10th May 2009, East & West Hendred, Away – Win

Okay, I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible, but it was an eventful and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon at Hendred. We managed to squeeze in two matches as the first one was over quite quickly.

Match 1
We chose to field first and took out first wicket first ball of the match. Angel lobbed down a rare poor full toss that Hendred’s opening bat, Adie Francis spooned back for Circus to catch at mid off. This was the start of a collapse that left Hendred scoring only 85 in their innings which was saved from total embarrassment by Duncan Francis’s 41. Nobody else managed to get into double figures. This was mostly down to some great bowling and fielding by Wantage. Rich Lonnon took a nice catch behind the stumps, Bill “Albert” Ross taking another great catch in the slips, almost as good as last week’s.

This total was achieved in the 14th over by myself, Circus, PoD and Albert.

Pippy got man of the match for some great bowling figures, which got us off to a good start. Circus got champagne moment for seeing himself in for one ball and then smacking a six back towards the pavilion off his next delivery that scattered the supporters who were trying to avoid being hit.   I got pigs ear for, frankly, a valiant effort to stop the ball from going over the boundary by diving after it but not sliding as much as I thought I would and hence not actually catching the ball up, but instead flapping about like a fish out of water and grazing my knees, elbows and some other soft fleshy bits.

There was one point in the match when I looked around and saw Circus standing on the boundary lifting up his shirt and flashing his chest across the valley.  Was this an attempt to impress the local wildlife or just to air his nipples?  It was best not to ask.

 Anyway… A nice cup of tea and possibly the most healthy food ever seen at a cricket match with salad and fruit… er… and doughnuts. Mmmmmmm doughnuts. After this we played another game, a beer leg of 15 eight ball overs.

Match 2
We were batting first this time and with the batting order completely reversed, Rich and Chief Wiggum set us off to a poor start, each scoring 1 run. Chris Yates hung around for a bit longer but then Colin MacKinnon and Angel put on the majority of our runs before a major lower order collapse. We had only scored 86 in the 13th over.  Fortunately though, this was enough.   Hendred posted five ducks in their innings.  The first of which was Adies’s pair holing out to Angel from a better ball from Circus, nipples now fully aired.

Hendred’s A. Buckle and Andy “Flash” Harding top scored with 14 and 15 respectively, while the rest of their team collapsed around them.   Two run-outs, one a great throw from Circus, and one bowled, the rest were caught. Chris bowled a double wicket maiden. Well bowled Chris. I even had a rare bowl myself at the end of the match, when I had the opportunity to bowl at the two youngest members of the Hendred team, aged about 12 and 15.

Angel got man of the match this time for batting beautifully, some good bowling figures and two catches. I also took two catches, one of which was probably the best catch I’ve ever taken, diving to my left deep at long on, for which I got champagne moment.  However, I then let the the side down again by dropping two more slightly easier catches. Circus got pigs ear for his duck.

Both matches were good natured and fun with Hendred, as always, friendly and worthy opponents.