Saturday

21st May 2022 The home of (Wantage) cricket welcomed Dorchester for the third league game of the year, a team we’ve played frequently and with varying levels of success. Wantage showed their keen-ness with some pre-game fielding warm ups only slightly delayed by Spenny losing his keys, having a mild panic, and then finding them in his bag earning a pig’s nomination very early in the day. As usual when we do fielding warm-ups, skip lost the toss and Dorch (perhaps with their 36 all out from the end of year still fresh…continue reading →

A second successive sunny Saturday saw stand-in skipper successfully shout the spinning silver (sublime use of alliteration there!) WGCC to bat first. With confidence brewing and displaying casual fluidity, Mercer stroked the ball to the boundary 4 times in the first over, rather setting high the expectations of the awaiting batters for a high team score. Rob found it tougher going, and despite showing moments of quality, was bowled in the 11th over. Cue the internal debate he had with himself for the next 30 overs about whether to order that deliveroo or…continue reading →

A glorious Saturday saw a strong start to the season with WGCC running out convincing winners against Horspath 4s by 7 wickets. Losing the toss, and with many of the opposition players still arriving, Wantage were sent out into the heat to field. Will H and Mabbs were given the new ball and built pressure with the latter picking up the first wicket of the season, LBW, in the 4th over making it 6-1. The first change brought Fulton and Willbury (Willbo Baggins) into the attack. Some tight bowling restricted the opposition, however…continue reading →

A big Saturday dawned for Wantage which saw us travel to promotion rivals Thame Town III knowing it was a ‘winner goes up’ affair, with the possible outside chance of a league winners play-off for us if Dorchester’s result at home to Aston Rowant went our way. An early start was the order of the day, with one of our longer trips of the year, and giving ourselves plenty of time was, in the end, necessary, as confusion reigned over where we were supposed to park. Spenny, IC and Chief had a scenic…continue reading →

There was not a lot of optimism of getting a game in when arriving at the ground. Anyone who had looked at a weather app the day before would have seen 6 hours of 100% rain from 12:00 onwards. However overnight that prognosis had changed, and we expected some rain about 13:00 and then fairly clear after that. Marcham won the toss and WGCC were inserted, it immediately decided to rain, so the players all retreated into the clubhouse to watch the early kick-off in the Premier League. Liverpool Vs Burnley was showing…continue reading →

On the back of an extremely frustrating result against Steventon the previous week (for those interested, Colin’s ‘full’ match report covers all of the gruesome details), it was very much a case of Wantage needing to bounce back well to remain well placed for promotion heading into the home stretch of the season. This week saw us travelling not too far away to West Ilsley, where we hoped for improved fortunes on a pitch that looks like it would offer a bit of something for everyone.  There was some handing out of new Wantage kit prior to the…continue reading →

Wantage descended on the picturesque settings of Aston Rowant in good spirits. The Weather forecast was not great, but so far, so good. The sight of some high-quality Home Counties cricket on the 1st pitch between Aston Rowant 1s and Thame inspired the Wantage players as they made their way over to the 2nd pitch. Skipper Dave lost the toss in conditions that the Wantage bowlers were eager to bowl in, and were duly sent in to bat. As expected, it was tough going for the batters as the accurate young Aston Rowant…continue reading →

Morning everyone, and welcome to the match report for what turned out to be a quite remarkable game for terrible Australian accents, equally awful northern accents, and some truly average cricket.   We turned up…well some of us turned up on time, only for the ground to be locked. After a little time, the gate was unlocked and people started to roll in. When all was set, Skip (the less tattooed Summersbee…that we know of anyway) actually won the toss, and with the threat of rain, confidence from last week…aaaaaand the football to get back for, he elected to put Dorchester…continue reading →

On the back of a good string of results, the omens were good for another excellent day of cricket as Wantage arrived to face Thame; the overnight rain had cleared leaving a fine day, the pitch was in tremendous shape, and the Wantage team were through the first set of Les-approved warm-ups before the toss had even taken place. Skip then managed to win the aforementioned toss for once – electing to bat and asking the top order to get a score on the board.  A slight re-jig meant that Rob and Colin strode out to start the innings, Rob managing to just about arrive before the start of the game…continue reading →