9 Jun AVCC v Wilcot

Tension in the air, but the 2 much-changed sides acted like reasonable gentlemen from the off…..Wilcot bringing a barrel of beer from the Woodborough School Fete to quaff, and a plentiful supply of bonhomie, and all thoughts of recent events soon melted away and relations got back to normal. The sun was shining, a beautiful day, but the pitch was a bit soft and so Michael Rae - first appearance of the season (and with a swollen, sore broken toe to boot) spent the first 30 minutes rolling the pitch which was quite green. Graham won the toss and decided to bat on the basis that it looked like a wicket taking track, which might get better as the sun shone and favour the batsmen later on. We took the field with an interesting team. Good to see Matt Haslett back and he brought a useful guy - Manny - with him. Michael Rae looking athletic and fit despite injury making his season debut - and then with a star-studded, bowler-heavy group of Julian Lishman, Stephen Flower, Graham Newland, Tim Gent, Matt Dancey, Rowan Morrison and Greg Caswell making up the rest of the team. Even more reasons to bowl first as all looked revved up and motivated to go and bowl at Wilcot. Wilcox opened with their captain, Jamie, at the helm. They looked quite comfortable facing good bowling from Matt Haslett and Michael Rae. They survived 13 overs with no terrors from the pitch, and playing a straight bat to our bowling for nearly 14 overs before Julian Lishman broke the partnership as it approached 50 with a fine caught and bowled dismissal. I don’t think I have seen one player take as many caught and bowled wickets as Julian. Safe hands and a warrior to face. We brought Manny on in tandem with Julian. Matt assured us he could bowl, but would do spin today as injured. Manny bowled with a lot of control and variety and tore the heart out of the Wilcot upper order - taking out batsmen 2-5, with figures of 4-28 of 7 overs. Michael Rae took an absolutely stonker of a catch diving forward to catch one just off the ground at pace. Great bowling, Manny. I would have loved to see a 5-fer…..it was deserved. Wilcox were getting below a good run rate through the efforts of Matt H (0-16 off 6), Michael R (5-0-23) and Julian (5-1-14) and now started to hit out. But Matt Dancey (5-2-18) and Stephen Flowers (6–3-23) finished them off with Rowan Morrison also holding up with 2-0-13 at the end. Greg Caswell also took a good catch on the cow corner boundary off a hard and high hit to bring up Matt’s first wicket. Bruce kept well and only let through 5 byes. Matt D and Stephen’s figures were their best to date for AVCC, but I sense there are more good things to come from this pair as they both got better as the innings progressed and looked very dangerous. For future stato’s, Stephen took 3 wickets in 4 balls and his next ball would be an unofficial hat-trick if he takes another wicket with it. Great contributions from Matt and Stephen to ensure we kept Wilcot just below par scoring 137 all out. A good performance in the field. Tea was held…a real team effort with the table groaning with goodies….pork pies, sausages, cake (some made by Skye), chocolate brownies, tomatoes, tortilla chips, an array of sandwiches, and various other nibbles. But by the time we went out it had started to rain (that was not in the forecast!!). Conditions deteriorated, the pitch got slower and the bounce got lower, and we had one prolonged rain break as it was impossible to see the ball as batsman or fielder for a while. However, we had time to witness Michael Rae score the first home ton for AVCC at the Garston ground…scoring 100 not out, retiring with the score on 134-1. Great innings….started slowly due to the rain break, but accelerated with 20 well struck trade-mark 4’s - saving him the need to run on his broken toe (and also not putting his partner, Tim Gent, to too much strain either). Michael is not only the first AVCC player to score a ton at home, but also the first AVCC player to score 2 tons for the club (indeed, the most recent 2 tons for the club). So a bit of a record breaking, legendary sort of day. Duly noted that Jeremy Richards notified before the end of the innings of the century! We all thought it would be Jeremy’s ton to be first at home. I think the senior Campbell now needs to step up to the plate and push the records and honours board along still further….. Tim Gent opened with Michael and got a creditable 24 before being LBW to an ankle biter as the conditions deteriorated and when the score was so close to winning, on 132. Matt Haslett and then Manny replaced Tim and then Michael (retired 5 balls later) and we crossed the line on 140-1 with Matt Haslett hitting the winning runs (a splendid hook shot for 4 runs) in the 25th over (24.3 overs to be precise). An impressive win against strong and capable opposition, and especially as we ended up with the wrong end of the weather too. We socialised with Wilcot over their barrel of beer (duly despatched) and then finished off with them at the Antelope. All good and friendly way to end the match. Good days cricket, good match, and good friendships restored. Although he did not play, it was also good to see Ollie Lishman come and support the team. Matt Dancey and Bruce Carter were unsung heroes, umpiring in the cold winds and rain, whilst Graham taught Skye how to score. She did a good job and signed the Wilcot scorebook with “kisses” (that will mess with their minds :) ). On a final note, it appears we played with the wrong sized cricket ball (using youth size) as these were the only new ones we had available. Bit of a chuckle, but at least equal for both sides. Gentle nudge for Simon…...