Match Report

Scrummagers v Anite
Wednesday 8th June 2011

The Scrummagers have been enjoying an enjoyable season but made the trip to Minley in apprehensive mood having lost easily to Anite in the Cup earlier in the season. With a number of Scrummagers away on holiday and business this was a new look side, with Chris Penn, Joe Lyver and Wogan all making their debuts.

In time honoured fashion the Scrummagers won the toss and elected to bowl first, despite only having 8 players there at the start. Fortunately Wogan’s young daughter (who is a much better cricketer already than her dad) was on hand to field impressively for a few overs until the late arrivals turned up. Adam Pailing opened the bowling with three dot balls in his first over, and at the other end Wogan floated the ball somewhere near the stumps only to find the batsmen starting to find their form.

Sandeep had smashed 25 runs when Ashley Jeggo took a good catch to give Wogan a debut wicket, and although all of the bowlers conceded runs, the run rate on a small pitch was nothing exceptional. Not exceptional that is until Brown tried to bowl, with a combination of wides, fours and sixes hurtling Anite towards an impressive total. Fortunately for the Scrummagers each player is only allowed a maximum of 2 overs, and there was an audible sigh of relief as Brown finally managed to deliver his last ball without conceding any more runs.

The game now changed as some brilliant catching by the Scrummagers saw them wrest back the initiative. Chris Penn took two catches, one of which saved the plastic surgeon from spending some considerable time in repairing his face, and Ashley Jeggo also took a second catch. Tom Harris bowled well, but Steve Hopper took the bowling honours by clean bowling two batsmen, and then having a third out plum LBW shortly afterwards. Kish and Chesty Harding then followed Hops’ example by clean bowling a batsman each, allowing Sukhi to return after having retired on 38 runs. Fortunately for the Scrummagers Anite’s Number 11 decided to take on a suicidal run and was duly run out, leaving Anite all out for 153 in the 18th over.

There was much showing of teeth as the Scrummagers left the field as they believed that the total was well within their grasp on a small pitch. Lyver (35 retired) and Penn (7) opened the innings and looked the part until Penn was clean bowled by Saroj. Shortly afterwards Adam Pailing was bowled, but Ashley Jeggo and Lyver kept the scoreboard moving along until Jeggo was run out (clearly having inherited his injured dad’s turn of speed!). The Scrummagers now needed to accelerate their scoring to make up for the damage caused by Brown’s bowling, but in Wogan they found a man struggling to heft the weight of the bat. When one talks about a knock when batting one usually assumes that the batsman has played a number of shots, but in Wogan’s case the knock was literally the one time he hit the ball out of about 20 attempts!!!! Kuldeep did the decent thing and bowled Wogan to put him out of his misery, but despite a good 20 runs from young Ollie Brown, the Scrummagers were now behind the required rate.

Steve Hopper swishes and missed his way to15 before being bowled, but with Brown and Tom Harris going cheaply it fell to Kish and Chesty Harding to play through to the end of the innings. At stumps the Scrummagers had scored 137 runs for the loss of 8 wickets, ending up 17 runs short of their target. The result was disappointing for the Scrummagers but great credit to the way Anite bowled and fielded to get them a win when the odds had seemed to be in the Scrummagers favour. What was also good was to see a number of the Anite players sharing a drink in the bar afterwards, with the real winner being social cricket.

 

Score:
Anite 153 All out
Scrummagers 137 for 8

Anite MOM:
Kapil (Good bowling off a short run up and 21 runs with the bat).

Scrummagers MOM:
Joe Lyver (Debut knock, retired on 35 runs, and the wicket of the dangerous opposition Captain when bowling).

The Roving Reporter