History Used To Be Written By the Victor

Now it’s written by any idiot that can be bothered to make a half arsed effort to write a blog post 

I was dropped off early on a day of perfect cricket weather, sunny but not too hot and a light breeze. Bournemouth’s second ground was conspiring to look lovely as I walked across the outfield. I then spied what looked like a doddery old gentlemen looking confused and like he didn’t know what he was doing by the large brick scoreboard. Wanting to make sure he was ok I walked in that direction. It turned out to be the Bournemouth 4s captain, so my first instinct had been correct…..

The teams arrived and there were friendly greetings. A lot of times I find opposition teams standoffish, which strikes me as odd. They are the type of people that like cricket, so a bit weird and probably have few friends, so you think that they would be happy to talk to people that share the same interest. Quite often it is a no though. So it was really pleasant to play a match with friendly people.

The pitch was rock solid and looked like it would play very well. The outfield was also looking good – which I was worrying about because this cricket pitch was used as football pitches for most of the year and in the past had large bare patches. Today though it was looking lovely, save a few dips filled with sand that I presume were where the goalmouths had been. A friendly game in beautiful weather, a perfect day.

But what about the game? I hear you ask. About that……

We won the toss and chose to bat. It was an easy decision, the pitch was solid (helped by the lovely weather we have been having) and the outfield was hard and flat. Attila then decided to get himself out, a ball that pitched on leg he decided to step inside and let go through. It swung back toward the stumps and lit the leg stump. Standing at the non bowlers end the confused look of ‘that can’t be out’ towards the umpire was quite funny, (sorry Atilla) and off he had to go.

Other learning, the wicket keeper brought a helmet onto the pitch but was not wearing it when standing back and he kept it next to him. One piece of slip fielding later the ball goes into the helmet and 5 penalty runs – yeah you don’t want to do that.

Me and Matt then got to about 60 for 1 off of 10 overs, cracking on and a really good start to the innings. Apart from a couple of wayward overs though the bowlers were bowling quite well. But with that pitch, nice and fast and true, and that outfield (the same) anything with a bit of width, or a touch short, all you had to do was get bat on ball and it was going to the boundary. So we were hitting at least one 4 most overs. I was given a life though. An accurate good length ball spat up a bit so took my splice and looped up for a dolly to the Bournemouth captain standing at short extra cover which he flapped at and put down. The bowler turned and walked back to his mark without a word, the rest of the team looked on. What was the expression on their faces? Anger? Denial? At  this stage of the season I think most had got to acceptance.*

 Bournemouth 4s Captain

A recording of the dropped catch

 I then gave away my wicket though. There had been a bowling change to slower bowlers who were bowling quite well. However, I received a poor ball, over pitched on the legs. However, rather than smearing it over cow like any self respecting semi skilled batsmen, I decided to play a cross bat shot. Poor ball, shiterer shot and off I go. After that things unravelled, and we went from 60 to 1 in 10 to 144 ao in 35. There were some decent bats in the side, with runs there for the taking. It seems people followed the example of the openers again, with most people getting out to poor decisions rather than good bowling. Although to give Bournemouth credit there was good bowling as well, also good decision making from the captain. With the pace bowlers, anything that was a bit wide got despatched. So he bought on two slower bowlers who bowled through for 16 overs.  They bowled well, but it also meant that the bats had to work for their runs, hitting the ball hard rather than just using the pace.  

With such a low score on such a high scoring pitch the game was not really in doubt. We only took 1 wicket and were facing 3 very decent bats. They defended the balls that they needed to and use the pitch and ground to take boundaries when they were offered. Scoring at five and a half an over the easily chased down the score. A special mention to Chris 'the wall' Lee in the field though, who was at short extra cover. He threw himself at everything that came at him, no matter how hard. Brave and committed, leading by example.

Again I had a lovely days cricket and enjoyed myself. Losing is starting to get annoying though. Winning can turn into a habit, but so can losing. With the bats we had in the side we could have built a competitive total and put pressure on, but we didn’t. Think we need to find more of a focus and winning mentality. There are good players in this side, that aren’t doing themselves justice…….

 Match Scorecard

*OK, I suppose I will have to be fair to Dave. He was fielding close and I had hit the ball on the up proper hard, so he did well to get his face out of the way and get his hand to it and then it was one of those ‘it sometimes sticks’ kind of catches. This time it didn’t. Although it was a dropped chance, it was a hard one and can count as a four saved as much as a catch dropped. Although I never realised how much like Mike Gatting Dave looks.......