30th August, President’s XI, Home – Win

A mostly hungover team took on the President’s select XI last weekend and a friendly battle between two strong teams ensued. Having used underhand tactics the previous evening by stealing one of our ringers to play for them, the President’s XI opened the batting in a 35 over game. 28 overs later and with 158 runs on the board, we got our first wicket. It wasn’t that our bowling was bad, but there had been some dropped catches that went down to difficult chances. Pippy had delivered his signature dive but this time managed to drop the ball.

Steve Penney had scored 81 before PoD managed to bowl him and R. Austin retired on 68 having felt that he’d done enough. In the remaining overs, Ian Danne got 14 before being stumped by Rich Lonnon off of Mercer Major’s bowling and C. Martin got 14 before being bowled by Grant “Sack” Summersbee.

During the innings, Longdog was getting unreasonably upset with himself and the inability to get wickets. This was the source of some amusement to the other players on the pitch. Moobs had bowled extremely tightly which probably had the biggest impact on the game than anything else. Sack chucked the ball at Carlos winning him Champagne moment.

So, at the end of their innings The President’s had scored a reasonable 213 for the loss of 3 wickets. The track had proved itself as a reasonable strip to bat on and 213 seemed well within our grasp if we batted well.

J. Mabbett 7-4-0-6
R. Martin 3-0-0-19
D. Henson 6-0-0-38
D. Wooloff 7-1-0-46
C. Mercer 6-0-1-45
G. Summersbee 4-0-1-23
A. Mercer 2-0-1-15

After a nice tea with egg sandwiches and loads of cakes, kindly donated by the two captains, Raffles and Longdog started the battle to reach the target. Both battled well and put on 80 for the loss of the first wicket.

Everyone who got chance to bat did their bit and put on a reasonable score, keeping on top of the run rate, with the exception of Pippy who was having a rare bad game both with bat and ball.

A. Mercer 41
D. Wooloff 33
M. Tugwell 43
R. Martin 1
S. Bramley 26
R. Lonnon 22 not out
C. Mercer 28 not out
L. Faulkner DNB
J. Mabbett DNB
D. Henson DNB
G. Summersbee DNB

We managed to get the total in the 34th over when PoD took on Ian Danne, hitting three fours in four balls. It was an excellent close game.

Raffles got a closely fought man of the match for his batting and for getting one of the wickets. Peachy got Pigs ear for not being able to play because he’d had a tattoo the day before (Aaaaah).

We all had an enjoyable evening with a fish and chip supper and raised plenty of money for the club, and even had a game of smacky chest

Thanks to Geoff and Ian for putting on a good team to play us again and making it a great day.