Challow (A) – Cherwell League Div 5c
With a glorious breakfast of cinnamon rolls and a steaming coffee, the day promised to be a good one, as the first leg of the local grudge match had arrived.
The sun was shining, with patches of moody looking clouds charging across the sky with a slight breeze and the views looking as beautiful as ever from the top of Challow hill.
We set about warming up with Skip running us through our paces…after what felt like an hour of sprints up and down, 800 lunges on each leg, sidesteps to London and back and the ever-present underarm flick and catches, skip went and lost the toss so we all sat down again getting comfortable for what would hopefully be a repeat performance from the week before…260 odd and a nice spot of tea for the bowlers.
Well, let us just say that didn’t happen.
It took four overs before the first wicket fell. Colin spooned one into the mid-wicket region being caught for 10. [Ct Betts, Bwl Armitage for 10 off 13]. Bhu was out next ball to a peach of a delivery taking the outside edge and through to Lynch [Ct Lynch – Bwl Armitage for 0 off 10]. That meant Spenny and Skip were in to prove a point!
Quite what that point was is still unclear, as Spenny was soon bowled in the 7th over [Bwl Humphries for 5 off 7] and Timmy Lane also being bowled for a duck [Bwl Humphries for 0 off 10]. What a return for the Wantage Legend! Skip and Binners stuck around for a while putting a partnership of 16 together, before Skip was caught to the off spin of Farmer [Ct Betts, Bwl Farmer for 11 off 36].
With the score at 48-5 things were not looking good at all!
Three overs later and Binners played on from the bowling of Konschel [Bwl Konschel for 18 off 30] and Challow were sensing blood. Wonga played in a fairly solid style and stuck around for a while but only managed 1 before being Bowled by Dawson [Bwl Dawson for 1 off 19].
That left Mabbs and Willbury in at the crease. After a very very very close LBW call on Mabbs, he set about pumping the off spinner down the ground for a number of 4s. Willbury looked good too, and Challow looked like they might let things slip, only for the most calamitous thing to happen in the history of the game. Mabbs smashed the living crap out of a full ball that skipped nicely off the turf, into the boot of the bowler, and going on the hit the stump at the non-striker’s end, with Willbury someway out of his crease. Devastating! The least amount of luck for a batsman ever! “Why always me?” Willbury asked as he trudged off! [Run Out for 6 off 12].
Harvey smashed a trio of lovely cover drives before he was plumb LBW. When we say plumb, the batsman at the other end said that it would have hit all 3 and was out before the bowler even appealed. [LBW Farmer for 12 off 10].
Chief came out and prodded at a few before Mabbs ran himself out horribly trying to get back on strike, charging down the wicket screaming yessssss, only to slip over and get run out by half the pitch! [Run Out for 33 off 28]. All of this to be told later that it was the last ball of the over anyway, and he was running himself back off strike! Plonker!
So that was that!
Now I’ve got here, I can’t really remember why I bothered to write a batting report… I should have just stated the score!
- C.Mercer – 10 (13)
- B.B-G – 0 (10)
- D. Summersbee – 11 (36)
- D. Spencer – 5 (7)
- T.P.Lane – 0 (10)
- A. Binnington – 18 (30)
- A.Wong – 1 (17)
- J.Mabbett – 33 (28)
- W.Bury – 6 (12)
- W.Harvey – 12 (10)
- O.Haine – 0* (4)
113 all out!
Apparently this short first innings meant that we had to go straight back out.
Harvester and Mabbs opened up with Harvey keeping it tight and only going for a wide in the first over. Mabbs’ first ball was truly filthy! A knee high full toss (something to do with the slope and leaning back or some crap) but ex Wantage player, Mikey Boy Konschel, pushed lazily at it and lobbed it straight to Willbury at short cover! Out for a Golden!!!!! [ct Bury bwl Mabbett for 0 off 1] Best thing all day!
By this point the whole of the Wantage team were well up for it. Mabbs got an outside edge later that over, but a flying dive from Bhu at gully couldn’t quite snaffle it. At the 8 over mark, Challow were on 9, and Mabbs made the other opener pay for his slow rate; clean bowling him for another duck. Skipper T.Pill came out to add some pressure but he too was sent back to the pavilion by Mabbs taking the off stump and bowling him for 4. With the score at 15-3 eyes turned to the spin of Chief and Willbury’s swing to continue the job.
Things didn’t go amazingly to plan…
J.Smith and A.Lynch batted well and put the bad balls away, moving the score on to 42. Chief then got one to stay even more straight than usual and trap Lynch LBW for 17.
We broke for tea with the score at 42-4 and feeling well in the game after 19 overs bowled. Sadly on the return to the middle no other interesting things happened at the end of the game. Colin bowled a few overs and even Bhu had an over to finish things off. Mabbs bowled well again for his remaining 3 overs, but couldn’t quite make a breakthrough. 3 LBW shouts, 2 drops and a very grumpy bowler to lose to Challow. Made even worse by the fact that his own photo was up in the Challow pavilion from way back when he was a lad.
Bowling figures:
- Harvey – 9,1,23,0
- Mabbett – 9,4,9,3
- Bury – 7,1,19,0
- Haine – 5,0,26,1
- Mercer – 3,0,23,0
- Basilisco-Gurung – 0.5,0,12,0
Awards:
The fines and awards seemed to last longer than our batting innings, but this is what we decided upon at the end…
Pigs Ear – Bhu for a tremendous stop at cover, a roll and then overthrows when there was not a run being attempted.
Champagne Moment – Will Bury’s catch to remove M.Konschel 1st ball! (the writer would like to comment that it was his wicket! But acknowledges the fact that the full toss was garbage and so W.Bury is the rightful recipient of this award)
Man of the Match – Mabbs for his 33 and then bowling efforts of 9,4,9,3.
Thoroughly disappointing day filled with tiny nuggets of what could have been. Dropped catches, poor shots and crazy running did us in. Disappointing, but next week we will rise like mighty phoenix’ and destroy whoever we are playing…
GREEEEEEEEEN ARMYYYYYYYY!!!!
Up The WAGs!
Mabbs out