9/6/26
Evening game - usual rush to get out of work and get there before the start of the game. Tony Keep picked me up tonight at 17.12 from Pitsea and drove me to the ground. Dan Gray Jnr was the captain again. After a showery day, the evening was fine, a little cool but sunny and the wicket had been covered. Woodham won the toss and batted first.
They got off to a decent start against the seam bowlers - batting through the V with powerful shots that evaded the fielders who were set deep. Ben Wilkes being the main batter scoring well through Mid-On. O'Halloran went for 7 off Dan's bowling caught Chris Prince
That then brought on one of the blokes I was hoping to have a go at R.Sharif, but I was in the field at backward point. I hit a ball out to me which he thought he was going to get 4 off, not expecting me to dive like a bloke a lot younger than my age and I kept it down to a single as I didn't realise where the ball had gone having had it hit me in the body somewhere.
Tony Keep came on for his spell and their main man Wilkes reached his 35 with a six off Tony's 5th ball. Having retired that brought on Asr Ali, so the two blokes who's wickets I wanted, who I felt might be looking for a piece of me, which in a way is what I want, were now at the crease. Dan Indicated that I was to bowl the next over.
The big bloke Asr Ali did as expected and hit me for 9 off my first over. Tony bowled a tight over, going for only 4 runs.
Both these blokes are 1st XI and 2nd XI players with 50's to their names...
The younger bloke Sharif wasn't getting the ball through the field and one of my balls which drifted leg-side a little wasn't dealt with in the way that I'd expected and suggested attacking the leg-stump might be worth a go and it worked, he played a half-arsed sweep which come off the bat near the handle and just looped up into the air and was caught by Shyam as far as I remember running in from fine leg, but it's been credited to Basav?
Ali, in the previous over had hit me for a couple of fours and I got the sense that he was dealing with the speed I was bowling at easily. For my part I was bowling straight, but a little too full, the over-spin which in theory should mean it dips wasn't coming together, so I thought let's see if he goes for a slower one with over spin. He did and it dipped, being slower, the over-spin had more of an impact and where he was trying to do a measured lofted drive over my head, the slowness and the fact that he didn't get there meant he just dobbed it back to me for a rare bowled and caught with no speed off the bat.
That brought Mark Broadhurst to the crease. Mark's another batsman who's wicket I want and again he's a bloke who in the nets (Which are total nonesense) comes after me hitting me for what look like 6's and 4's. So, the over against Mark and the other geezer went quietly. Then Dan took me off for the others to have a bowl, which I was a bit disappointed about, because I reckon I could have got Mark.
Mark went on to reach 35 and retire hitting some nice 6's.
They ended up setting us 150 to win...
The bowling attack was a mix of seemingly fast at the start going into Loppy slow bowling, but our batters stuck to the job and worked their way through the aggressive bowlers and then negotiated their slower bowlers as well. The only bowlers who had any impact where Stuart Careless and Kevin Broadhurst, (Marks dad), who are both slow bowlers. As the game slipped away from them, they started getting 'Aggy' with each other blaming each other for failings in the field and for sketchy bowling and in the end one bloke decided he'd had enough of it and walked off only to be abused even more, which was a shame as it was a friendly game.
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