4th XI Match Report

Hello dear reader and welcome to the first 4th team match report of the 2015 season. After a frustrating time last year when as hard as I tried the old play cricket site flatly refused to let me cut and paste my match reports on to their system. As you can see our new web site is more customer friendly to this writer?

Before I comment on our game against our old friends from Urmston I should like to take you back to last Tuesday and the first selection meeting of the year. Prior to flying off to a warmer climate our non resident captain had spent some considerable time contacting his players from last year and establishing their availability for the start of the season. He left me with a list of some twelve players who were defiantly available plus a handful of players who might turn out if needed. Fine I thought as I headed for the 12th Man and selection. Unfortunately these plans were blown out of the water by the lack of a third team captain. While we were all grateful to SAWDA attending selection as surrogate third team captain, without a full working knowledge of third team players and who was available it really was like asking Roberto Martinez to pick a Liverpool side! We struggled through and with our best sides selected I spent the rest of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning contacting my players. So by the time I left for Beryl’s funeral, 1pm, I had a full side all ticked off and ready to go. Returning to the club at 3:30pm I was informed that due to the non-availability of players selected I was now down to eight and with the possibility of losing further players to the third team. This is in my opinion a situation that cannot be allowed to continue and the appointment of a third team captain needs addressing ASAP!

Having got that off my chest I will return to the matter at hand and our game at Urmston. Unfortunately despite the valiant efforts of Mr Tufty who had been able to draft in a few extra bodies we travel one short. Would this affect the outcome of the game, not in the slightest? With access to the M53 now only possible via junction 3, I asked Mr Tufty if he would lead the convoy of three cars for the journey. Little did I expect this to include a circum navigation of the Woodchuch Estate, but I have to add it looked resplendent in the warm summer sunshine. Here’s a question for you dear reader, did you know that there are 2 bakers, 3 butchers and 5 grocers on the estate plus 2 pubs. I’m not saying that we passed them all but we did leave the club at 11:30 and finally entered the motorway at junction 3 at 11:50! After that the journey down to Urmston was uneventful other than to say that with Arthur and Nigel in the car there was no need for the radio to be on.

Like every visit to Urmston we were interested to see the state of the wicket and outfield. We were not disappointed and to make matters worse the sightscreens had been commandeered for the first team ground making the sighting of the ball even more difficult? It was nice to meet up with Zee again who introduced us to his friend and the latest addition to our clubs playing membership, Muhammad Zamir, a right handed bat and medium fast bowler. We subjected Muhammad to the usual Upton welcome which I’m pleased to report he survived. Like all visits to Urmston winning the toss is vital and like all previous visits the toss was lost. Steve Espley the Urmston turned to me and said “John we have a very young side, seven juniors so to give you a game we will put you in.” Returning to the dressing room the news that we were batting first did not go down well. Anyway we had our two regular openers to get us off to a sound start and to lay the foundations to a large score, followed by Muhammad, Swampy, Jeff and the Pope, one of our strongest batting line ups we had had for some time? In addition we had our own umpire in the shape of that eagle eyed octogenarian (Roget’s Thesaurus “old person”) Arthur. So the game started under clear blue skies and warm sunshine. And it wasn’t long before Akhtar and Rob were scoring at will? With the score “racing” to 19 there was a change in tactics by the opposition wicket keeper. Having stood back for the first eight over’s he decided to stand up to the wicket prompting Mr Tufty to move back into his crease. Three balls later Rob was bowled for 9. It was now time for Muhammad to enter the stage and while he looked a little nervous on debut he soon showed the quality that we were told he had. However having made only 4 he was out to a tremendous caught and bowled with young Youd scooping the ball up inches off the ground on his follow through, Upton 34-2. This was the start of our collapse with players entering and leaving the stage with monotonous regularity. The good doctor taken at slip although there was some doubt if it was a bump ball or not? Arthur gave him out so that was that. Jeff came and went out LBW, another Arthur victim. Swampy played on; the Pope was out first ball caught off his gloves, Upton now 38-6. Young Alex was out LBW to Arthur, oops that should read Espley for two. And while the tail wagged a little we limped along to 60 before young Nathan was run out responding to a suicide call from Sorry John. The big decision now was, would the tea be ready or should we go straight out again? Fortunately for our juniors the teas were ready.

With only 60 to defend I decided to take a look at our bowlers seeing that while Urmston might have had seven juniors in their side they also had four ex first team players so being realistic the chances of us bowling the opposition out for less than 60 was to say the least, remote. So it was left to Zee to bowl the first over while young Alex Woods was asked to open the attack at the other end. And it wasn’t long before Zee was in the wickets getting the young Urmston opener caught behind by the Pope. Having given Alex six over’s to show me what he had; I tossed the ball to our debutant and was pleased with what I saw. There was a bit more pace about Muhammad than Alex and in tandem with Zee Urmston’s scoring rate dropped alarmly, so it was only fitting that the next wicket to fall was to a caught and bowled by our new man. This was follow up with a wicket with his next ball. So could Muhammad crown his debut with a hat trick, unfortunately not! With young Nathan replacing Zee the match ended with what we all expected a well deserved victory for Urmston, who to be fair outplayed us in every department.

Next week we are on our travels again, this time to the league’s new boys, Wilmslow Wayfarers. By then I hope we have a third team captain in place, as to be perfectly honest I don’t want to experience another week like the last. And one last thing before I go, my nomination for performance of the week must surely go to Arthur for his three “victims”, and to think I thought he was our umpire?