Match
reports
Sunday saw the Cavaliers
come agonisingly close to victory against a Shenley side
boasting a full Sri Lanka international and another who
played professional cricket in Kandy for 18 years.
Skipper Gareth Lloyd won
the toss and, after some inspirational words in the dressing
room (The highlight: “I’ve though of three words
for today: Committed, Competitive, Quality. Oh, and Tidy,
shit that was one of them too. Scrap quality, it’s
Committed, Competitive, Tidy. You all got that?” ),
the Cavs took to the field. Tim Foster started with two
maidens, and the tone for the afternoon was set in the second
of these maidens when, despite the obvious nick behind in
cricket history, Shenley’s pint-sized opener didn’t
walk and his umpiring colleague remained unmoved. Since
the bastman was cutting, it is hard to imagine quite where
the noise came from, unless it was late drop-out Ellis Thorpe
opening another packet of lemsip. Fortunately, the very
next over the same opener pulled Nick “Shellsuit”
Francis’ straight to Lance Boyd-Clark at square leg,
and he was rightly back in the hutch. After 10 overs, the
remaining opener had smacked a quick-fire 45, including
three sixes in four not-too-bad deliveries from Foster –
one in particular so large that it ended up in Ken Brown’s
garden. Still, at least this got Jay Wise involved in the
game and he and Ken swapped golfing anecdotes like they
were Tarby and Kenny Lynch.
Francis’ radar wasn’t
quite functioning properly, and skipper soon brought Golden
Arm Jim Handford in to the attack. Handford soon dismissed
the danger man – who, it would become apparent later,
could also bowl a bit – with a great caught and bowled
over his shoulder, while from the Ken Brown End, Fraser
Tant replaced Foster just after the latter had helped Boyd-Clark
run out another visiting batsman. Tant was also a little
wayward to say the least, struggling to below at the left
handers and causing keeper Lloydy to earn his money* behind
the stumps. One particularly rank long-hop was top edged
to Tim Firmin at midwicket, and suddenly Shenley were 70
for 4.
At the crease was, without
question, the most irritating person the Cavaliers have
had the misfortune to play against. Delighting in telling
us while batting that he ‘would have to bowl at medium
on the track otherwise I’ll hurt someone’, and
that ‘you don’t get full value for your shots
on this outfield, do you?’ he played and missed at
countless balls and drove uppishly at others, before falling
to the trap of two extra covers to give Tant his second
wicket. With Handford bowling tidily at the other end, and
with Frase now in to his rhythm, the collapse was on. Polishing
off the tail like Burton polishes off a tea, Tant’s
inswinging Yorker clean bowled numbers 8, 9 and 10 to finish
with five for 35, and Tim Firmin completed the job to see
the visitors dismissed for 133 in just 27 overs.
It was clear, though, that
this was a pretty tough target – and this became all
the more apparent when the field was set for the Shenley
openers; three slips, two gullies and a keeper closer to
the boundary than to the twigs. As the first delivery fizzed
past Jay Wise’s head, the Cavs new they were in for
a rough ride. Wise and Aaron Terry did what they could to
blunt the attack, but both were soon back in the hutch with
the bowling from both ends by far the best bowling the Cavs
have encountered. Enter lippy ‘Hertfordshire’s
best opening bowler’, who was indeed quite pacey,
although could only snaffle two wickets on a pitch he ‘was
looking forward to bowling on’. Russell Timms and
Tant came and went for a duck and a golden respectively
(the proverbial game of two halves for FT), and when Adam
Phythian and Handford were dismissed, things weren’t
looking too rosy for the ‘liers.
But, at the other end was
Lance Boyd-Clarke, batting like a gem in a chanceless innings.
When he was dismissed for 46 – never has a Cav so
deserved a maiden 50 – the game looked to be, up despite
some resolute defence and clever strike rotation from Foster,
Firmin and Francis, the Cavaliers couldn’t quite inch
to the 134 they needed for a great winning, being all out
for 128.
So a defeat, but a great
performance against a strong Shenley side. Clearly, the
difference between the sides was their Sri Lankan who opened
both batting and bowling and finished with a quickfire 45
runs and 5 for 11 off his 8 overs, but for the Cavs to get
so close on is a great credit to them. They’ll embark
on their tour to Chester next weekend full of confidence.
* This is a metaphor. Lloyd
does not get paid to keep for the Cavaliers..
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