Burton on the Wolds XI v Woodhouse Eaves (Pre-Season Friendly)
Sat 29th April 2006 - Towles Fields
"At last" I hear you say, well here we go.
First up, the toss. Amazingly and completely against all previous trends Steve Neal won the toss on this very first outing of the season and elected to field, giving Woodhouse a crack at posting a score.
Not being a team to look a gift-horse in the mouth and clearly relishing the opportunity on a good April pitch, the Woodhouse batters, including Burton Old-Boy Steve Markley, set about their task with grim determination, vigor and verve and runs were steadily being piled on the board. That is not to say that the Burton bowlers didn't give them the opportunities they needed, as they (we) did. Barring the opening and more experienced pairing of Ian Lang and Andy Simkin, the Burton attack spotted that today was a day to blow away any cobwebs from the winter period and deliver all the short balls and full tosses (guilty as charged) that would be allowed for the summer 2006 season.
Don't let me paint a bad picture here though, the lads did well and given that we were facing a far better batting line-up than we had to offer in return. Some shining lights were some excellent work from Pauline, sorry, Ian Merryweather behind the stumps, a bit of pace from new-comer Shane Marshall, two wickets from Rob Morely including that of a former Somerset batsman and some tidy bowling from Lee Smith, who eventually rolled out of bed and turned up about 2 hours after everybody else. Unfortunately, he did get something of a hiding in his spell but truthfully, it was little to do with his bowling and more the batsman going after him. However, after the 40 overs and some quite nice batting from the Woodhouse Select XI, Burton were left to chase a respectable total of Woodhouse's 234-7.**
After the home-made-tea break, Burton took to the field with first teamers Ross 'Dibs' Deabil and Paul Blount, AKA Flash. Runs came slowly and sadly the opening pair left the field both in single figures thanks to a good catch that took Dibs and a controversial LBW decision against Flash. (Apparently you're not supposed to give them in a friendly - news to me. HE WAS PLUMB!). Malc Hood left the field soon after without having troubled the scorers and enter match day skipper Steve 'Deabil-in-the-making' Neal.
Steve batted for some considerable time and despite a slow run rate, something he was typically abused for, was the only Burton batsman to reach the target 40 runs before being forced to retire. Credit is also due to the magnificence (his words) of Ian Lang for his valuable 34 and a display that should encourage him for the season ahead, having happily slapped Woodhouse's key bowlers to boundaries a-plenty. Other cameos from Andy Simkin with a firey 11, an impressive 20 from Ian Merryweather and the two not-outs of Shane Marshall and Rob Morely, finishing on six a-piece. Eventually the overs ran out with Burton having reached only 63% of the target score, 147-7. **
For the record Steve Markley did say (or agree to my comment) of "Lets call it a draw". Good enough for me.
Ah well. It was a nice day out and other than the issue of violent muscle cramps for the next couple of days, a fun day was had by players, spouses and kids alike.
Roll on the first week of the season proper (next week) when the First XI are at home to Stoke Golding and the Seconds are away at Braunstone Cricketers.
Good luck all...
** Complete Batting and Bowling Figures are shown HERE on the Leicestershire Senior League/ECB Web Site which is updated by Ian Lang, bless him. Something will be appearing on this web site soon about this League site.
Match report
by Grant Penton,
Sunday 30th April 2006
and Updated 3-5-06
ECB/ Leicestershire
Senior League Stats by Ian Lang