All week we struggled to find 11 “fit” bodies for the game, only gaining our 10th player on Friday evening.
But that was ok, the beautiful UK weather was going to come to our rescue and give us a much needed rain out.
Saturday dawned cloudy as forecast, with rain on the way. And at 10am the drizzle began and the text messages started to flood in.
Unfortunately, knowing the Farley Hill micro-climate, the Skipper could not convince any of the locals to cancel and so he set off on his long trek to the ground.
The players began to reluctantly arrive as well as the opposition. There was certainly no hurry on Farleys part to get the game underway. However the experienced among us knew that the rain was going to clear just enough to start a game. The pitch had held up remarkably, but as it was on the centre of the square it was deemed that playing on it would ruin the other wickets for the rest of the year. Another good reason to cancel! But curses! Last weeks pitch on the squares edge looked perfectly suitable… all it needed was marking up and we were away… and then the rain stopped.
Skipper rushed inside and informed his Rebellion imbibing team that they had better make this their last. We were on!
All would be well if Farley could just win the toss… which they didn’t.
So at 2:42pm, over an hour later than advertised, the Farley opening batsmen strode to the wicket to commence a 38-over game.
The young Shinfield opening bowler seemed to be getting a push off the boundary fence every time he ran in such was the length of his run up. Not a problem though, as the makeshift opening pair of Ross and Duncan successfully saw off the first over. Then it all went wrong. Giving himself the task of batting thru the innings, Ross quickly succumbed to first slip in the 2nd over – out for 2.
Simon arrived at the wicket well aware that he was Farleys Great Hope for the innings. With the wicket slow and offering variable bounce in the conditions, he and Duncan sort to steady the ship. However with the score on 32, Simon managed to miss the slower ball and was skittled for 15. The sidelines groaned.
Ali arrived at the crease and looked composed as he and Duncan nursed the score through to 55 for 2 at the 19 over drinks mark. Not exactly dominating the bowling, but setting ourselves up for the 150+ target if we could maintain a run-a-ball for the duration.
But the drinks break caused our undoing yet again as Ali was caught and bowled for 10 and Duncan immediately followed – bowled for 23 off what can only be described as a loopy long hop.
Phil decided to take back control of the innings by launching a massive six…. that only made it halfway. He was caught for 4 and Farley had been reduced to 68 for 5.
James was batting well and trying to pick up the odd single, but Potts – having been given the signal by the sidelines to be aggressive – pulled another long hop straight to short fine leg and was caught for 2.
Abdullah managed to quickly run himself out for the second consecutive weekend – this time failing to score. And when James had managed to get himself stumped for 20, Farley were 85 for 8 with the final pair at the wicket.
Naturally Shinfield brought back the opening bowlers to finish the tail, but Victor – in his 2010 league debut – simply stepped inside the first delivery and elegantly flicked it to fine leg. The sidelines cheered!
The comeback was on!
And then John Cox was skittled first ball.
86 all out and we couldn’t even see out 33 of the allotted 38 overs.
At least the tea was nice.
Out we went to see what damage we could do to their batting line up. The dry spell had improved the pitch however – and more importantly, the outfield was now quicker.
Shinfield helped themselves by attacking the ball whereas Farley defended it. With Duncans speed the ball was quickly disappearing to the boundary and the Farley boys realised that it was going to be an early finish.
However Simon sparked the boys up a bit with a nice stumping off John Cox, and Duncan then skittled the other opener to leave Shinfield 26 for 2 from 4 overs.
This brought out their number 3 who tried to hit every ball to Reading . Half the time he missed, half the time he succeeded.
Simon secured another stumping – again off Coxy, but Shinfield surpassed the 87 runs required off a remarkably quick 14 overs and the game was over.
But not before Potts and Abdullah had put the icing on the cake with a couple of sharp dropped catches!
Farley Hill managed a massive 1 solitary point from the game – Shinfield taking home 29 points.
The Skipper takes the Dick of the Day Award for managing to lose a fairly important coin toss.
Next week we have our annual tour. That is – away at the high flying Ruislip Victoria .
Regds Skip
Match Stats
R Ditchburn 2 D Scott 23 5-0-36-1 S Longfield 15 A Jalil 10 J Harvey 20 2-0-7-0 P Guard 4 Potts 2 A Malik 0 V Cheung 1* J Cox 0 6.5-1-42-2 AN Other DNP
