Better than Last Week Anyway

 So, Sunday saw us taking on Travellers with our "Sunday Legends" side, well Legends apart from me anyway. 

I was in a bit of a hurry to get to the game as I'd been unsuccessfully hunting for my white long sleeved base layer, it was that cold. Thus I was in a bit of a tizzy and walked onto the field of play with a black undertop on, which made me look very village, and also my cycling helmet, which made me look very village idiot.

We were fielding first, so no chance of a relaxing first couple of of hours walking around the ground taking photographs. We were straight out there, with me fielding in the Jonty Rhodes position at point, which would be great if I could field a thousandth as well as him.

As it happened I was feeling pretty good, and was able to field sharply and energetically, not that anything really difficult came my why. It may not sound much, but it is important for me to field well, it seems to give me more confidence for my bowling later on. 

Indeed I had to do quite a lot of fielding initially, and to get praise for what I was doing was rather helpful. Even though my throwing in from the boundary is terrible; my throwing arm being so gone it would be quicker to call a taxi to get the ball to the wicket keeper.

Travellers, as it turned out, had some good batters if thankfully not on the standard of Woodborough last week, and it took us a long time to make a breakthrough. But when it came, it happened quickly, as our opening bat took three quick wickets with his medium pace stuff. 

At the other end one of our very young bowlers was taking wickets too, using the shock tactic of aiming beamers at the batsman's head before cleaning them up with a length ball. Our catching was good as well.

I came on to bowl in the 20th over, nervous I'd be rubbish again. But as it turned out, I was good, if luckless apart from the one bad ball I bowled that was smacked into a hawthorn tree 100 yards away. I beat the bat, had edges go through the vacant slip cordon, and shaved the stumps several times for no reward. 

Typically all the action at the other end, where my fellow Sunday specialist went through Travellers lower order like a dose of salts to take 4 for 7.

That's the way cricket goes! Although there was a comedy tun out off my last ball. I ended with 5 overs for 24, with most of those runs in singles as the field was pushed back on the boundary as I was bowling the death overs again. We had bowled them out for 133.

So, batting time. Although not for me as I was back down the order in my rightful place. As it was so wretchedly cold I ended up spending a lot of time walking around, and as we started safely but rather steadily, there didn't seem to be any need to panic. It was so chilly however that outside of the cricket there wasn't a whole lot to see.

However, panic mode seemed to set in, as the opponent's canny medium pacer suddenly took a hat trick to devastate our middle order and leave us 5 down for not many. 

However, our opening bat and our skipper now settled in, and began to take the game away from the Travellers, who weren't helped by having a couple of fielders who made me look like Usain Bolt when it came to mobility. They gradually reduced the deficit down, until our opener sportingly retired at 50 and his son went in with us needing 25 off 5 or so.

This is when the skipper took control. The young chap was never going to monster the big hits, so his job was to keep the ball out and run like hell to try and keep the skipper on strike. No doubt the sight of me padded up waiting to come in helped focus their thoughts, as I knew I'd struggled to score against the fast bowlers who were on at the time.

Luckily the skipper is in a rich vein of form, and he saw up home. With a ball to spare!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 24.05.21