Match Report 14 June 2015

Battersea Ironsides Thunder 281 SGs Blues 211

Our small band of keen young cricketers duly assembled at the clubhouse
early on a cold and dank Sunday morning and trekked down the Lane through
the mizzle* for our first game.(*Derbyshire dialect for rain lighter than a drizzle
but more than a heavy mist). Our hosts were waiting with a player short, and
as we had one extra we sportingly decided to kindly loan our spare player
Theo, thereby ensuring he got a full game but giving up an advantage which
we possibly could have done with! Fortunately the rain soon eased off
although I have known warmer days in March.

Fabian, captain for the day, won us the toss, and wisely put the oppo into bat.
He then made an excellent job of organising our 7 required bowlers and
allocating good field positions. Unfortunately despite our enthusiasm the
overall quality of our bowling couldn’t match the strength of their batting, and
we struggled to take any wickets as their score steadily increased. A couple of
catches were put down before Sam finally clung on to a hard one at cover to
register our only wicket of the innings.

Good bowling from Fabian himself, Sam and Luke and at the end by Ben Horley who previously hadn’t asked to
bowl but came on and delivered an excellent over. Restricting them to 281
was a commendable achievement but a tough score to chase.
In the event Ironsides’ bowling was even better than their batting and any

chance we had soon evaporated as wickets regularly tumbled. Amazingly one
of their players had a run up as long as James Anderson’s and was nearly as
quick, but our batters stood up bravely to the test. However each wicket lost
costs the batting side 6 runs and losing ten gave us a deficit of 60 to make up.

In the end we did well to stay in overall credit but never looked like threatening
their total. Fabian and Sam were our best partnership although did have some
problems running between the wickets. Twice Fabiam scampered to Sam’s
end only to find him still there, but twice managed to get all the way back
without being run out! Theo did the dirty on us by taking a couple of wickets
but well done to him.

Overall then a creditable performance and a reasonable start against better
opponents. We do clearly need to raise our game this week when we
entertain the other Ironsides team. I know three of our stronger players who
missed this game will be available on Sunday, which should help us give a
better account of ourselves. So fingers crossed for a warm sunny day and
maybe we will perform better with the sun on our backs.

Dave Petch

Coach

SGCC