As promised here is my match report from Saturday! 40 overs each.
Having acquired an 11th player on Friday night and no dropouts between then and Saturday morning Woking & Horsell 6XI set off to play Weybridge 4XI at Spelthorne Sports Club a 25 minute drive away, well 25 minutes for 9 of my team, as my lift decided to ignore his sat nav and take the scenic route through Staines! Arriving 15 minutes before the start of the game I headed straight out for the toss with the oppo skipper, having looked at the track (quite briefly) I decided that we would bowl first. The coin went up "Tails" I called confidently only for it to land Heads and the oppo skipper electing to bowl! Good start I thought.
Our first pair in was a club debutant freshly in from India and one of our U17's who put on a credible 49 for the first wicket before the first of 3 LBW's that our keeper decided to give whilst umpiring (it's a friendly). Our next man in (also making his debut) strolled to the crease took a huge swing at one that straightend and flattened his off stump, so in walked yours truly, with the oppo bowler on a hat-trick, first ball was a Malinga like delivery from around the wicket which was easily defended away to square leg for no run. Next ball, well I don't really know what happened, I went forward to it bat and pad together, before feeling the ball slam into the instep of my back foot, so I know it stayed ridiculously low! After what seemed like an age our keeper's finger went up and I was on my way back to the pavilion for a big fat 0, not really the skippers innings that I wanted, leaving us at 49-3. The usual W&HCC collapse I thought.
With my No.1 on debut scoring freely at the other end all seemed fine before our keeper struck again to give him LBW on 43. We now had batsmen 5 and 6 in both new to the club this season and having played with them both I was more than slightly nervous at this point. My worst fears were realised when No.5 (also my lift) played a nothing shot offering the simplest of catches to slip 60-5.
Next up at 7 was one of our U17’s, which is by some way the strongest side in the club with many of them having already experienced playing senior level and 2 or 3 ready to break into the 1XI next season. What followed next was quite staggering with our No.6 taking his time to get his eye in No 7 proceeded to harvest the strike, and a position of 60-5 went past the 100 mark, then the 150 mark approaching the promised land of 200. By this time I was fielding (having some peace and quiet and thinking about our bowling attack) for the oppo who only had 10 players, with 5 overs remaining I told the batsmen to start going for it, both wickets quickly fell with them making 63 and 55 to very good catches. We lost 1 more wicket before posting a very credible 216-8.
I opened up with one of the few guys in our team who I played with last season and one of our U15’s. Whilst my No.1 bowler wasn't at his best, our U15 bowled very nicely picking up the wicket of the dangerous looking No.2 bat. Meanwhile at the other end a mixture of the odd good ball, full tosses and wides ensued, before an absolute pie took the wicket of the other opener! At this point I bought on my U17 fresh from his batting heroics for a 5 over spell, whilst using another all rounder bowling some nice medium pace from the other hand. Our U17 took out Weybridge’s dangerous looking middle order taking 5-3-6-3, all three wickets bowled. At the other end keeping it nice and tight, but without luck my medium pacer bowled 8-3-24-0. Around the 20 over mark I introduced my off-spinner, yet another debutant, who bowled beautifully taking 6-1-18-3. The Weybridge innings ended when I bought our U15 back into the attack and he picked the final wicket in his second over finishing with figures of 7-2-11-2, and Weybridge all out for 88, giving me a 122 run win on my captaincy debut!
All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience (apart from my duck), and considering I had only played a decent number of games with 2 players in my team it was a great achievement, with some of the guys really putting up their hands to be considered for selection higher up the club, not that I’m planning on letting them go! Next up Monty’s Beard’s bunch, although sadly Liam will be sunning himself in Greece!
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Topic: Skippering for the first time (Read 5442 times)