23rd August, Swindon Civil Service, Home – Win

With England on the verge of winning the Ashes, we had a match against Swindon Civil Service. Remarkably, both sides managed to get a full team out and took to the field with the sun shining on a hard and dry wicket.

Swindon had won the toss and had decided to bat. And bat they did. We found it amazingly hard to get our first wicket. In fact their number two batsman, M. Giddings retired on 100 galliantly letting some of the rest of his team have a bat, or possibly just protecting his average. Moobs, Chris Yates, Peachy, Tim Lane, Pippy and Muppet all tried in vain to get them out until at last, in the dying overs of the innings there was a breakthrough. Bill “Albert” Ross bowled their skipper in his second over with his slower ball, as he swung madly across the line trying to spank the ball out of the park. Then, next ball another one went, bowled again. Sadly, there wasn’t another wicket, and Swindon CS had set a mighty challenging 224 as a target for a Wantage victory.

Pippy attempted a crazy dive, chasing a skied ball over his head towards the boundary. A valiant effort, but unfortunately the ball didn’t stick in his hand. It was entertaining though.

Peachy got Pig’s Ear for his bowling figures.

J. Mabbett 6-0-30-0
C. Yates 5-0-22-0
A. Peach 6-0-51-0
T. Lane 5-1-31-0
R. Martin 5-0-26-0
D. Henson 5-0-39-0
B. Ross 3-0-12-2

Teas turned up just in time and much talk was about the test match where England was creeping closer to another Ashes victory.

PoD and Pippy padded up first and started off in style, not wasting any time to get runs on the board. Pippy smacked a six a couple of gardens back over long on to secure champagne moment. The first wicket, Pippy’s, went down in the tenth over with 69 runs on the board. We were well on target for a victory, but there was much more work to do. PoD was out shortly afterwards. Tim and Muppet set about doing most of it scoring 70 and 59 not out respectively. With contributions from Bill Ross and Moobs, and smiles on everyone’s faces as England took their last wicket to win, we also won, but with two and a half overs to spare.

C. Mercer 31
R. Martin 30
T. Lane 70
D. Henson 59 not out
B.Ross 15
J. Mabbett 10 not out
A. Peach DNB
S. Bramley DNB
C. MacKinnon DNB
C.Yates DNB
G. Summersbee DNB

Our Man of the Match was Tim Lane for his 70 runs and relatively economical bowling.

Next week the Presidents XI get the Wantage treatment.