
Weathers been slightly different this week, colder with a continuous North wind, so it's likely to be hard and dry again. We're playing away at the Ground in Ockendon. This is the ground my younger son Joe took his 6 fer in an adult game when he was about 15 and that was followed up by a call up to trial for the Essex youth development squad.
The ground "South Ockendon Leisure Centre"
key points
Belhus won the toss and decided to field. With rain a potential for later in the game when they may have been batting that would possibly give them the option to call the game off on H&S reasons if it looked like they were being easily beaten?
Weather: Coudy, grey and prety cold with a northerly wind. But the ground with virtually no rain of late and the iccessant wind is like granite.
Batted first - strange batting order - with Imran down at number 8 or something?
Nauman scored 110 with a very good display with the bat. I was forced into using the digital system as the Belhus bloke had it up and running with everything set up. I whinged a bit about it being a bit pants, but listened to Joe's and the Belhus captains instructions. It seemed fairly straight-forward, but if you're doing this for the first time, I'd recommend doing it with someone who already knows how to do it, because without a detailed crib sheet and some practice when it goes wrong, that's where it gets a little tricky, but that might just be me being an old duffer? But maybe not?
Fishing around it and asking a few questions relating to previous 2nd hand knowledge about it I found some of its more interesting features which potentially make it an improvement over old school scorebooks... Without any real fuss, just an additional click each time a run is made you can access an interface with the pitch and wicket and indicate where the ball is hit. Okay, so you have to have some ability with spacial awareness, but anyone with a reasonable IQ should be able to visualise the placement whether its a LH or RH bat? So, seeing how easy it was I did it...
This being Nauman's 110. This I think is a game changer in terms of traditional v digital and looking at it on play cricket only quickly it looks like the colours indicate whether the ball is is hit for 1,2,3,4,5 or 6? I'd rather some how it indicated who the bowler was as well? Nonetheless I've definitely warmed to it. But...
I did it for 90% of the game and Joe took over and finished it off. During the break in between the innings I spoke to the oppo's captain and told him we'd done it and asked if he could reciprocate and he seemed surprised that we'd done it saying "Oh, we just turn that off and don't use it". I explained again, that I'd done it and asked if he'd do it and he said he would and then handed it over to what you'd expect to be tech savvy youths and I felt confident that they'd do it, they're using tech 60% of the day (Tik Tok, snapchat and what have you)...
Whilst Nauman laid a solid foundation for us, Joe's decision making re the batting order played out with some odd choices, but he wasn't to know that within our midst and being very low key and modest was Imran Bakth, who I'd played with before and for some reason had a feeling he should be in the middle order. Someone else said (Not sure if they were kidding or not) that at some point in his life Imran had played or had been part of a county set up? Imarn was down as the No.8. Also Ryan Gammidge who is a powerful batsman, albeit new and raw in terms of technical skills, but he's a bloke who doesn't hang around and if he hits the ball it stays hit, he's not worried about losing his wicket, it's just see ball - hit ball into the next constituency and he was at No.7 behind Joe and Adam Doe?
So, while Adam and Joe were taking 61 balls to score 32 runs Imran and Ryan were sitting around like spare parts. To be fair, Joe, after starting off slow did increase his run rate significantly towards the back end of his innings and retired with a strike rate of 65.6 in order to let Ryan "T-off", but this was in the penultimate over, not really leaving either Imran who got to face 4 balls (Scored 9) and Ran who faced 2 balls (Scored 1) to make any real impression.
Anyway, despite all that we came off after 40 overs with 216 for 6. Which we all felt may have been enough...
The main event... The fielding
Looking around the team, there were some other new blokes in terms of bowling, but no-one placed in the top 20 at the club other than me...
So, it didn't feel like it was going to be a walk-over, we were going to have to take wickets at key points in the game.
The openers, looked like the real deal, the captain Adam Martin and another geezer of similar stature but younger George Maidment -stocky powerful looking blokes who looked like they could hold a bat and sure enough the opening salvos saw the ball being driven back past the bowler through the V and any wide balls out through the covers and mid wicket regions over the players and through the gaps (I was looking forwards to seeing the wagon wheels). Joe plugged the gaps had me on the rope at straight long off. The boundaries were massive, probably almost double the depth of the boundaries at Mopsies, so fielding the ball for those shots were relatively easy and the runs dried up fairly well after the initial burst of runs. But these blokes then changed tack and started to hit the ball into gaps and opted for singles and two's and the swung the game back in their favour. Bibishan bowled well as the opener from the Fen end with Shyam bowling at the Town end
Shyam AKA "Sham" got the breakthrough and got the captain and another bloke in his first spell and 2 later on. After wrestling control again, Maidment and the No.3 started play a more deft approach, running singles off of almost every ball and putting away the bad balls for 2's and 4's and the run rate crept up again.
I was brought on earlyish... the 15th over and Maidment was settled and was seeing the ball well and I dropped a ball way too short and the ball disappeared over Cow corner for 6. I then bowled another three balls, before he hit one back past me over my head (Lofted off drive) landing just inside the boundary. I could see already that Joe was looking tetchy. 10 off the over, not the best start.
4 off the over from the other end.
2nd over, marginally better and I'm thinking we need to give Maidment the single and target the other end, but on the other hand if Maidment keeps coming after me and fancies a big score at my expense that means I'm in the game, but can Joe hold his nerve?
This over went for another 7, so 17 off two, not looking good, where we'd slowed the run rate down we were now leaking runs at my expense and I still hadn't settled, but some of the balls were landing in the right areas, albeit not exactly where I wanted, but the ball was turning off the wicket with the Leg-Breaks. The next over from the other end 1 run.
A better one from me, taking us into the drinks break. This was down to Ryan Gammidges fielding on the boundary on the Leg-side seeping in the cow-corner to almost deep square leg.
Joe, despite this was still looking tetchy and I sensed that he might take me off, or was that me being paranoid? I didn't feel that he had any confidence in me, but in the last over with the Top-Spinners I was beginning to settle and the accuracy was coming together.
As we walked off, I just had that first over in my mind, not the subsequent ones, it felt like I was going for 6 an over and I think Joe came over as we walked off and asked somethiing like...
"What do you think Tomo"? To me I read that as what do you think Tomo, shall I take you off and bring you on later? I said,
"Keep me on, I'm getting it on target now and it's turning", he didn't look too convinced. We had drinks and walked back out. Joe brought himself on and went for 3 off his over.
This meant Maidment was on strike and he hit me for another 4 through mid-wicket and Ryan wasn't able to get to the ball, good effort though. I then focused on landing the ball on a good length as I'd seen him come forward with a classic block smothering the ball on the good length Top-Spinners, but this time this was a Leg-Break and it did the trick, the ball dipped and fell a little shorter than he'd expected and the ball turned missing the bat and clipped the top of the off-stump. The main man out! We were in the game again! Joe was ecstatic, he knew this was the bloked that was going to take the game away from use.
A couple of balls later and the next wicket went down, I think this one was caught by Joe in the covers. Joe came over as we changed ends congratulating me and I blurted out...
"See, you have to show faith, if you show faith Joe, I'm going to take wickets, it's all pscychological, you've got to be more Dan Gray, you've got to believe"!
So, now I was on 4-0-22-2 I'd dragged it back I was going for just over 5 an over, but with an important wicket taken. Joe bowled the next over and went for 5 runs.
5th Over. Another wicket, this time Sham at Mid-On. Now I was bowling well.
5-0-24-3
3 off the next over for Joe and we have at the wicket an older bloke, my age maybe? The first left-hander and see out Joe's over playing really cautiously. No helmet, which always suggests to me that the batter is confident and can play. Left-handers freak me out a bit and I rarely bowl well at them.
6th over
I think B.Edwards is the older bloke with no helmet. I bowled a Top-Spinner to him on a good length after a couple of Leg-Breaks trying to bowl him through the gate and hit the Top-Spinner through Mid-On for 4 off a nice shot.
6-0-28-3
4 runs off Joe's over and the bloke at the other end - a big geezer (K.Dhannie) who said that it was his first game in years, like the older bloke played cautiously initially, just having a look.
In my 7th over he again played cautiously as though he recognised I was a threat and was just seeing me out looking for any bad balls. He ran two off a drive through mid-off and I bowled a front foot No-Ball allegedly?
7-0-31-3
Imran came back on having bowled in the first 15 overs and went for 4 which included a couple of wides and a bye.
My last over (8th) and K.Dhannie had seen enough and new that it was probably going to have to be him to take the game to us and he made a start in my over with 14 off the over, completely destroying my figures, so I ended up with...
8-0-45-3
K.Dhannie supported by a couple of others including a kid, nearly saw it through, but Imran took a couple including the older Left-hander in the 30th and 32nd over and Sham took a couple in the 35th over leaving K.Dhannie stranded with a small boy. I think we then deployed the tactic of givng the big bloke 1 by spreading the field and then all coming in close to get the kid, but he played OK and they rotated the strike, but K.Dhannie eventually fell to Bibhishan in the 35th over and we won by 22 runs, so it was a close call in the end and our first win.
So this is where we are in the Table at the moment after 3 games with our next game against 2nd place Ingatestone.
Sorry no wagon wheels, the tech savvy kids didn't do them. That to me seems mad, all that technology and potential to analyse the game and performances and it's left unused? That's like having a car with air con and opening the windows to try and stay cool?
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