Bishop Thornton Away Match Report

Scorecard

Bishop Thornton won the toss and on a cool, breezy but sunny day chose to bat first on a pitch that had retained a great deal of moisture from the previous week's rain.

Dacre struck early, with Robbie Andonovski (12-1-32-1) strangling Thornton's Aussie Lynden Anderson down the leg side for just 1 - Chris Eckford taking an excellent one handed, diving catch to his right. However, with the pitch very slow - anything even slightly short of a length sat up and begged to be despatched - and with Steve Ellison struggling to come to terms with running up the hill and into the wind, Bishop Thornton reached the 10 overs without further alarm, indeed scoring at over 4 an over. This brought Steve Lawrence on to bowl his legspin - and he promptly created opportunities. Evergreen Paul Sowray (who informed me he is now 47 - I contemplated informing him that he actually looked 60, but decided that as discretion is the better part of valour, so cowardice is the better part of discretion) battling against a sore neck but still scoring freely, was tempted to flick a leg spinner in to the leg side, but got a looping leading edge into the offside where Chronic brilliantly spiked the floating ball into the ground. However, as we were playing cricket and not volleyball, this began to wear slightly on the captain. Steve decided to leave the fielding out of it for a while, and bowled Matthew Bell for 15 (67-2)

At the other end, Jonny Knocker (12-2-37-1) overcame a wobbly first over to bowl some frugal, canny left arm spin, even inducing Paul Sowray to chip a dolly to square leg, where he was again grassed by a grazing Andy Merrill. Paul (58) was finally removed by Steve Lawrence (12-1-46-2) when he ripped one past the advancing Sowray and Chris Eckford completed the stumping.

Dacre exerted a bit more control in the latter stages of the game, with Jonny Knocker picking up a deserved wicket off an undeserving ball (caught confidently at deep mid wicket by Steve Ellison), whilst Steve Ellison (9-0-57-2) picked up 2 late wickets with some straight death bowling - but more poor fielding and another dropped dolly cost us another 10-15 runs and a chance of the bowling point.

So Thornton closed on 183-6 - still a very chaseable target on a drying pitch that seemed to do less the quicker one bowled on it. However this was clearly 30-50 runs more than we should have allowed Thornton given the simple, basic opportunities that were passed up to remove their better batsmen early. In fact the captain's big toe still shows the scars of half-time frustration at the lazy fielding effort.

So suitably refreshed, Steve Lawrence and Andy Merrill set about building a base to attack the target, and after a sedate start accelerated nicely towards the drinks break. However after drinks, Andy fell for a well made 39, (89-1) and Steve was bowled looking to smear a 6 when on 45 (97-2). This brought Robbie Andonovski and the skipper together, but the skipper struggled to get the ball off the square (not aided by the umpires missing his glide/edge through the slips for 4) and perished LBW to a straight ball from Simon Bell, bring Tom Scott-Smith to the crease, with over 5 an over required.

Tom played some excellent shots, blasting the ball all round the field whilst looking generally untroubled, and Dacre looked to be coasting to victory. However, just as Dacre moved ahead in the game, we contrived to have a run-out (in true Arsene Wenger style, I didn't see it as I was getting changed), with Tom departing for 22. Chronic and Robbie then took the the score to 171 before Chronic (9) missed a straight ball and was comprehensively bowled.

This left the equation as 13 runs required off 18 balls, but crucially with the inexperienced Callum (now Gollum) McIntosh on strike. Despite connecting well several times in the over, Callum couldn't pierce the infield, and on the last ball of the over, attempting to hit a straight boundary was caught in the deep. Crucially, the batsmen crossed meaning that the new batsmen, Steve Ellison would be on strike for the next over, with 13 now required off 12 balls. Unfortunately, Steve experienced the same problems as Gollum and was caught off the 4th ball of the over, not getting enough elevation to beat mid-on, and Chris Eckford followed next ball. When Jonny Knocker sensibly refused a single off the last ball of the over to finally bring Robbie on strike, 4 wickets had fallen for 1 run in 14 balls, and 13 were required to win off the last over.

Robbie then hit out to cow corner, and was dropped on the boundary with a flying effort - however crucially the fielder managed not to palm the ball over the boundary. 11 reqd off 5. Robbie (38*) then hit a beautiful straight boundary, bringing the required down to 7 off 4. The umpire then chose not to give a wide to a very wide offside ball, before some good fielding in the deep restricted the batsmen to 1 when 2 initally looked possible. This left Jonny Knocker on strike requiring 6 to win off 2 balls. Jonny smashed the next ball to the square leg boundary leaving all 3 results possible off the last ball - 2 to win, 1 to tie, 0 to lose.

Sadly Jonny couldn't connect and with the keeper stood up to the stumps, no bye was possible, and Thornton had won by 1 run. As always in such tight finishes, one is left contemplating the "if onlys" - if only the umpire had given a wide, if only we hadn't conceded that overthrow, if only I hadn't moved that fielder. However in the final analysis - catches win matches. We let Thornton get 30-50 runs more than they should have, and the game should not even have been close. We have now dropped around 13-15 catches in 3 matches - and as a result we have won precisely nothing. If we continue to drop 5 catches a game, we will continue to lose.