BOTWCC 2nd XI v Sapcote

Saturday 12th July 2008

After a week that brought several feet of water across the country, two very strange things happened on this day.

Firstly, we had a game of cricket on what turned out NOT to be a quagmire, and secondly, having lost the toss, the Burton Twos were asked to field.

Go figure. So, field we did.

Things started well with openers Grant Penton and Tom Shipman giving nothing away and Penton even took an early wicket. Few runs were being made and by the time Shippo Jnr had finished his 6th over (the match's 12th) the visitors had only 29 runs on the board. He was replaced by Archer who took a useful c+b with his first delivery. And despite the odd short ball that got what was expected of it, he kept damage to a minimum.

However, wickets were hard to come by. Penton finished a good spell and was replaced by James Headley who not only turned up an hour in to the match, but then got hit for 53 runs. No his day clearly. Part time bowler Ian Merryweather (good to have you back matie) turned his arm over too and wasn't too badly punished.

After 45 overs, Sapcote had reached a very useful 170 runs, especially given the state of the pitch.

The 2nd innings was likely to be a tough one but skipper Mark Russell decided to take the bull by the horns and knocked the wind out of the Sapcote bowlers from the start. The match was slowly getting away from them and a win was extremely likely by about 20 overs on when Russell got his 50. He eventually fell to a double bouncing pie from one of their least preferred bowlers (and to a man they were quite poor) and chipped it about 12 feet away to the waiting hands of a short mid wicket. Good knock though.

The rest of the boys played their part too. Ian Merryweather hit a useful 19 before being taken by a great catch, also at mid wicket. Lee Durham's 26 in his first match for the Two's helped carry us over the line without looking like giving his wicket away. A good off cutter finally got his bails off. The very same delivery that took out Ryan Walker not too long after. Kelvin Creasey left the field on a blob after being ran out, although he thought he'd made it back. Finally Rich Stenning hit the final 10 runs to win the match and send the Sapcote seconds back home. Via the pub.

It was a good game to watch and we would never have expected 340+ runs on a pitch like that one.

Still, both teams wanted to win and although the visitors got rather playful at the end as they were staring down the barrel of yet another smoking gun, a good natured match was enjoyed by all.

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