An Absolute Shellacking

 Saturday saw me make my league debut for the season, for our third team against powerful opposition in the form of Eastwood. 

I was feeling very optimistic having netted really well on Thursday, bowling at pace at senior first team bats and enjoying my batting despite being given an almighty whack on my arm. As usual, it was completely misplaced. 

Because Eastwood have won their matches this year by bowling out their opposition for nothing and then knocking the runs off in about 20 minutes, we arranged that they should bat first to give our young players more of a game. They have recently rejoined the league after their second team folded, and so were playing way below the standard of which they are capable.

As our captain said, "It's a 40 over game, and I think we will be out there for all 40". He wasn't wrong.

We actually made a good start, with one of our opening bowlers in his first senior season castling one of their openers. However, after that, Eastwood continued to score at least one boundary an over and the score rose quickly. 

It became rather faster when I came on to bowl. What they thought of my new found pace, which decided not to show up, was demonstrated very quickly when my third ball was hammered for 6, a ball that had very little wrong with it. But I was still able to beat the bat with movement off the seam, although one short ball an over would inevitably smacked to the boundary. 

As usual, things went to hell in over number 5, where I dropped the first three balls short and went for 12. I suspect that at my age, this was my body telling me something was about to give, although I then bowled three scorchers, two of which were edged along the ground through the vacant slip corden while the other swung and bounced and beat the bat. However, this was the time my left achilles got strained.

I signalled to the captain to take me off with the traditional throat slitting gesture. Not that he wasn't going to take me off anyway. 

So ankle and confidence knackered, I resolved to field as well as I could, but as ever when I have a bad day bowling, it went to pot as well as their opener helped himself to 150. Apart from when I somehow managed to cleanly field a hard hit ball out to the boundary, my body just didn't do what I wanted it to in relation to the ball. 

Luckily our younger players aren't rubbish, nor was our captain who skillfully exploited a dead spot on the wicket to take 6 for 56, his best bowling for over 5 years. Our young opening bowler also came back to bowl really well at the end, which was a real positive. 

However they still made 286 for 9, a total which we were never going to get in a trillion years, let alone a million. Their bowling was just way too sharp and too accurate. Our opener did a very good job and our young players batted time well, but there was so little opportunity to score boundaries as there were virtually no bad balls. 

Languishing at number 11, I did get to bat, against their fastest bowler and thanks to net practice I actually had no problem defending against him and even scored my first run of the season. However my partner was bowled before I could score us 250 in 6 overs to win us the game. 

Ah well. A positive day for some, but not for me. However, next weekend I will take part in our first 4th XI match, gammy leg and all, and hopefully be able to do a bit better. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.06.21