We'd picked up Pinkneys Green through the
Conference. It was another fine summer's day as we arrived at a lovely
village green on the edge of the village that belied the fact it was
situated on the edge of Maidenhead. The home team probably won the
toss as they went in first and scored over seven an over, reaching the
fifty in just seven overs. Andy Horn came on to bowl but Cap'n Beefy
needed to stem the runs so brought back Mikey James with instructions
to give it all he had in the eighteenth over.
Mikey came steaming in with raw pace and finally found the edge of
Huntley's bat, the batsman unable to keep up with it. The ball flew
through to Ben behind the stumps who - not without some surprise -
held on to it despite stinging his little pinkies somewhat. A cheap
over from Andy brought us back round to Mikey's second over of his
comeback spell. Anderson, the remaining opener had to face Mikey who
continued chucking it down at some pace. Andersson played at the ball
and again found a faint edge. The ball thudded once more into Bens
bruised fingers and made him wince.
Beefy, Andy and
Mikey survey the scene on arrival
A nice picture -
but no cricket
At 132 for 2 it was hardly earth-shattering but we thought we may be
in with a chance of putting on the brakes a bit more. A handful more
wickets fell but slowly while the runs continued, ramping up the pace
again as decent deliveries found the boundary as often as the bad
delivery. It was one of those days when the sun beat down, making the
job a little more difficult especially as we were a little mis-matched.
Pinkneys Green were the stronger team and took us to the cleaners, our
heads dropped a bit here and there allowing some mis-fields to get
away and they declared in the 38th over on 245 for 7
Mikey wonders
what's in store
We survey the scene
as we leave - never to return?
Our reply was going to have to be good and Johnno and Adie B went out
with the best of intentions, to have a controlled "go". Johnno went in
the first over, and it continued with a watchful eye as every over as
a tight one, no bowler giving anything away. The first nine overs
yielded us just eight runs and it became apparent that our best line
would be to see the overs out for a draw, the best we could hope for
against a team playing as well as them. A huge cheer went up when the
first four was scored by Andy Horn, a cheeky little pull to the
furthest boundary opposite the clubhouse. He repeated it a short while
later before being caught and bowled by one that unluckily got a
little big on him. Some stout defending was seen from the Captain
himself and Craig Weston who between them scored five of the eight
fours in our total.
Craig fell LBW in the thirty-second over, which he wasn't too happy
about, and after Beefy went after one he should have left alone and
departed the same over there was not a lot more resistance from West
End. The last three men fell for a grand total of thee between them
and the home side completed a job on us. It took them 37 overs though,
and had some of our men lasted better earlier on then a draw would
definitely been on the cards. It's easy to say "mis-match", which it
was a bit, but as we drove away in the falling sunlight we knew we
could have done a bit better than what looks like a thrashing on
paper. Which it was.
