The Energy of Youth

Will Always Lose Out to the Slightly Dodgy Knees of Experience

For once this week I thought I would challenge myself to do a proper game report, with some sort of narrative description and highlighting good performances and all that jazz. So sit back and strap yourself in for what promises to be possibly a tepid ride.

Winton Dev Team V Bransgore 2s. Both teams alike being a mix of youth and experience, but with Bransgore far higher up the table. They win the toss and elect to bat – textbook. Was not a completely cut and dried decision though, as the pitch, although still decent, had lost some hardness due to a lot of rain in the past week on an uncovered pitch. As only one ball is used in the match, batting first means you are giving your opponents the new ball, which, if they have bowlers that can exploit it, can be a bit risky.

The opening 8 overs were a bit of a contradiction, with the two bowlers bowling well, taking a couple of wickets but still going for over 5 an over. This can be reconciled by the fact that the bowling was overall a good quality but against bats that were experienced and looking to score. So wickets were taken, but anything a bit wayward was got after.

A special mention goes to Alfred Dearing, who took the wickets and again impressed the opposition with the pace of his bowling for such a young lad; he will only get faster and better. He went for a few 4s but I don’t think he should be worried about that. I hope that his coaches over the next few years don’t coach out his pace and aggression with a mantra of ‘line and length’. Sure, the more accurate anyone bowls the better. But with the pace he has now he should be coached to be a weapon, scaring batsmen and hunting wickets. Or that’s what this idiot on the internet thinks……..

There was then a rain break for a bit more than an hour. For a while it was looking touch and go but the rain abated and the sun came out, with the pitch drying. The captains agreed to cut the game to a 30 over match. This may have been slightly in Winton’s favour as Bransgore did not start of batting knowing it was going to be a shorter game. However, they had started aggressively, getting runs and losing wickets, so I don’t think they would have done anything much different anyhow.

What was to their disadvantage though was the dampness that had gotten onto the pitch during the rain, which made it stickier and harder to bat on. This was exploited by some decent bowling, particularly by Alex Tekeli, whose bowling is medium pace. He puts it in the right place, letting the ball and wicket do the work, challenging the bat to score of off him. Such bowling will never get him the plaudits of the pace of someone like Alfie Dearing, but by far the best bowling figures in the match of 6/0/15/3 can’t be argued with.

So the scoring rate lowered as the wickets fell, before a final push at the death that saw the score rise to a very decent 154 from 30 overs. Special praise going to Mark Hooper, who opened the batting and scored 69 n.o. at a strike rate of 75. I get the feeling he could have gone harder and scored more but he had to manage the fact that wickets kept falling at the other end, if he had gone as well his teams batting would probably have fallen apart. He batted with a mix of caution and controlled aggression that took his team to a competitive total, being paid the ultimate compliment by the opposition of fielders on the boundary when he was on strike, followed by the field squeezing in when he wasn’t - ‘give him a single’ was the plan.

So, was 154 from 30 overs a good score? Just over 5 an over? I thought it was decent. On the one hand, Winton Oval (The home of Cricket™) is a small ground and runs can be easy to come by, although it is not billiard smooth and the council probably don’t keep the grass as short as they should. On the other, the rain that had fallen on the wicket made it sticky, you could see how more difficult the batting had got for Bransgore after the rain interruption. I thought the 8 or so overs they had before the rain, scoring at over 5 an over could have been decisive.  Also, our batting has not so far covered itself with glory; we have seemed to always find a way to lose despite having some decent bats in our side. So it would be fair to say  I was hopeful rather than confident.

Out strode the openers, to face bowling that could be described as experienced rather than rapid. This however did not make it easy, as on a sweating pitch the ball could a bit of a bugger to play. We did ok though, going at slightly over 4s for the first 7 overs, which is a decent start. I then manage to get myself out to a bad ball (again). Too short and too straight I pulled it. But it was slower than I thought and bounced a bit less than I anticipated, so instead of it being that brutal pull just behind square for 4 that was in my mind’s eye, it hit low on the bat and popped up to midwicket. Still, at 32/1 the team was on its way, not a disaster. I would also like to say say that the scoring on play cricket is off. It has me facing 42 balls, which as I was out in the 7^th over and I distinctly remember Atilla playing it cagey and facing quite a few more balls than me in those overs, can’t be right. I also think I scored more than 6 (but not much more…..) Think there may have been confusion in recording who was facing in the early overs.

Off I go, in comes No. 3. Who managed to get himself out from an inside edge onto the pads before trickling onto the stumps, getting a sinking feeling…….

Next player to get praise though is Sargon Worsdale. Came in after his team lost two quick wickets so there could be problems. His first ball though was over pitched and too straight and was driven through mid on for 4. His next scoring shot a couple of balls later was from a ball a bit to short and smashed for a 6 over deep midwicket. Scoring 25 from his first 13 balls, including two 6s and three 4s he changed the narrative arc of the game, the field spreading onto the boundary. I was a bit worried, as he is a young lad who may have continued trying to hit out when his team needed him to be calm and take them to the win. He did this though, taking the easy singles now on offer and only going after the balls that really deserved it, which kept the scoring well ahead of the run rate.

Which brings us to the youth V experience issue when batting together. Playing a shot to the longest boundary, it wasn’t going to go for a 4, so leaping into action he shouted ‘2, take 2’. To receive the reply from the other end of ‘only the 1’. Being keen he returned with ‘turn and go, turn and go’, which he promptly did, to see Atilla at the other end still well out of his ground for the first run and not anywhere near ‘turning’, let alone ‘going’, so he gave up on the idea. Ah, to be young and fit again, with a body that works as you want it to……

Attila Setting Out For a Single

Attila gave good support, before eventually succumbing to to the plumbest LBW you will ever see. After that, 2 bats fell for a duck bringing back fears of a collapse. Going into bat at 7 was A Dearing though, who batted sensibly and well, giving good support to close out the game for our first win in weeks. I like playing cricket. Winning is also nice, put the two together makes for a happy day of sport.

The final runs were scored in a style that can been seen in different ways. With two runs needed to win with four overs to go the game was finished with a lofted on drive that went over the boundary, over the cycle track and over the fence into the long grass on the slope. As the bowler, you can think ‘that was a good shot’ but also think ‘possibly a bit unnecessary’. For the bat though, after guiding his team to victory in fine style he had probably earned the  right to finish the game with what a 1980s journalist describing Viv Richards would describe as ‘swagger’.

So, a second victory for the Kapils. It started with a  disciplined bowling performance that was regularly taking wickets. Followed by a batting performance that the openers got off to a decent start, with one of them hanging around deep into the innings, someone in the top order getting a good score at faster than a run a ball who towards the end was well supported by someone in the middle order to close it out. Textbook, cricket is an easy game eh?

Game Scorecard