Recently Park Hill Cricket Club played Whitely Village (Away). Here is the match report…
Well… where to start on the grey area in Park Hill’s history books…
I believe it went a little like this… we batted first put on 300 and bowled them out for 120 (KP you have your 3 wickets) or at least that is how it looks in the scorebook now, as their captain delightfully decided to prematurely run off with their scorebook.
To all those who witnessed this aforementioned grey area in Park Hill’s history, you will know that these figures may be a tad off…
It started brightly on a sweltering day with a correctly called toss! Tails never fails seems to be a lesson their young skipper has not learnt and so we grasped the chance to bat first.
Myself and Hunter opened up, with some surprisingly sharp bowling from the Village making life uncomfortable on what was expected to be a fairly harmless track. This opening partnership continued at a slow and steady rate with a mixture of majestic leaves from both ends as well as some not so graceful wafts outside off stump. Nevertheless the opening duo almost saw the opening bowlers off when Hunter decided it was time for a Pint and a smoke in the sun (but who could blame him) and chipped up a simple catch behind the bowler.
Enter Williams Jr to the cauldron of terrible banter, with the tidiest knock of the day. He saw off yours truly, Ade, the Major, Nick and Elliot, before succumbing one of the three over 21’s (stats courtesy of Opta) for 58. Also worth noting was the sign of some fluent form for Nick, who played a vital knock with Adam, which included a sumptuous check drive straight down the ground. There are most definitely signs of improvement from many of the batsmen on show today epitomised by Nick’s effort.
The last 10 were well negotiated by Dave who fairly amusingly caused havoc in the ranks of Whitely Village as their wheels began to fall off, with over throws and extras adding a few to his ever growing season total. Also of note was Clare’s effort with the bat, including a ‘bosh’ down the ground reminiscent of an earlier shot by her older brother, it seems flat track bullying runs in the family.
So after this good all round effort, Park Hill amassed 178 (I think), which would lead to a tight game… or so we thought.
Dave opened up the bowling with Jamie and enter a nomination for collapse award… With Jamie beating the opening batsman for both pace and bounce, the batsman top edged a pull shot straight up in the air. Jamie and the Major then proceeded to have a stare off in the middle of the pitch with the ball hanging precariously over the middle of the wicket. The ball then descended with no call made from either player to make the catch and an angry Jamie then proceeded to glare at Major with the ball landing at his toes (the batsman continued to score more that I could count). Aside from this there was a general feeling that we were struggling at keeping the ball outside off and bowling too many buffet balls, so to counter this skip turned to the ever reliable Webber Jr and KP. The latter bowling a very tidy spell and was unlucky to be bowling at two batsmen who were seeing the ball like a beach ball at this time. Clare was unusually inconsistent, but even so managed to grind out a few half chances for fielders around the bat.
So by drinks (15 overs) the score had already surpassed three figures and the was no let off there, other bowlers to have a crack at breaking this partnership include myself and Elliot with a bit of f and g. The only wicket to fall in the innings was that of the ‘short stubby one’ who to be fair had played some cracking strokes all around the ground offering very little to the catchers posted at various quarters. Bowled Webber. C.L. Caught Blake, was the only dent in an otherwise ruthless Village win, but there are positives as well as lessons to be learnt from our day in the sun.
On the positive side I believe the batting was a cracking effort in awkward circumstances and to see out 40 overs can be seen as a real positive. Then there was the other half of the game and albeit some good bowling and a few flashes of brilliance in the field (Hunter, Symo) there was a lot of room for improvement in both departments.
Without focusing upon the not so positives; I feel that more enthusiasm out in the field, as well as more awareness while fielding would have lifted the team and is definitely something that can be improved for next week. Furthermore as a personal note I would like to add that although I appreciate comments, suggestions and ideas while in the field, I felt that at times people were working against others when decisions were made either by myself or the bowler. If a decision has been made then it is extremely important that everybody works as a team to support the bowler as well as each other.
Finally…. nets on Tuesday, I was going to suggest working a training session as a group unlike standard Tuesday evening on the Caribbean nets. So if this is all good with everybody, could everybody please bring both spikes and trainers (for nets), as we can work on more of our all round games if that is the case.
Unlucky today boys (and no-balls), roll on next weekend…
Websy x
Park Hill Cricket Club 