7th June 2009, Eynsham, Home

So, after a brief summer, the Twenty20 world cup has brought us miserable weather and on the day that England managed to survive and stay in the world cup by beating Pakistan, Wantage faced a tough challenge against Eynsham. Wantage being one player down made the challenge more testing. Wantage won the toss and chose to field, hoping that the wicket may dry out a bit later on.

Eynsham batted well and tore apart the opening bowling attack. Moobs going for 27 and Pippy 25 runs off their 3 overs, although Moobs did bowl one of their openers in his first.

A change of bowling was required. Alan “Raffles” Mercer was brought on to try a little spin. They liked that, scoring 23 off his first over, while Circus got a bit more respect at the other end, not helped by me who managed to drop a ball that was falling out of orbit just by using my chest, breaking the chain around my neck, the ball not touching my hands at all. Ouch! Pigs ear! Ouch again. Other catches were dropped too, that should have been taken. Fortunately, some people in the team could catch. PoD, Grant x 2, Raffles and Moobs who caught a ball over his head at mid off that was still on the up and would probably still be going up when it crossed the boundary had it got that far.

A lot of time was wasted looking for balls in gardens and the neighbouring fields as they scored 9 sixes and numerous fours. When Eynsham’s sloggers were out, Raffles showed how well he was bowling and got a wicket. Grant Summersbee bowled well after a few short balls in his opening overs, taking three wickets. Olly Taylor got 2, bowling nice lines and new boy Jake “Bear” Collings finishing off got 1 for 2 off 2.

So, after 20 overs we were 172 for 5. We managed to keep Eynsham down to 214 all out after 32 overs. A respectable total to chase, but well within our grasp if we batted sensibly.

	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets
R. Martin	3	0	25	0
J. Mabbett	3	0	27	1
B. Martin	8	0	32	2
A. Mercer	5	0	68	1
G. Summersbee	6	0	36	3
O. Taylor	5	1	18	2
J. Collings	2	0	2	1

After tea, PoD and Olly opened the batting and got us off to a great start with the score ticking over on target to victory. Unfortunately, they were both caught before 10 overs had passed, leaving Pippy and me to continue chasing their total facing some average bowling due to the sticky wicket, although one of their bowlers was getting massive swing that made him very difficult to play. After 13 overs we’d reached 73 and I’d started to get the red mist, slapping a ball into the car park for 6. The red mist was immediately replace by hail and that was the end of the match. The hail turned to rain and the wicket was far too wet to play on any more.

Duckworth Lewis says that we won by 10 runs, however, we don’t play that on Sundays and the result was a draw. It was an interesting game and it could have gone either way if we hadn’t been hailed off.

Our man of the match was Barry for some very tight bowling when Eynsham had the bit between their teeth, although Grant came a close second for his bowling figures.

C. Mercer	Caught	13
O. Taylor	Caught	20
S. Bramley	Not Out	15
R. Martin	Not Out	12
B. Martin	D.N.B.	0
J. Mabbett	D.N.B.	0
A. Mercer	D.N.B.	0
G. Summersbee	D.N.B.	0
J. Collings	D.N.B.	0
C. Mackinnon	D.N.B.	0