Steventon – Victory

(Here’s how I remember it… although some of the details are a bit blurry)

It was a cloudy, but warmish afternoon that set the scene for a load of mostly hungover Wantage & Grove cricketers to face Steventon, at their ground, on a poor wicket and bumpy outfield. I had to ask Gorgeous to Captain. I was going to do it for this game, but I was not able to focus my thoughts as I could only concentrate on not being ill and trying to stop shaking. It seemed that Steventon had the advantage from the start as 3 or 4 of us seemed to be in a similar state.

However, Gorgeous took the reins and hid the crippled in the slips.

Peachy and Mongo opened the bowling and in the 9th over, the first wicket fell (Bowled Peach). In the next over, another wicket fell as POD took a simple catch from Mongo’s bowling. Both Peachy (7-1-21-1) and Mongo (7-2-13-1) bowled tightly

Then the ball was thrown to POD. Groans were heard from around the pitch. “He can’t bowl” was heard from a couple of players. Again the Mighty POD (4-1-10-2) proved the unbelievers wrong, taking 2 wickets for 10 runs in 4 overs. 4 of the 10 runs were wides though. Both wickets were catches, one by Meatballs, behing the stumps and the other by Elbows.

Tampo, bowling at the other end, also took 2 wickets, one stumped by Meatballs and the other a caught and bowled. Not bad for someone who had to be woken up and dragged out of bed as he’d overslept.

Tweekey noticing that the wicket might take spin, bowled slowly and mixed up his first over so that the Batsman hadn’t a clue where the next ball might go, along with the rest of us. In his second over, one went straight and hit the stumps and another was caught by Lard. Finding line and length seemed to work better, gave Tweekey figures of 6-2-18-2. These could have been better if I had managed to run forward to catch a looping ball at mid wicket, rather than staggering away from it and then diving forward. Sorry Tweekes.

Sex Rat (4.5-2-12-2) finished off the Steventon players bowling spin with a caught and bowled and an earlier catch by POD. The mostly young Steventon team’s top scorer was a 14ish year old lad called Hewes who got 28, not out. Steventon scored 105, an easy target even though the wicket wasn’t flat and the outfield was long.

Elbows was bowled in the third over for 5, Lard lasted until the ninth over until he was caught at mid-off for 4. I lasted about 4 balls before playing an appalling shot to a straight ball and being bowled for 4. By this point Meatballs was settling in for a long session and was making himself comfortable at the crease and with POD coming in and playing gently and managing to score 8 in the 10 overs that he spend at the crease. This stability was exactly what was needed to allow Meatballs to score runs around him. POD’s wicket eventually fell and Sex Rat came in and impatiently started to score boundaries by picking the ball off middle stump for a couple of fours and the only six of the game. Meatballs managed to get his fifty before we managed to get the runs required in the 27th over, finally getting 54 not out. Sex Rat scored 18 not out.

Man of the match was Martin for his batting performance, his catch and stumping, and for not being hung over like most of the rest of the team.

The Pigs ear goes to Tweekey for diving/falling over. This was a close run thing against Lard who was fielding at slip who lifted his leg to get out of the way of a ball that was coming towards him. Most slip fielders would have tried to catch it!

Next week is the Derek Shorter memorial cup match against Crowmarsh at Crowmarsh. Please let me know by Wednesday if you are available or not.

Glossary of this weeks players:
Graham North – aka Gorgeous.
Colin Mercer – aka Prince of Darkness (POD), Naboo.
Martin Campbell – aka Meatballs.
Steve Bramley – aka Nordic, Spunky.
Ian Rollinson – aka Elbows, Eyebrows, Eyebows (any combination of the two words), Toops.
Duncan Wooloff – aka Long Dog, Sex Rat, Lurch.
Alex Peach – aka Peach, Peachy
Mark Tugwell – aka Mongo.
Carl Wooloff – aka Lard, Carlos.
Adam Tamplin – aka Tampo.
Tim Weekes – aka Tweekey, FAM.