Keble JCR vs Linacre - May 3rd, 2005
Rider: I don’t have the scorebook in front of me (or theirs yet), so this is all from memory.
Summary: We won by 12 runs in a match reduced to 20 overs a side. We posted 104, and they were all out for 92 in 15.something overs.
The opposition: we weren’t playing Keble JCR at all. They only had 8 players (we lent them two sub fielders), of whom around half were first team players and the rest were scratched up from somewhere. Still, they had some very decent bowling, and their batting was lusty (if hindered by some of the crappiest bats ever to grace a cricket field).
The report:
On a dark day, and expecting very bad light towards the end, it was a good toss to win. Sadly, I lost it, and we were put in to bat. We didn’t exactly excel with the bat, and almost everyone got a start and then got out. Asif was timing some beautiful drives and Chris hit a few of his trademark lusty pull shots (i.e. pulls from balls on a good length well outside off stump), one of which nearly took my head off umpiring at square leg (Jes, a sub fielder at square leg, dropped it - it’s not easy running around me to take a catch)! After lurking very suspiciously behind the sightscreens, Adam came in to hit a few shots and was then beautifully caught and bowled. Stewie, also a sub fielder, managed to hit Chris on the head with a slightly wayward throw - luckily, it only glanced off Chris’s skull. In the end though, we batted on fairly well and the total, though on the low side, was always going to give us a chance against eight batsmen.
In the field we were, I thought, bloody good. The fielding was sharp and quick, and we took our catches (with the exception of a caught and bowled chance which hit Richard so hard in the chest I was looking for the exit wound). Saranya took an absolute beauty behind the sticks (inside edge past leg stump). We kept the scoring down and the bowlers took wickets consistently. It’s hard to pick a man of the match really - the bowling performances were all tight and the wickets were shared pretty much equally (Jason 2, Rob 2, Adam 2, Richard 1). Maybe I should have looked at spin a bit earlier, maybe not. Sorry to those who didn't get a bowl (Alex, Chris and Stew in particular) - this was my first try at organising a bowling rotation, and I promise I'll do better next time!
All in all, a nice game and played in a good spirit. Thanks to all who played, and lets hope it’s an omen of even greater things to come.