After waiting several weeks and 6 cancelled games for a much delayed start to the Fishers season, a decidedly new look and even newer sounding Fishers XI took to the park at Caddington CC.
Reviewing the scorebook now, I wonder who exactly Pokeson, Romsley, Manal, Rainsley and Stewart are and indeed whether they will ever play for us again (although given their Stats perhaps its best they don’t )
In time honoured Fishers fashion, Captain Herbert started the week with 12 and was racked with guilt and uncertainty about who to drop, and then took to the field with 10 after half the team dropped out during the week and he was forced to go back begging to the omitted players, and press gang the Chairman into closing his shop early.
The Caddington pitch sits directly under the approach to Luton Airport, so for the whole of the Caddington innings a 737 passed at a couple of Hundred feet over the wicket every 90 seconds and the 10 fishers players on the field could have been forgiven for thinking that a Boeing A380 was coming into land when a larger than usual shadow was cast over the wicket. Watson had arrived.
Ian Hazon bravely volunteered to keep wicket when Robin complained of a sore toe ( a sore tore yes ) and given that the stats show that the opening bowlers only went for 21 runs off 13 overs, he must have done a reasonable job! There are also 24 byes showing so I guess the good work got spoiled along the way somewhere!
Sharing 5 wickets between them, Boxer and Walmsley led the attack with excellent support from new boys Hargreaves, Stevens and Threapleton. The old guard wasn’t so useful with Nurse buying his one wicket for 20 runs off 3 overs ( and histrionically appealing to be given what may have been his first LBW! ) and Bungle served up 3 overs of such disgraceful filth that Krista bribed the scorer to put the overs down as belonging to Alex Stevens.
The Fishers usual capacity for demonstrating butter fingers in the field was not put to the test with 6 of the 10 wickets bowled or LBW, and some good cricket awareness resulted in 3 run-outs.
Restricting Caddington to 137 of 36 overs was a decent effort all round and tea was taken with every expectation of chasing that down.
Having seen that the pitch was slow and low after all the weeks of rain, Fishers went about playing on it as if it was Perth during a heat wave. Opener Nurse played each ball upishly to mid-off for a couple of overs before closing the face slightly and playing it straight back to the bowler for 5.
Smith was similarly inept for his 5, but Simon Marriot then strode to the wicket to show us all what we’ll be missing when he joins the Yorkshire league later this summer; a six ball duck.
Watson came in and for a while threatened to rescue the situation, but he couldn’t resist the straight long-hop, missed it and was bowled. Captain Herbert, having seen this, came in and played the same shot to the same ball but with an ugliness that made Watsons effort look Goweresque and was bowled for a golden, completing a rather miserable game for the man with most expensive sunglasses in Hertfordshire.
Boxer utilized his long levers in an effort to restore order hitting four 4s and a 6, with defiant support from James Threapleton, but with 8 individual scores in single figures it was poor batting effort and the Fishers were deservedly back in the bar after only 26 of their 40 overs .
Result: Lost by 21 runs.
