Played in an amazing game yesterday, sadly marred by some very bad sportsmanship by a few of the opposition. Worcester Div 9 game, Himbleton 2s vs Old Elizabethanth 4ths. They chose to bat and we were doing ok. Had their no.3 dropped on 0, but then had him stumped on about 30, with them on 70-2 off 16. Their no.4 came in and the game changed completely, as he took us apart. They didn't have much in the way of other batsman, so he farmed the strike for most of it. Well they finished on 361-5 off 45 with him 273*
. IWhy he's playing in the 4ths is unbelievable. t's a small ground, but he hit huge 6's at will. He was dropped on about 170 to an easy catch and once more near the end. I finished 1-45 off 9, so happy with that.
Their umipire caused a lot of bad feelings; he did't give a masive edge behind, then called a no ball from square leg saying we didn't have 4 inside the circle, which we did. He then, again from square leg said a ball on the opposite side of the pitch had gone for 4, when our fielder had stopped it. This caused confusion with their batsman and resulted in their young batsman being run out. In the end we recalled him and said they could have the 4, as it wasn't fair on the young lad.
One of our guys was retiring from Saturday cricket after this game, so opened the batting. He made an excellent 68 as we started really well, 120-1 off 13. We continued to stay :(or at the required rate throughout. They didn't have a very strong bowling lineup, and would bawl one good, then one bad over. I went in at 5, with us on about 160. It then all kicked off when I was stumped off a free hit. Their keeper and another player said I was out, as a stumping is a run out! The keeper said I needed to learn the rules; so I told him I probably knew them better than him as I'm a PE teacher. He eventually said he'd kindly let me stay, even though I was out!
Some heated word with him and the umpire beforethe game continued. Then at the end of the over the deliberately barged into me as he walked past. We continued to hit regular boundaries every over; I was bowled for 35 with us needing 90 off 15. We batted all the way down. so although we lost more wickets, we could still keep up with the run rate. We got to needing 12 off 3 with 8 down. Then 5 off 7 balls, when our skipper smashed a massive 6 into the field to complete an amazing win.