Birstall Village v BOTWCC - First XI
Sat 20th May 2006 - Birstall
Burton Thwarted By Rain In Run Chase
Just for a change this season, both teams turned up under grey skies, with rain in the air.
Burton much changed from the previous week, with Peck & Freestone failing to recover from injury, Aylett back to his 3 year drinking & shagging tour, sorry, university course, and Simkins on birthday party duty serving out the jelly and ice cream.
On a very wet pitch, which was barely playable, Burton won the toss and unsurprisingly asked Birstall to take first knock. Lang and Smith took the new ball, and consistently had the Birstall bats in trouble, going past the outside edge seemingly at least once/twice per over.
With the conditions in favour of the bowlers, the batsmen struggled, and the run rate barely climbed above 2 per over. Both openers were soon sent back to the hutch, one each for lang and smith, and when Marshall replaced Smith, he too picked up a quick wicket.
Then came the best partnership of the innings for Birstall, though to describe it as profiting from good fortune would be akin to describing Heather McCartney's Lawyer as 'on to a good thing'. Jex played with all the confidence of a turkey going on a pre-christmas 'day-trip', but managed to edge his way to 23 in partnership with Gaydon, frustrating bowlers and fielders alike with his uncanny ability to either play and miss, or edge over the slips into the gap. Though is has to be said, if Moore behind the stumps, or Simmons at mid-on had managed to hold the simplest of chances, then things might have been wrapped up earlier.
Lang was eventually replaced by Kimber with figures of 1-21 off 16 overs, and the young spinner was soon in the thick of the action. After a first over of long hops of varying degress of shortness, he found his line and length, and was able to extract considerable turn and occasional bounce from the wicket. It all proved too much for the Birstall middle and lower order, and they collpased from 69-3 to 101 all out, with Kimber ending with 5-34 off his 7 overs. Only Merry showed any resistance, with a typical biff biff innings of 27*, including one monster six. There was also time for smith to return for 5 excellent tight overs, to finish with 3-23.
Tea was taken, and a fine tea it was too, with cakes a plenty. Always a good thing. Burton then set about chasing down the Birstall total. At least Moore set about chasing it, Deabill played his typical innings mixing stonewall defense with a liberal sprinkling of stonewall defense. Moore was dismissed by Merry as he tried to push the score on, always with one eye on the weather, and Fisher came and went in a flash, undone first ball by a Merry yorker. Kimber then showed some nice touches before Merry again tempted him to play across the line to a straight one.
Ultimately though, the weather was always going to be the winner. With burton on 54-3 after 26 overs and the game genuinely in the balance, the heavens opened and that was that. 9 points for burton, 8 for birstall.
Old friends caught up over a pint in the clubhouse, and later the Mulberry Tree (White Horse as was), and though it wasn't quite like the old days (well Fish never had a chick back then!), we still had a few beers and talked a reasonable amount of rubbish!!
MoM : shared between Andy Merry with 27* and 3 wickets, And Alex Kimber, taking 5-34 on first team debut.
Full match stats available HERE
Ian Lang 21-5-06