It’s the End of the Summer as We Know It

And I feel a bit rubbish about it really……..

But a chune to cheer you up. Was never really into REM but that song I think is awesome and always lifts my mood, Lenny Bruce is indeed not afraid………..

So, how do you feel?

Now as the several people who read the great literature on this blog will be aware, this match report is somewhat late. I do believe that I have been overtaken by feelings of ennui and lassitude leading to a fey mood in which I have been overcome by a black cloud of absurdist nihilist temperament due to the death of the summer and the darkening of the world as we hurtle towards the autumnal equinox. Either that or I could forget the pretentious bollocks and just admit that I’ve been a bit lazy.

The end of summer, evil winter is coming to getcha!

So, the last game of the season, against the Suttoners, what happened? Well, they scored some runs, then we did, blah blah, they scored more so they won, cricket, a simple game really.

The above write up is affected by two main problems.

1.       Cricket is at heart somewhat repetitive and it can get difficult to write about another game coming up with a fresh entertaining angle. Any game that I was not personally at my interest goes as far as asking ‘who won? Oh right, anyone perform well?’ After those few seconds of interest my attention starts to wane.

2.       The game was well over a week ago and I’m buggered if I can remember that much of it, especially as it was the last game of the season, at home next to the club house which I may have retired to for a while and must have had at least three half pints of lager shandy (steady) causing my memory to become hazy.

So, digging into my memories and looking at the score card what details can I remember?

First up, it was a very overcast day, a bit cold and it threatened to rain a few times without ever delivering on said threat, a very last day of the season / summer vibe, a real life pathetic fallacy in action. If you don’t know what the pathetic fallacy is, ask any child aged 13 – 16. If they don’t know and you are their parent you really need to get on their case as this means they are not paying attention in English classes at school.

Next I remember some very skilful batting by the Suttoner openers, watchful and guarded against the good ball and despatching any bad balls to the boundary. Followed by some good hitting by the middle order to amass 269 of your bone fide cricket runs, which is quite a few.   We gave it a good crack though, getting to 233. The really annoying thing with this was that we lost two wickets to run outs, Murali out for 56 and Alex for 43. They were both scoring at more than a run a ball and were looking like they would take the team to victory. Neither were close run outs either, Murali was out when both bats ended at the same end and Alex when he slipped and fell, we gave the game away with some quite impressive displays of cricketing incompetence. Alex only went down as he was not wearing spikes, he has needed a pair for a couple of weeks. His dads argument that he wasn’t going to buy a pair of spikes now as they would not fit come the new season was one that sings to my dad soul but it cost is the game…….

Match Scorecard

So, all in all it was a good game but a loss, to which my reaction is, meh, what ya going to do?

So how did the season go? More losses than wins but the team was coming together towards the end of the season, after the first few games where the batting was poor we started to solve those problems, but only in fits and starts, no one consistently dominated. Bowling wise it was overall decent but with too many hittable balls served up allowing the opposition to never really be put under pressure.

Any stand out players? Well not going to nominate people but thought I would report on figures across the season. Best bat was Sargon Worsdale with the highest score and most runs across the season. This sort of highlights the issue the team had with its batting though as he only played half the games, no one else really stepped up to deliver consistently – something to look at next season. Best bowling was Alex Tekeli, with both most wickets and best match performance, consistently performing across the season.

Other positives? Well, all the youngsters had performances to be proud of, all delivering with bat or ball (or both) at some point in the season. They all had games where they had to stick with it against adversity as well though, which is just as good learning and development in its own way. Playing well in your county age group is one thing, but playing in mans cricket can be hard – even div 6; and learning how to cope and not let your head drop when things don’t go your way is an important skill to learn – games can be turned around.

The team also welcomed quite a few new players – mainly people returning to cricket after a lay off, and they seemed to enjoy it, so hopefully they will be playing with us (or other teams in the club) next season.

The final piece of praise I would like to give though is to the people that prepare and tend the wicket at the Winton Oval (the home of cricket™). It is in a busy public park in the centre of town so it is not like an area that can be controlled by the club. This not withstanding even on the last day of the season, a wicket was produced that had 502 runs scored in 80 overs. This was not due to it being dead and lifeless but due to it being a good wicket with true bounce and carry, to everyone involved in delivering this, hats off………   More generally, I would also like to say that Winton Oval is a lovely place to play cricket. When I first moved to the area about 6 years ago it was looking a bit shabby and my guess was that it would soon become an ex cricket ground. This had been turned around though and is now a place that it is possible to be proud of as a home ground, ok we can’t compete with village grounds in the forest but it is still quite lovely.   

Final League round up, a big hand to Winton 3s, who I believe were top of the table from the first game of the season till the last and therefore most worthy winners. Alsoaplause is due to Bournemouth 4s for their second place and finally to Parley 3s, also securing promotion by grabbing third place. 

So that’s it, a cricketing season done, the nights draw in, the north wind blows and bugger me it’s raining again. A song of farewell for all the memories lost……..

Farewell, farewell to you who would hear, You lonely cricketers all

 

On the other hand, we do have the indoor season to look forward to……….