As the shadows lengthened on the Leys Ground in Cambridge, Lord Bob Percy Hall, clad in his Union Jack [rescued from the embers of Hyderabad] batted purposefully for a draw, which was achieved with England at 100 odd for 9, chasing Pakistans 163 all out. This denouement was preceded by an epic display of fielding by England, who took 9 catches to dismiss Pakistan on a hard flat pitch that is the best in Cambridge.
IN THE FIELD:
Aided by our usual showery start - described by Q to the their opening bat as a "perfect English summer's day" we gave their openers an easy start, but this was brought back by tight bowling from the "Devon Destroyer" Deni Mathews, Olly [the umpires enemy] Moore finding his range and Charles Prior - shaking off an overnight disagreement with the lasagne - all bowling a tight off stump line. We had them 63 for 2 at the halfway point, but our bowling suffered in the second spell. But the catching was immense.
- the "leaping salmon" award goes to Jay who held a diving blinder at mid off - he is really beginning to understand the team ethic and the need to "leap like a salmon and go down like a wounded buffalo", and has completely forgotten the woeful simplicity of his catching style from earlier in the tournament.
- Mat Gullick made two skiers to long on look simple
- we held two sharp caught and bowled and Q took another in the deep
- Your correspondent GO took one in the deep, and celebrated with a double Harbajan roll [afterwards he was told by our opponents "we thought you were injured" -until the Harbajan roll was explained to them]
- but our star player was Jarod, who held 3 catches, one of which was running across the sightscreen at long off and which was of test standard - high above his shoulders on the run, and hard hit. He is clearly our best fielder, in a team that now really competes in the field. We have a good selection of deep catchers, good short men for the singles and Jamie Williams to keep the lads entertained... He performed an impressive log-rolling impersonation at mid off whilst executing one stop.
Pakistan batted well and low down the order all hitting purposefully, but their score of 163 was gettable off 30 overs
BATTING:
This did not get off to a good start. Jarod played on again, Mat Gullick got a steaming yorker that did him first ball, and the pride of Wales kept out the hat trick ball, only to run himself out 10 minutes later. At 20 for 3 things got worse when Doddy's bad run continued with a first baller and both Q and Jay fell trying to push things along. Their openers bowled a tight, pacy line and the Pakistanis are always dangerous when their tails are up. At 50 for 6 Charles Prior and Olly Moore staged a mini recovery before Charles fell, bringing your correspondent to the crease. The gentle sledging picked up a notch as I was greeted with shouts of "that bat looks an antique" [it is and belongs to Mat] "I am looking forward to reading about your dismissal on the blog tomorrow" and "do you have insurance?"
Just to make it interesting the Pakistan captain brought back their openers. Olly looked good until the curse of the umpire struck again. Chatting to the umpire at the non strikers end, I should have known trouble loomed when he said to me "we must get a move on - I have to feed my dog".
Sure enough a few balls later Olly was hit on the pads by a ball that hit his bat and was going down leg side. Up went the trigger finger like an Exocet.
Into this arena of a dog-loving umpire, worsening light [it now being 8pm], students wandering in front of the sightscreen, and rampaging openers, came the calming influence of Lord Bob Percy Hall. Bob played some elegant nine-iron golf shot punches over cover, and a crisp all-run 4 over mid wicket before wafting outside off stump to their opener. As one the Pakistanis rose for the catch behind, your correspondent must confess he heard some sort of click but there was no discernable movement off the bat. Amazingly the dog-loving umpire resisted this chance to end the fray and reprieved Bob, who clearly felt he had not hit it and remained unmoved. At cover point a rather rotund Pakistani was heard to utter "Oh Bob" in a slightly disgruntled way. This incident persuaded their opener to come in off his super long run at serious pace. Bob described this as "a trifle unsporting", but happily hit another 9 iron for a single with two successive overthrows.
Finally succumbing to their quick bowler, Bob departed to leave Deni to stride in, brandishing the bat he calls "Excalibur!" Then the umpire struck again - despite their only having been 28.5 overs, he decided his dog needed him and said this was the last ball. Undaunted, Deni danced down the wicket to their quick and got a triumphant leg bye.
This draw was achieved despite this being a limited overs match.
In normal circumstances such a "result" would not matter and would go down as a loss, but rumours are reaching us that the South Africans declined to play Australia and may be forfeiting their points.
Watch this space
PS Mat G changed our theme music from Meatloaf to S Club 7. We think this may have been a mistake - bring back Meat we say, and unleash the Bat out of Hell against the South Africans
IN THE FIELD:
Aided by our usual showery start - described by Q to the their opening bat as a "perfect English summer's day" we gave their openers an easy start, but this was brought back by tight bowling from the "Devon Destroyer" Deni Mathews, Olly [the umpires enemy] Moore finding his range and Charles Prior - shaking off an overnight disagreement with the lasagne - all bowling a tight off stump line. We had them 63 for 2 at the halfway point, but our bowling suffered in the second spell. But the catching was immense.
- the "leaping salmon" award goes to Jay who held a diving blinder at mid off - he is really beginning to understand the team ethic and the need to "leap like a salmon and go down like a wounded buffalo", and has completely forgotten the woeful simplicity of his catching style from earlier in the tournament.
- Mat Gullick made two skiers to long on look simple
- we held two sharp caught and bowled and Q took another in the deep
- Your correspondent GO took one in the deep, and celebrated with a double Harbajan roll [afterwards he was told by our opponents "we thought you were injured" -until the Harbajan roll was explained to them]
- but our star player was Jarod, who held 3 catches, one of which was running across the sightscreen at long off and which was of test standard - high above his shoulders on the run, and hard hit. He is clearly our best fielder, in a team that now really competes in the field. We have a good selection of deep catchers, good short men for the singles and Jamie Williams to keep the lads entertained... He performed an impressive log-rolling impersonation at mid off whilst executing one stop.
Pakistan batted well and low down the order all hitting purposefully, but their score of 163 was gettable off 30 overs
BATTING:
This did not get off to a good start. Jarod played on again, Mat Gullick got a steaming yorker that did him first ball, and the pride of Wales kept out the hat trick ball, only to run himself out 10 minutes later. At 20 for 3 things got worse when Doddy's bad run continued with a first baller and both Q and Jay fell trying to push things along. Their openers bowled a tight, pacy line and the Pakistanis are always dangerous when their tails are up. At 50 for 6 Charles Prior and Olly Moore staged a mini recovery before Charles fell, bringing your correspondent to the crease. The gentle sledging picked up a notch as I was greeted with shouts of "that bat looks an antique" [it is and belongs to Mat] "I am looking forward to reading about your dismissal on the blog tomorrow" and "do you have insurance?"
Just to make it interesting the Pakistan captain brought back their openers. Olly looked good until the curse of the umpire struck again. Chatting to the umpire at the non strikers end, I should have known trouble loomed when he said to me "we must get a move on - I have to feed my dog".
Sure enough a few balls later Olly was hit on the pads by a ball that hit his bat and was going down leg side. Up went the trigger finger like an Exocet.
Into this arena of a dog-loving umpire, worsening light [it now being 8pm], students wandering in front of the sightscreen, and rampaging openers, came the calming influence of Lord Bob Percy Hall. Bob played some elegant nine-iron golf shot punches over cover, and a crisp all-run 4 over mid wicket before wafting outside off stump to their opener. As one the Pakistanis rose for the catch behind, your correspondent must confess he heard some sort of click but there was no discernable movement off the bat. Amazingly the dog-loving umpire resisted this chance to end the fray and reprieved Bob, who clearly felt he had not hit it and remained unmoved. At cover point a rather rotund Pakistani was heard to utter "Oh Bob" in a slightly disgruntled way. This incident persuaded their opener to come in off his super long run at serious pace. Bob described this as "a trifle unsporting", but happily hit another 9 iron for a single with two successive overthrows.
Finally succumbing to their quick bowler, Bob departed to leave Deni to stride in, brandishing the bat he calls "Excalibur!" Then the umpire struck again - despite their only having been 28.5 overs, he decided his dog needed him and said this was the last ball. Undaunted, Deni danced down the wicket to their quick and got a triumphant leg bye.
This draw was achieved despite this being a limited overs match.
In normal circumstances such a "result" would not matter and would go down as a loss, but rumours are reaching us that the South Africans declined to play Australia and may be forfeiting their points.
Watch this space
PS Mat G changed our theme music from Meatloaf to S Club 7. We think this may have been a mistake - bring back Meat we say, and unleash the Bat out of Hell against the South Africans
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