Well, that turned a bit ranty

 

A beautiful ground

Batted worse than bazzball team

Our bowling saved us

 I admit it, I like 'proper' cricket

Solid defensive shot - is very sexy yes? OK, if you were reading this blog last year you will know that i have used this picture before, but am using it again for two reasons. The first is that it perfectly illustrates a forward defensive shot. The second is as I have mentioned many times before that I cant be bothered to put to much effort into writing this nonsense so why not reuse what I have done before?

So why are you boring us again about a forward defensive shot? One of the several people that read this blog may ask. Well, just want to point out that even in a 40 over game there is a place for it. Not all the time of course as at some point a batting team will need to go hard. But on a dodgy pitch grinding out a score of less than 200 can still be competitive, or you may need to see of a dangerous bowler. Or if you team lose a couple of quick ones you may need to settle it down before attacking weaker bowlers later on? And why would I want to mention this now? Can you guess? If not, read on........

Anyhow, this is the first away game of the season, with the weather set fair. Whenever I have to travel elsewhere in Dorset I split it into different areas. The first is ‘the Bournemouth area’, which is from the New Forest to Wimbourne, down to Wareham and Swanage. Then you have ‘Near Dorchester’, which is not to bad. The final two areas are ‘past Bridport’ or ‘North Dorset’, which usually come with a ‘oh for ffs’ attached. Our venue for this game was Cattistock, which has a main rating of ‘near Dorchester’ with an attached ‘on the other side of the Dorchester’ . So not too bad journey.

Welcome to village cricket

So Cattistock, our opponents, what sort of challenge would they present? To be honest, I had no idea. They were a one team club- what I believe you can call a proper ‘village team’. In my experience of such teams are made up of players of widely differing abilities, a few strong players, some middling ones and a smattering of weak players. It is hard to tell in advance though because the strength of such teams can be raised significantly by things like a couple of lads who are strong players coming back from uni for the weekend, Or weakened by such things as the two or three strongest players going on a stag do that weekend. So we would find out on the day.

Such considerations were not the only ones that bothered me though, as playing in the Dorset leagues I was hoping to visit some lovely grounds for a relaxing day out playing cricket. Cattistock did not disappoint, a ground surrounded by hills and woods, with the village church in the background making for an idyllic setting. The weather was also cooperating for once as well, warm without being searing. All in all a lovely day and setting for a day out drinking chilled wine, eating a picnic and watching a bunch of idiots run around playing cricket. As it turns out though, I was one of the aforementioned idiots. In fact, being a captain I may even rank as a chief idiot, so had to get on pretending that I knew what I was doing cricketing wise.

View from the centre of the ground towards the church in the centre of the village

The first step for this of course is to go and have a look at the pitch and discuss with team mates how we thought it would affect the game. The only word that comes to mind for the strip that we were looking at was ‘undulating’. It was sloped in different directions at both batting creases, with the general conclusion being that it would make batting ‘interesting’. Still, after winning the toss I chose to bat, as it wouldn’t flatten out and I couldn’t think of any other reason to not bat first.

General Plan for Winning Games When Batting First

Now, I have in my team many players that describe themselves as ‘batsmen’. To me, possibly because I’m old, being a batsmen means that you start of deliberately, looking to play yourself in before accelerating your scoring looking to bat long and build a good score. These days however, for a lot of people, they use the term ‘batsman’ to mean someone that looks to start whacking the ball as hard and as often as possible, looking to score 35 off of 20 balls. There is an important place in a 40 over team for such a style of batting, but that place is not the top 5 of the batting order, it is classically a ‘No. 6’. Now, I have many players that enjoy hitting out hard and often, and 6 people can not all bat at 6. So, my general idea is for the first half of the innings being steady – looking to be at 80/2 half way through the innings. We then have a 20 over innings for the attacking bats to come on and hit out at the 4 / 5/ 6 bowlers to push the score over 200. How did that work out this game?

 Well, at first, pretty good. The two openers went through the first ten openers and although only scoring a bit above 3 an over I was happy with that. The pitch was not easy to bat on, variable bounce and a bit of movement. So I has already reassessed what a good score would be. On a good pitch I would say 220 is a challenge to chase, on this pitch I would being that down to 180. But then the two openers went and were followed by a regular clatter of wickets. This was due to several factors, the first of which was some excellent bowling – take nothing away from the opposition performance here. Then I think it is fair to say it was a tough pitch to bat on. But the main one is that when faced with good bowling on a tricky pitch, with a captain say ‘there are plenty of overs, take your time, we don’t have to score too quickly’  the main thought from most of the batsmen was ‘I’m going to fucking launch it’. A regular clatter of wickets ensued, either swinging against a straight one or hitting it in the air and getting caught.

Time for a captains innings yes? Indeed, when I went out to bat it was with the intention of digging in. Dot ball? Badge of honour. A leave outside off? Proud of it. Feeling calm, no panic. So how did I get myself out? Responded to a call for a second run and got run out. As I was running to the danger end I could have and should have said no but didn’t, and to be fair it was an excellent thrown. I said a couple of rude words when I got back to the pavilion…….

So we were 9 down for a lot less than a 100 after 26 overs. There was a clatter of runs from the 10 and 11 against Cattistock’s fifth and sixth bowlers that propelled us to 119 before being all out in the 20^th over. This was the time that we need 5 wickets in hand to start the assault but sadly not to be. I was not feeling overly positive at this point though, Cattistock had proved they had some very competent cricketers; they were on their home pitch so knew how to bat on it and only had to score 3 an over. Should also mention at this point how impressive the Cattistock fielding was, bastards didn’t drop one catch, not even the ‘no way he is going to take that’ catch. At this level of cricket, taking all your catches could indeed be considered to be a bit unsporting – but fair play to them.

What’s the Plan Stan?

 Defending this total wasn’t going to work – we had to bowl them out. So attacking fields no matter what – shorter bursts of bowling than usual to stop bats settling, the world may even be able to witness some of my loopy spin. How did that go? Excellently as it happens. Adam Nichols started it off with a wicket in the first over and so it rolled from there. Pace bowlers from one end where finding it a bit difficult – as there as a ‘hump’ on the wicket where the front foot would land leading to a lot of uncontrolled deliveries. But on a regular basis a killer ball was mixed in with the wilder stuff. This led to a score of 76 fully half of which were extras – but a 76 all out. An excellent team bowling performance. Although after the game in a chap with the Cattistock captain he said that his team had 3 non cricketers, so he thought that after we got the front half of the batting line up out he thought the game was up. The team was not aware of this though and I was impressed with the focus that the team kept. The tail was hoovered up by Uday, who after taking the last two wickets in 2 balls is technically still on a hat trick. 

 So, a glorious first victory for the 4s this season. What would I say were the key points in delivering the win? Well firstly the inspire decision making of the handsome and erudite Winton captain obviously had a massive impact on the game. Then  I feel that the first partnership by our openers was crucial, They only score a tounch over 30 but it was the largest partnership in the game and if we had been tweo wickets down in the first 5 or so overs I think things would have gone very badly. A lastly Adams accurate and dangerous opening spell was important. They may not have had batting in depth but I think Cattistock did have some competent bats at the top of the order and getting the first couple out quickly was important for the momentum of the game.

A challenge to my team. Everybody on my team tells me they can bat – my challenge is to prove it. Not to score the occasional flash 40 off of 25 balls, but to deliver an average of 40 over the season. If it looks like you can do that, you will be bolted on to the top order for every game.

Match Scorecard

Winton Round Up

1s V South Wilts 2s

A solid victory. Batting first scoring 258 – with nearly everyone in the team contributing to the score before rolling the opposition out for 186. An excellent display really, against a team that were relegated from a higher division last year so were probably considering themselves to be one of  the stroinger teams in the league. It is however stretching the definition of a Hampshire league when a team from the centre of Bournemouth plats against a team called South Wiltshire……

2s V Sway 3s

Well, they blasted 400 from 45 overs before dismissing the opposition for 137. File this under ‘decisive’. Big up Chikky, who scored 116 from 88 balls before recording bowling figures 36/3, when you hot, you hot. But plenty of other good performances as well. The 400 was even more impressive when you look at the fact that they lost 2 wickets in the first over and were only at 33 after 10 overs. Didn’t panic, built a platform before launching the assault. Textbook.

3s V Suttoners 1s

Chased down a total of 183 with 7 overs and 3 wickets to spare, so a fairly comfortable win.

5s V Suttoners 2s

Fell 28 short in a run chase, so a fighting performance before securing second place.

 

Dorset Div 3 round up

As its only the second week and the first was almost completely washed out it is hard to draw out any patterns as yet. Rolex go top though with one win and one defeat which beats out the other teams that have a win as they only have an abandoned match to earn a minimum of points from.