2007-06-28. Won by 31 runs
By Matt King
SJFCC vs ST ALBANS DIOCESE
The Mighty Fishers: 142 for 4 from 20 overs, St Albans Diocese: 111 for 7 from 20 overs.
Meeting for the second time in five weeks, both teams scored more runs on this occasion than in the earlier ‘Sunday’ game (played, naturally, on a Tuesday. Tuesday, as we all know, being the new Sunday).
The oppo only had nine men to start with, so Big Malc and Matt offered to help in the field. Some would say that this was one of the turning points of the game, before a ball had even been bowled.
After a couple of overs, an extra player turned up so, out of the two Fishers ‘fielders’ the athletic, reliable, run-saving, ball-catching one left the filed…….and Matt stayed playing something of the role of a French Resistance fighter working in a restaurant serving the occupying Germans……seemingly helpful, but really……..
Bob was playing for the Diocese and got an early breakthrough trapping Cox LBW. The other early break was when one of the Diocese’s players left the field injured in the second over. Fielding under the trees, he fell down a dip by the boundary injuring his shoulder. An ambulance (well, car-thing – must be NHS cutbacks) arrived later to ferry him off.
Reevo, Si, Adam and Dawko then proceeded to put on 105 runs between them. Adam and Reevo were both quite upset as Matt didn’t drop either of them. Si and Dawko were both dropped (unintentionally, honest, honest) by the sub fielder. At least the whole fielding team got in the spirit of things by dropping 12 (!) catches in total in the innings. In fact, only one (superb) catch was held.
Guesses anyone for who was the only player caught in the whole innings? Would it help if I told you he was out for a duck. Yup, you guessed it. Captain Vincible. He was so, so unlucky this time though. He hit a big one to the legside boundary and it was caught absolutely superbly by a diving fielder just on the boundary line.
A flurry from Dave and Malc at the end brought the innings to a close on a respectable 142.
For Diocese, the opening pair built a respectable score before both retiring with Andy H and Matt bearing the brunt of things. Once they had gone the middle order collapsed, with Bob being the only other player (15) to reach double figures.
Dave bowled loose and wild giving away a whole one run for two wickets in his overs. Coxy was only marginally less wasteful, handing the batsmen three runs in two overs.
Things looked a bit dodgy when, due to only having nine batsmen, the openers returned to the crease, but some defensive bowling by Reevo saw us through.
Man of the Match: Some good all round displays by Dave and Reevo, good batting by Adam and Dawko and a fielding master-class by Matt, but Si took the honours with 30 not out and 10-1.
Quote Of The Day: “Don’t worry, they’ll never catch it. Oh.”
