Balsham v Exiles, 16 August 1998Balsham v Exiles, 16 August 1998This fixture came about due to our injury prone Wicket Keeper Dave Middle
having been born in this pretty Cambridgeshire village. His Mother still
lives there and supplies the excellent teas. The Balsham team is the usual
mixture of experience and youth with not much in between, where all the
twenty-somethings go for their Sunday sport is not clear. If they have ambitions
to be seam bowlers they probably travel as far from this slow and low wicket
as their Ford Escorts will carry them. The Exiles' own speed twins Waseem
& Naem Khan also chose this weekend as a good opportunity to see the
folks in Leicester, so with half the membership either on holiday or paying
social visits, Seven Exiles, one former Exile (Peter Richardson) a potential
future Exile (Stephen Brown) and two found players (Chris, Dave's Bother-in-law
and Faizal a friend of Effie's) made up the eleven and made it to the ground
in plenty of time inspite of the ongoing delays at the M11 link roadworks.
The home side won the toss and elected to bowl and, judging from the cursing
that emanated from certain bowlers lips, regretted the decision as Soumitro
Nagpal carried on where he left off last week and with Keith Marchbank connecting
cleanly with legside full tosses the scoreboard soon got moving. Then Keith
advanced down the wicket, missed a legside delivery and was stumped when
the ball cannoned back off the keeper's pads to break the stumps, a freakish
dismissal but one where the batsman was largely culpable. Afterwards Keith
seemed unware that the keeper was still "standing-up" and this
minute is probably having his wife sew rear view mirrrors into his cap.
This brought Wayne Holder to the wicket who has missed a few games and was
planning his comeback at the washed out Oxford game. This pair added 110
for the second wicket before Wayne fell to a brilliant catch to Mid-on running
back towards deep midwicket. Soumitro's innings yielded more chances than
last week's century but was played out in less favourable conditions, with
longer straight boundaries and longer grass. Faizal increased the run rate
with some clean hitting, unfortunately he underestimated the trajectory
and the sticking power of Fenland outfield grass so that two shots he thought
were fours brought only one run as he deemed not to run until too late.
He also mis-judged the trajectory when he sent the ball high to long-on
where the man who had showed his ability to catch with Wayne's wicket safely
pouched it two feet in front of the line.Soumitro exchanged the bat he had
broken last week, since repaired by its owner, for Effie's massive railway
sleeper of a bat and thereafter was understandably less wristy but still
ploughed on towards his seemingly inevitable century. Though he has the
eye of an eagle, and wrists of whipcord, unfortunately he has the legs of
Nick Coleman, so when he was on the Australian "Devil's number"
(87) he fell tamely to an uncontested stumping, complaining that he had
run out of energy. He was also aware that there were plenty of lesser batsmen
waiting in the shade of the pavilion. Peter Richardson was back in the pavillion
very shortly before his abdominal guard problems became a burning issue
(N.B. Boxer shorts are not suitable replacements for jock-straps) bowled
for nought by Housder the first of his four wickets. Chris (Dave Middle's
Brother-in-law) managed to hold his end up whilst Phil James and then Dave
Middle fell for five apiece, thus negating their side-bet on who would score
most. This side-betting is a deplorable hobby, causing Exile to cheer the
demise of fellow Exile. The good thing is that to date no one has profitted
as Dave and Phil always do equally poorly on these occasions. Chris became
the last of Housder's victims on 18 and Stephen Brown and Effie safely saw
out the last few overs out for 8* and 11* leaving No.11 Paul Shorrock all
padded up with nowhere to go.
As ever tea was as good as a cricket tea gets (big thanks to Mrs. Middle)
and was taken in the swanky new extension to the pavillion overlooking the
pristine Bowling Green, a product of a Lottery grant, good to see all our
losing tickets being put to good use. If my next £100 worth of tickets
go towards putting a little bit of life in the wicket I'll be a happy punter.
As it transpires no ball from Paul Shorrock's opening overs got above knee
height, and most were on their second bounce at least by the time they reached
Dave, back in the gloves after a lay off for injury. However the batsmen
had even more trouble than Dave dealing with these "daisy-cutters",
and with Effie bowling downhill with the wind the breakthrough came in the
second over; Hall played one to square leg and called for a quick single
whereupon Faizal threw down the wicket at the batsman's end with a direct
hit that had C. Nower back in the pavilion run out for nought. Hall and
Childs then progressed like men in a minefield and by the change of bowling
in the eleventh over had reached 23 without further loss, the starting run
rate required having climbed from 5.4 to 6.7. Eleven overs of accurate but
unspectacular seam bowling had put out the fire of the Balsham response,
The Exiles were then able to "hose down" the embers with a variety
of bowlers. Wayne bowled in tandem with Phil James who finished with respectable
figures of 5 overs 1 maiden 0 wickets for 13, although he was not alone
in feeling he had been "robbed" of a wicket when a chipped catch
to silly mid on was deemed a "bump-ball". Wayne bowled his eight
overs off the reel to finish with 2 for 38. Faizal replaced Phil and produced
nip off a short run and winkled out both top-scorers, Childs (17) and Housder(38)
both bowled. Keith kept his bowling arm in form with four economical overs
without luck until it was time for the openers to return and have their
last word. Shorrock struck twice in two balls first over back but couldn't
convert the hat-trick, the fifth ball of the over was then edged short of
slip for four. Effie bowled Saunders (15) and then Shorrock caused the limping
Clarkson (who had batted with a runner after pulling a groin muscle) to
play on. Off spin was then the order of the as Williams, the most junior
member of the side, strode out to attempt to score nearly 100 off 3 overs.
Effie snapped him up first ball to seal the win by 95 runs.
Next week we meet the bizarrely named "New Barbarian Weasels"
for the first time. Captain/Fixtures Secreatry Tony Brook is on a beach
in Sicily and has not passed on any contact numbers, so any friend of the
Weasels reading this before Aug 23 please email me with a point of contact!