Hants Div 6 SW Match Day 7 Round up

Another top of the table clash

This time second played third; Bournemouth 4s in second having not lost a game, v Godshill who had only lost to the league leaders so far. Bournemouth won the toss and had a bat, scoring a more than decent 218 with only 3 wickets down, they must have been feeling pretty good whilst munching cake and drinking tea. The Godshill opening bats decided to have a day though, chasing the total down in 32 overs and only losing one wicket. Having been on the wrong end of a similar batting performance last Saturday Bournemouth have my empathy. Still, they remain in second place and in a strong position with Godshill strengthening their grip on third.

Winton 3s were the only other unbeaten team at the beginning of the day, they were facing Bournemouth 5s. The Bournemouth team must have been struggling for numbers as they gave debuts to several new players. The two new young lads J Palmer and M Coombs impressing in their first game for the 5s, both scoring half centuries at a quick pace. If they carry on like that a chance to play in higher leagues can’t be too far off. The other debutant, J Coombs struggled a bit with both bat and ball; perhaps he needs to stay in Div 6 for a while to hone his skills? Winton 3s managed to take the victory in a close and exciting match to retain top spot and their unbeaten run.

The other game that caught my eye this week was Bransgore 2s v Sway 4s. Sway batting first managed to score 88/6 off of all 40 overs. When an entire team manages to turn in a run rate almost as slow as mine there must be a bit of a struggle going on, would love to hear details from anyone that was at the match on what went on.

Elsewhere, Cadnam 3s managed to climb the table after their outrageously lucky and undeserved win.

The table does seem to be clearly splitting in two. Cadnam in 9^th have an average of 16.6 and the scores above them going up in small increments to the top of the table. All these teams have a chance to contend for the top three and promotion at the moment. Brockenthurst 2s in 10^th are on 12.6, which is a large drop from ninth. The bottom half of the table looks like it might be forming its own mini league – competing for the ‘best of the rest’ title. Or can any of them push on up into the top half?

League table

 

  

 

Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent

That May Turn Glorious Summer……..

Going into this game I was feeling positive, feeling confident that we could get a result, how did that work out? Well, chatting to someone in Cadnam’s team I have played with in the past I was told that we were unlucky this week as all their players for the ones and twos were available, which meant that the threes batting was a lot stronger than usually as a couple of bats had to drop down. Ah well thinks I, we can bowl them out just as well as anyone. Cadnam won the toss and elected to bat. The first ball of the innings was ‘a bit wayward’; a waist high full toss that got dispatched over the boundary into the long grass which took about 10 minutes to find. Hmm, 7 runs down with no balls being bowled, I was finding myself thinking ‘I don’t believe in omens, but er, that’s not a great start’…….

So we got taken for 298 runs, which is kind of a lot. I am going to put this down to three reasons. The first is the opposition batsmen, M Thomas in particular, who smashed a 150 before retiring, well played sir, well played. He was well supported by a couple of others. When good players are on their game, sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. The second is that we did suffer from bad luck. An opening bowler who was injured bowling and had to go off, another bowler also pulled something, could stay on but could not bowl anymore. Kev Roberts in the field took a nasty blow to the face and had to go off to deal with the bleeding, at one point we were down to nine fielders until one came back (and we did get a sub on as well). Sometimes it is just one of those days and there is nothing you can do.

 Kev Roberts fielding at Mid Off after coming back onto the field

The third reason though is stuff we could do something about. A lot of the bowling again was to short, so the batsman could just lean back and whack through it, and whack through it they did. The fielding was also sloppy, people letting the ball through them so it was going for a 4 rather than a dot or 1, this happened more than once. At times it looked like some fielders were scared of the ball. This could be a result of children playing against men who were admittedly hitting the ball very hard, welcome to grown up cricket……. We also started to look ragged in the field, with people complaining to each other, bowlers complaining about fields, three fielders going for the same catch, one of them putting a name on it but too late and the others not pulling out, it started to look like it could be the sort of game that could damage a team. And when people walked off at the end of the innings we were not happy bunnies. However, things were a lot better by the end of the innings than in the middle – how so?

Well, first our bowling performance got a lot better, mainly headed by the Dearing father and son combination. Dearing the younger was bowling wheels for a 13 year old and Dearing the older took the role of ‘seasoned old pro’. Although the fact that they both pitched it up so the bats had to work for their runs probably helped. The fielding also improved as the bowling did, so the bats could not just whack it all over, funny how that happens, an improvement in one area bringing an improvement in another, it’s almost like it’s a team game, I mean, Jesus, even I took a catch. So even though we went for loads, we ended up taking 8 wickets which was some positivity to cheer us up.

So, how did our traditionally dodgy batting fair? Surprisingly well to be honest. The openers opened with some intent and scored at a decent pace. When they both went we then lost another 3 wickets bringing fears of a traditional collapse. The ship was steadied though, with Zac Stainer-Reid scoring a 50 not out and a couple of others biffing in with decent scores. Zac had to bat carefully which meant that the rate was never close enough to win the game but we were not only batting for the game, but also for some hope for the rest of the season. We ended up getting to 200, which was full batting points and by far our best score of the season; and in another game would have been a competitive total. So for a game that at one point looked like it was going to do real damage to the team, we came out with a loss but in a manner that we could take respect from and have optimism for the future. Taking 11 out of 12 batting and bowling points also lifted us off the foot of the table and up a couple of places.  

So it seems like we are now looking at things from the other end of the lens from the beginning of the season. The batting is looking like it is improving and it is now the bowling that needs to get on it, pitching it up and making the opposition work for their runs.  Imagine what would happen if we managed to fire our batting and bowling in the same game? World beaters eh?

Match scorecard

 

Cricket is not an aphrodisiac 

But was the game exciting?

A game where we were lucky to dodge the weather. Most games in the league being called off. We had a brief shower just before the game and then it held off until near the end when heavy showers happened. Which makes it the first game that I have played in that was decided by the Duckworth Lewis Stern Method (DLS). Which I always thought sounded like a particularly effective contraception. It turns out I am right. If you don’t believe me try it. Find a woman that you find attractive, could be someone you have just met, someone that you have been with for a while or your wife. Take her out for the evening, maybe to a restaurant. While you are talking to her, take the time to explain to her exactly how DLS is used to adjudicate the results of rain hit cricket matches. I can guarantee that you will have zero chance of getting her pregnant that evening.

The usual result of talking about cricket to 'the ladies'

But how did the game go? Well, we lost the toss and got put in to bowl and that started out very fine, taking a wicket in the first over for a score of 0 for 1. This was followed by a spell of very fine and hostile opening bowling. However, the edge was taken time after time with the catch not going to hand but flashing for a 4. This was to be a feature of the innings, with lots of not quite properly hit shots going in the air but not being taken, not dropped catches, always just out of reach. So the game got away from us. Now, this ‘we were unlucky’ can be overdone, as we were taken for 238 runs. As well as bad luck, there were also to many bad balls. The captain started by saying ‘they like hitting big, so pitch it up, on the stumps.’   Too many short balls looking to be pulled away, or to far outside of off looking to be hit through. If it was not for some very fine death bowling things could have been worse.

A salute to Mahesh Nagamallaressy, who opened, scored 120 not out and carried his bat, got lucky at times but you can’t get that lucky for that long without deserving it.

Batting wise, the familiar tale of woe. After opening solidly against some very good bowling (Masum Ahmed being the fastest bowler I have faced opening at this level, accurate too) both openers were feeling relatively comfortable before finding ways to get out. One chipping a catch up from possibly the worst ball Masum bowled all game and the other (me) managing to run myself out. I am so annoyed with myself for this. Last week I was out to a ball that pitched on off, swung away and took the edge, can’t complain at that, very good ball, it happens. Deciding to just give my wicket away though, you feel like such a mug. After the openers went, the rest of the team decided to join them in solidarity. Both Sargon and Alex looked threatening before falling to quickly.

So, where does this leave the Kapils? Well, at the bottom of the table. Why are we there? It’s a concentration thing I feel. Some skilled players that are not delivering consistently. 4 good balls in an over is no good, it has to be six. One good over is not good enough, it has to be four or five. One bowler doing well in a game isn’t enough, it needs to be four or five. Last game the side tried nine bowlers which tells its own tale. We also quite often start to look ragged in the field  by the end of 40 overs. I think we need to be sharper, more focused and more ruthless. OK we only play for fun, but winning is kinda fun?

Is there any plus side? Yes, two big things. Firstly we do have the players to deliver (young and old), they need to do the business. Secondly, even though we are bottom of the table, losing 5 games out of six, this is not a disaster when you consider it against a target of finishing in the top half of the table. Games we have lost are against teams in 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th place, so in the first few games we have got most of the hardest games out of the way. The other game we lost was by 1 run, on the last ball, against a team 9 wickets down, that could have gone either way. So as Yazz would say, ‘The Only Way is Up, Baby’. Good luck to the 3s in their quest for promotion, think they should be feeling confident about that.  

 

Internecine Warfare!

A Measured and Reasoned Preview

Arsenal v Tottenham, River Plate v Boca Juniors, Carlton v Collingwood, Karpov v Kasporov, Bobby v JR, RCB v CSK, Blue v Grey, The Kinslaying at Alqualondë, King v Parliament, Montmorency v Condé, Ceasar v Pompey, Stannis v Renley, Ashurbanipal v Samas-suma-ukin, my children arguing about whose fault it is. Sport, history and culture are full of rivalries that are more intense and bitter because they are local, close and in some situations family affairs. If you managed to understand all the above references you should be pleased by your breadth of knowledge, but you also need to get out more.

But there is a new rivalry that will make the above confrontations seem like minor, shallow affairs! Winton 3s v Winton Development Team! Did you not feel the foundations of the earth tremble at just the naming of the clash? A confrontation so raw, so unmitigated that it holds the possibility to redefine our concept of sporting rivalry. Before the game, both captains have irresponsibly been throwing fuel onto the fire, to the extent that I hope both teams can control their emotions and tempers.

The Kapils captain threw down the gauntlet of combat by roaring ‘It should be a good chance for the younger lads to measure themselves against more senior members of the club’. Upon hearing this, the 3s captain hit back by saying, ‘yeah, it should be a good game if the weather holds out’.

With both teams’ captains so deliberately stoking the flames, I contacted the police to check their plans for managing such a potentially dangerous situation.

There official response was ‘what on earth are you talking about?’ Following subsequent enquiries they also said ‘stop bothering me’ and ‘you do know it is a criminal offense to waste police time?’ I only hope that they do not come to regret such a laissez faire attitude if it all kicks off.   

There is also the very fair question of; should a club be allowed two teams in the same competition? I do not believe that that it is allowed in higher divisions, whereas in this division not one, but two clubs are represented by two teams. I also think it is fair to say that these clubs are aiming to get one of their teams promoted (indeed they at the moment occupy first and second place). So could they not collude in an interclub game and ‘rig it’ to make sure that the ‘promotion aiming’ team wins and get good points? I would say theoretically this is possible but practically no. Any such ‘rigging’ is done at team selection, with the stronger players playing in the stronger team, but that is the same as every other game in the season, the 3s have stronger players than the 5s, that’s kind of the point.

But would the players in the ‘lower’ team deliberately lose? That would be an emphatic no. If the team captain tossed me the ball and asked me to bowl in a way that was easy to whack to the boundary, how would I respond? (Ignoring my boy’s harsh but quite possibly fair comment about that is how I always bowl anyhow). Well, my verbal response would be short, pithy and probably end in the adverb ‘off’. Nobody is going to deliberately do badly. Same with batting, no one would bat in such a way that they are trying to get out (yup, for those that have seen my batting, thanks for the sarcastic comments). There is no such thing as a friendly in cricket, everyone   strives to win. With the added bonus for the youngsters in the team that it is a good opportunity to make a name for themselves in the club. Take a fifer to win the game and they may find themselves playing for the 3s the week after.

So, how do I think that the game will go? Well, the 3s have to be the strong favourites, just by looking at the league positions this seems to be fair comment. But strange things do happen in sport, a couple of players can have a ‘day out’ and all of a sudden the fixture can be turned on its head. The USA did beat Pakistan, it can happen. The game is a ‘free hit’ for the Kapils, what’s the worst that could happen? For the threes though, a bit of extra pressure, imagine losing to your clubs Dads and lads………

 
Hants Div 6 SW Match Day 5 Round up

An Early Season 6 Pointer?

At the start of the day, only three teams had yet to lose and two of them were playing each other. This being the standout clash of the day, Winton 3s v Godshill, 1^st v 3^rd, only separated by the smallest of margins. The victory ended with Winton, who took 23 points to remain in first. Not all is lost for Godshill though, who remained in third, leading the chasing pack of the teams that had lost one game.

The most remarkable performance belonged elsewhere though, with Bournemouth 4s confirming second place, only a smidge off the lead, with a thumping win of 24 points over Sway. Getting off to a decent start before losing their first wicket, the number two and three batters then went gangbusters, putting on a stand of over 200 for the second wicket. Considering that in these 40 over games a score of 200 is what is needed by the whole team for maximum batting point, for two batters to achieve that for a single wicket is worth saluting. 127 for Victoria Pack and 99 for Aayan Kar, have got to say, I really feel for him on that one.

Behind the leading two, there are five teams that have only lost one game in pursuit, including Parley following their outrageously lucky and undeserved win. It seems that the top of the table is quite tight, could be nip and tuck for a while.

 

Parle-moi de jeu

C’est la semaine francaise bebe!

A game against Parley 3s, with a somewhat rubbish outcome. So I thought I would start the game review with a quote from my favourite French cricket coach, er, Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

The moral is to the physical as three is to one.

What the Sartre does that bloody mean? I hear you ask, and why are you bringing it up now? Well, it means that, in war, mental factors are three times as important to the outcome of battle as physical factors. As in war, so in cricket. The team suffered another batting collapse, failing to make a game of it. I think this is more a mental thing than a technical one, as the team have some good bats, but things are not rocking and rolling.

To be fair, Parley bowled decently, I could even go so far as to say well. But they were not that good, decent but hardly unplayable. Perhaps they were always going to beat us, but it should not have been by such a margin. It is in fact easy to bowl well when not under any pressure, and the Kapils batting performance was such that Parleys bowling was never put under pressure, a few well struck 4s in the first few overs but after that, nada.

And the mantra has been ‘you don’t need to push it, plenty of overs, no need to take risks, build an innings.’ Perhaps this is internalised as ‘be cautious, it’s difficult, it can go wrong at any moment’. Because we seem to be a team that is batting with an expectation that it will go wrong. Perhaps as a team  we need to be giving each the other the message ‘it’s a game, that we are pretty decent at, go and do your natural thing, sure respect the good ball but look to score when you can’. Because there is nothing that makes bowling seem really hard than being biffed for a couple of boundaries in an over. Or perhaps we just need to get into the nets for a bit of a practice……. (Always have to remind myself, c for a noun…)

But I still had a relaxing day out, which considering the tonking my team took is absurd. But as Camus argued; absurdism arises out of the tension between our desire for order, meaning and happiness and, on the other hand, cricket’s refusal to provide this. All we can do is recognise this and impart our own meaning onto life, cricket and everything. Or maybe forget about it all and go to the clubhouse and have another beer.

 

Albert after getting out for a duck against a swinging ball

If you are playing at Winton Rec and decide on the coffee, be careful if you order a Cafe Latte from the cafe next to the Oval. I had one at the weekend and it was hotter than the sun, it bloody well blistered my inner lip, best give it a chance to cool down. 

Match Scorecard

 

On a more positive note, another quote from everyone’s favourite French would be world conqueror that is pertinent to the team’s position and kind of inspirational.

‘Victory is not always winning the battle, but rising every time you fall.’

 

 

 

 

Hants Div 6 SW Match Day 4 Round up

Hants Div 6 SW
Match Day 4 Round up

It seems to be a definite breakaway from the Peloton

Winton 3s, Bournemouth 4s and Godshill all recorded wins again, it being 4 out of 4 for all of them and they are now separating themselves from the pack. Winton 3s still in the lead despite recording an only 22 point victory, their lowest total so fay. Still good enough for a very healthy 23.25 average though. Will any team manage to rouse themselves to chase them down these 3 or are we seeing the three promotion slots being taken already? Branshaw 3s, with their outrageously lucky and undeserved win slide into 4^th place to position themselves as the closest challengers.

At the other end of the table, there are now only 4 teams to yet record a win – plenty of time to get that sorted though. The Kapils hover worryingly close to the bottom though, after only recording one win so far……….

League Table

 

 
It Was the Best of Grounds, It Was the Worst Of Grounds

Carnage In Nomansland

The most village of villagey pitches I ever did see. The ground sloped, the pitched was on a slope, there was a Well of Sacrifice? inside the boundary, there were trees inside the boundary. Local rules, if it hits the building or a tree, play on, can’t be caught off them (not even one bounce one hand).

I can guess your next question will be, ‘What, in the name of the holy Douglas Adams, is a Well of Sacrifice’.

And I would reply, ‘that is indeed a good question’. The answer being:

 

It is a war memorial, dedicated to the areas fallen from the two world wars, and therefore due full respect.

It was also well placed square of the wicket to cut off any boundaries going in that direction. A pun about ‘well fielded’ being more or less obligatory whenever a ball hit the building. There were also several trees scattered about.

What all this meant was that it made it an interesting place to play cricket, a full on ‘cricket is a weird game at the best of times so why not go all in on the weirdness’, which is something that I fully enjoyed. And it was also beautiful.

The view from near the pavilion

 But it was a hard place to play, as it was so disconcerting, where to place fielders, the best value shots, bowling lines, all took far too much thought for my brain. I mean, when I bowl, I always have long on out and someone on cow. So, I put fielders back there and they ended up behind trees.

   

A view from long on, looking towards the wicket

So, enough of setting the scene, how did the game go? Well, we won the toss for the first time this season and elected to bowl. Bramshaw then set off like a steam train in the first few overs, while we wrestled with where to put fielders. We stuck with it though and did pull it back, limiting Bramshaw to 211 (it is also a small ground). Although this sounds like a huge score, the local team gave the view that it was more or less par rather than a particularly big score. We were also very helpful to the opposition in that we were catching like Muppets, with no hands, on Mogadon. 4 easy chances were put down. Remind me what the opposite of ‘catches win matches’ is?

Our innings went to pot fairly quickly, I think it is fair to say scoreboard pressure was a thing and a lot of our batsmen gave wickets away to false shots. Kev Roberts came in to show us all how it was done. And it is simple, blocking the good balls and attacking the bad ones, top scoring for us on 46. Ah well, you either win or you learn. For Branshaw, Joe McNeilly top scored with a dominating 66, before eventually falling to yours truly – he just couldn’t handle the pace I bowled………

Should point out that my comments on the ground are in no way a criticism or excuse, I fully enjoyed my day’s cricket and Bramshaw were full value for their win, batted with aggression and bowled with accuracy.

Would also like to say that Kev had also come to the game a few days after burying his father. Having buried a parent can say that it is one of the hardest parts of life’s journey, so will raise a glass to Kev’s dad and best wishes to Kev and his family.

 

New Forest ponies with a young foal. Mainly because it’s a lovely picture to end the report on.

Match Scorecard