Alne Away Match Report

Scorecard

On a fine and warm day, we lost the toss and were inserted. We opened with Greg Crossley and Robbie Andonovski and set about seeing off the wily Stuart Morley whilst taking advantage of the weaker bowling on offer at the other end. At drinks, we had reached 89-0 with few alarms, Greg scoring freely and Robbie looking untroubled at the other end, with Stuart Morley bowled out with figures of 12-4-21-o. The scoring rate accelerated nicely after the break, until Greg was run out by a direct hit for 72 off 74 balls (127-1). Lee Sadique then succomed to a moderate LBW decision, with the ball hitting him on the upper thigh and looking to be drifting down leg side. This brought Steve Lawrence to the crease, who overextended his damaged knee more or less straight away going for a sweep. This severely restricted his ability to run, but with boundaries flowing freely from both ends, this seemed not to matter.

Robbie had accelerated nicely to take his score to 68 - hitting his first six for Dacre in the process - before he was caught on midwicket boundary (165-3). Richard Bradley followed soon after, jamming the ball onto his stumps after advancing down the wicket to Shaun Foulds offspin. This brought the skipper to the crease, but Steve's knee had by now rendered him more or less immobile. This prompted him to launch an all out assault on the Alne bowling. Steve and the skipper added 59 for the 6th wicket, the skipper making only 12 of them, before he departed attempting to smear a yorker back over the bowler's head (and missing completely). Steve followed immediately, caught on the boundary for an awesome 70 off 37 balls (229-6). There was some debate in the dressing room as to whether kneecapping Steve before every game may yield similar results.

Shaun Marshall finished on 2 not out, whilst Callum McIntosh made 7 off 3 balls, including a wonderfully struck straight 6 off the last ball of the innings to take us to an excellent 238-6 off our alloted 45 overs. However, Alne is probably the best batting wicket in the league combined with short boundaries - and Steve Lawrence was unable to bowl (or move) - depriving us of his usual 5-fer at Alne. Therefore it was impressed upon the team that the job was by no means more than half done.

Mark Peachey made the early breakthough, bowling Pete Carr for 2 (15-1), before James Kenny somehow managed to chop on Lee Sadique's long hop loosener onto his stumps (44-2). However, we had dropped a simple chance at point to remove Alne's main run scorer, Eddie Myers whilst the score was on just 23-1. This proved costly, as Eddie lived a charmed life - edging repeatedly (including one that was caught behind but not given by the evergreen Bob Hesk) before he finanlly spooned a Shaun Marshall full toss to Robbie Andonvski at mid-on for a streaky 52. Lee Sadique removed Jon Bolton for 23 (100-4) and despite Alne scoring freely, Dacre looked well on top.

Jonny Knocker removed Rob Proudley for 1, but Stuart Morley had found his range and was peppering the boundary. Robbie Andonovski induced Stuart to skew a catch to the skipper at extra cover for a quickfire 48 (174-6), and it was now clear that Alne had little to lose by being aggressive. Richard Henley took advantage of moderate bowling and diabolical catching to score quickly - he was dropped on 8, 15 and 23 by fielders who would normally be considered safe catchers. However, he used these reprieves well and ended up winning the game with 7 balls to spare for Alne with his unbeaten 76.

There can be no excuses for the shambolic display in the field. We lost count of the number of spurned opportunities - and ultimately paid the price for the lack of commitment and composure shown in the field. We had plenty of runs on the board and should have easily defended them, but it seemed that Alne simply wanted to win more than Dacre and therefore deserved their victory.