Uffington – Home – Draw

A slightly drizzly start to the match with Uffington soon cleared up into a lovely sunny day with a perfect dry wicket. I won the toss and opted to field first figuring that we’d done well recently on run chases and hoping that the drizzle didn’t turn into anything more sinister. We decided to play a timed game. Both teams had too many players, so, in the interest of giving as many people a game as possible, we played with twelve players each. Somehow though, Uffington ended up with eleven so we ended up lending them a fielder later on. Duncan “Lurch” Wooloff, being friendly with the majority of the Uffington team, had already abandoned us and was put into bat as an opener for them. James “Moobs” Mabbett opened the bowling for us and a bye in the first over meant that Lurch was about to taste the wrath of Moobs’s bowling. Moobs fired one in on a perfect length that nipped back in and took out the off stump sending Lurch back to the pavilion, first ball. I’ve never heard a Wantage celebration as loud as this one. The only person that wasn’t celebrating was Lurch. Moobs, understandably, won champagne moment for this great ball. After such a great start, the remaining Uffington batsmen batted boldly, hitting boundaries at every opportunity. Many times (possibly 11, if we counted correctly) the ball was mistimed, going directly to a fielder, only for the fielder to drop it allowing the batsmen to retain his position at the wicket and hit more boundaries. It’s unusual for our team to drop so many, but the planets were aligned such that this was the day where nearly everyone would drop one. Amongst these chances, however, some were caught. I got the first from Peachy’s bowling, Olly “Wiggum” Haine caught a skyer from Pippy that weaved away from him in the wind but he caught it at arms length. Stewie “Angel” Bulpitt managed to snaffle one from Moobs’s bowling and Ryan “Pippy” Martin dived superby to his left to grab a strongly hit ball to square leg from Wiggum. Paul Cripps was on a hat-trick during his first over after Wiggum’s catch and bowling the next man. The hat-trick ball was delivered and edged, but unfortunately carried about 4 feet over Tweekey who jumped, but it was too high for him. Pippy bowled their other opener, Peachy got an LBW, Moobs and Tweekey also bowled two of the tail-enders. Lurch came back to the crease for the last few balls and batted left handed, playing a nice sweep shot that went for four and getting a couple of singles too. One from a switch hit that meant that he was playing right handed again. So, at tea, after 39 overs, Uffington has put on a very challenging 248 for 10. Bowling: Moobs: 7-2-23-3 Pippy: 7-1-45-1 Peachy: 7-1-33-2 Cripsy: 4-0-31-2 Angel: 3-0-29-0 Muppet: 4-1-28-0 Tweekey: 4-0-17-1 Wiggum: 3-0-21-1 Andy “Ferret” Gray and Michelle put on a nice tea with Strawberries and cream and tomberries and lots of other lovely stuff. Thanks and well done. After tea, Ferret and Muppet opened the batting. Lurch opened the bowling for Uffington. Ferret cut two lovely shots through the covers, each going for four. This showed Uffington that we were in the game and going for it. Sadly though, things soon changed. Lurch’s second over was a wicket maiden, Muppet being the victim of an LBW that was plumb. Muppet: 1 run. Ferret was next to go when he was caught in the twelfth over for 24. Barry “Circus” Martin looked on form getting a quick 44 before getting caught. Angel followed soon after when he was superbly caught and bowled for 2. Peachy went next ball, then Moobs was caught three overs later for 2. Three overs later, Pippy was bowled for 18. Things were looking grim. With twelve overs to go, 141 runs required and all of our big hitters out, Graham “Gorgeous” North and I had no option but to make like Boycott and dig in to the end for the draw. We started playing defensive strokes with the odd flash of the blade to relieve the boredom. Gorgeous, unfortunately, flashed at the wrong ball and was caught. Tweekey came out to the crease and saw the rest of the over out. Taking Gorgeous’s dismissal as a lesson, I played sensibly to the next over defending every ball with the exception of the last ball which I played for a single and very stupidly, trying to hog the strike ran for the other end. Tweekey courageously ran, even though he knew that he wouldn’t get there as Lurch pinged the ball in to the keeper and ran him out. What an idiotic run! At a time when we needed to retain wickets. Did I feel stupid! Olly came out next and between us we saw out the remaining overs. I got 22 and Olly, when he knew it was safe to play a shot, hit a lovely four through cover. 135 for 9 at the end and the result was a draw. All in all, it was a good game. We let Uffington get too many runs by dropping too many catches in the field, then our middle order collapse finished off all hopes of winning. Still, we remain undefeated for the last 8 games, which is something to cheer about. Moobs was our man of the match for bowling seven overs and getting three for 23. Well done Moobs. Pigs ear went to Paul for an awful dropped catch. No game next week, but Letcombe at home the week after. Nordic.