Cincinnati had two causes for celebration last weekend: a fine half century from founder member Mark Wright and a gritty draw earned in a timed match against Whitstable Labour Club. Several CCC regulars toasted Mark's 50* on Saturday night in Whitstable where - possibly in a sign of growing maturity in the CCC ranks - no injuries were picked up in this year's party games.
Come early Sunday afternoon, Cincinnati players took up their usual starting positions in the field. We made the perfect start when the WLC opener hit Rocky's first ball to square leg where debutant Ben took a good catch. Our opponents then made steady progress with John Butterworth hitting a stylish half century. But wickets fell quite regularly throughout the innings. The Skipper, with the wind and slope behind his flighted leggies, took 3 wickets; Selfish, uphill and into the hurricane, got two. Tom pitched in with one before our Whitstable regular, Roger, finished things off with 2-8. WLC closed on 157 all out.
The innings will surely go down in CCC folklore as the day we finally found a solution to Tom's tendency in the covers to throw in the ball a good few yards over the keeper's head: posted on the deep point boundary, he returned the ball right over the bails to earn us a vital run out (after a dramatic one-handed misfield, of course).
Following a high-quality tea, the Wright Bros - Mark, Steve and Paul from Paris - led the CCC response. Steve in particular displayed great determination in the face of 10 overs of angry medium pace from the WLC opening bowler. Selfish contributed 41 to the middle order before making way for Jack, JP and an admirably disciplined Tom.
With the run rate creeping up, a draw seemed a safe back-up option for CCC. After all, we had 4 wickets in hand with just four overs to go. A trip to Whitstable would not be complete though without a nail-biting finish. A mini collapse - including Tom walking for a catch off his forearm for 28 - left our final pair in the middle with two overs to bat out.
Rocky danced his way through the penultimate over to leave the Skipper to face the last 6 balls. Bren heroically blocked us to the safety of a draw - a good result that leaves us undefeated in 4 trips to Whitstable.
Man of the match was the Skipper for a Montyesque display of accurate spin bowling and match-saving batting.
3 comments:
Well done Cincers. Especially Simon.
Bowling uphill? Again? After having your run-up amputated?
Heroic.
Makes Flintoff look like a wuss.
Eek! It makes me nervous to see you mentioning me in the same post as Flintoff. Will you be calling for me to be dropped next?
Er, that was one of my most astute moments of cricketing wisdom. Yes.
Along with offering Caribbean the chance to carry on batting in 2007.
Post a Comment