A midday start, due to the England football following the game, saw the boys setting off early on Saturday for the crunch battle against Goring.
With both Goring and Emmbrook securing wins last weekend, Farley saw themselves slightly cut adrift at the bottom of the Division One Table.
As Goring had not played at Farley for a number of years, there was the predictable late arrival for several of their team. In the meantime, Skipper had sensationally broken his losing streak by winning the toss. As he strutted off the field he was firmly put in his place by John Cox who reminded him that he had NOT won the toss – rather Goring had lost it.
In a reversal of strategy, Farley decided to make first use of what looked like a cracking wicket by batting first. With another supposedly strong batting lineup at their disposal, Simon was once again asked to open the batting alongside Ross. The ball was swinging in the early afternoon conditions so, despite Goring being short in the field due to the late arrivals, runs were initially hard to come by.
Simon then was undone with a piece of bad luck. The ball rapped him on the pads but was clearly missing the stumps by some distance so no appeal was warranted. However the ball ballooned up and over the batsman – seemed to change direction in mid-air – landed, and then gently rolled into the stumps. Bowled for 4.
Richard came out to the wicket earlier than we had intended and had to endure a ball that was still moving around. After a lovely boundary through midwicket, he nibbled at an away swinger and was snaffled up at slip for 8. Once again Farley had the batting wobbles.
Matt joined Ross and they looked to re-build, working their way through to the 13th over before a change of bowling saw Ross immediately edge a delivery to the keeper for 16. Farley were 48 for 3.
Trevor joined Matt and immediately looked more comfortable against the medium paced deliveries than he had against the spin from the previous week. Another change of bowling was very much to Matt’s liking and twice he swivelled and deposited the ball high over the backward square leg boundary to give the runrate a real lift.
The sidelines then let out a collective sigh of relief as the two started to put Goring to the sword. Goring turned to their left arm spinner who started to slow proceeding down with a nice line and length. But Farley continued to pepper the boundary at regular intervals and the talk from the boys was of a massive score of 250+, with 230 seen as par on this wicket. Matt crunched his way past 50 by depositing the ball into the trees on the far side of the ground and suddenly the boys were talking 270+…
Our optimism was short lived however, as Trevor looked to take charge of another new bowler but could only slap a wide delivery straight to cover – out for 35, Farley were now 138 for 4.
The nerves on the sidelines were evident as Pete strode to the middle – determined to score his first run for the club after three consecutive ducks. A mighty roar was soon let out as he advanced to the spinner and placed the ball wide of mid on for his first run. He then got to rest on his bat at the other end as Matt went ballistic. Suddenly figuring out that his timing was good enough to clear any boundary with considerable ease – he decided that the slow left armer had to go. He launched two of the final three balls of the over into the trees at long on and then, with the spinner kept on to try and induce a mistake, did the same with the next 3 balls – bringing up a stunning century in the process.
With 10 overs still to go Pete was caught behind for 5 but with Farley on 184 for 5 and Matt in full flow, the boys remained confident of a mammoth score. Duncan joined Matt and the score soon passed 200, but the return of the opening bowler brought Farley shuddering to a halt.
Matt’s inning ended at 120 when he was caught behind – 204 for 6.
Duncan, looking to push the run rate on, followed immediately – caught at mid on for 2. 204 for 7.
Greg was instructed to bat himself in for an over or so before launching his trademark slap shots, but in a effort to play defensively he succeeded only in guiding a ball to point to be caught for 0. 204 for 8.
With Potts not ready to bat due to the rapid fall of wickets, John Cox strode to the wicket to join James. With 5 overs still to go, the pair played two overs of resolute defence in order to get a feel for the pace of the track. The signal came from the sidelines for James to start hitting out with 3 overs remaining – but the first ball was struck straight to mid on and James was out for 0. 204 for 9 and Farley had lost 4 wickets for the grand sum of no runs.
Potts came to the middle with the team aware that he had NEVER batted in a Farley Hill victory (or even a winning draw) before. The omens were not looking good! However he managed to swing a ball to the fine leg boundary to get the runs moving again. When John Cox was skittled in the final over (attacking on the expressed sideline request by the Skipper), Farley had been bowled out for 211. It was short of the 230 score that was perceived as par, but the boys remained confident that we had at least finally put on a score that our bowlers could attack with.
Trevor and Duncan opened up the bowling and the Goring batsmen immediately looked uncomfortable against the respective swing and pace of our opening attack.
A very sharp chance was grassed in the slips early, but Farley barely had time to lament this fact as the in-swinging pace of Duncan soon became too much for the opening bat as his stumps were shattered. The Goring Number 3 slapped his first ball very confidently through cover for 4 but then decided that EVERY ball had to go – swinging and missing regularly at Duncan .
Trevor joined in by getting the other opener to try and go over the top – succeeding only in hitting it to Richard at mid on who took a nice low catch.
Duncan then figured that bowling straight may well work and the number 3 had his middle stump uprooted spectacularly. Goring were struggling at 16 for 3, however Farley had seen nothing yet. In his next over he simply destroyed the batting – bowling batsmen with the second, fourth and final balls of his over. All of them had been undone by sheer pace, and Duncan had his first ever 5 wicket league haul on his home ground.
Goring were 17 for 6 and Farley Hill were bouncing around in the outfield wondering how they were going to fill in time before the football later in the evening.
Obviously it is never as easy as that, and the Goring Number 5 started a nice counter attack with some lusty boundary blows. The score soon eased past 50 and it was determined that a double change of bowling was required. With Duncan now removed from the attack, he stood at gully quietly reminiscing about his achievement when the very first ball delivered by James induced a high, looping edge straight to him. Waking up as the ball started its downward trajectory, Duncan took two steps in and claimed the easy catch.
John Cox joined James in the bowling attack but Goring continued to bat fluently – the Number 5 bringing up a nice half century as he continued to hit over the field. The Number 9 was clearly rattling James with a strange technique that involved him walking down the wicket as every ball was bowled. However he soon re-discovered his line and length and soon induced a mistake from the Number 5 who drove a low full toss straight to cover where Ross took a simple catch.
With two wickets required, Potts was brought into the attack to try and bring about a rapid end to the game. His two overs were everything we hoped for as he managed one caught behind and a couple of stumpings. At least he would have had Simon managed to cleanly take the ball for any of them…
Instead it was left to John to bowl the final two and finish off the win, in the process claiming his 100th career league victim at home. Goring had made 109 and Farley had won by 102 runs.
Not only was it our first win of the season, but it also saw us climb off the bottom of the table. Our 35 points achieved saw our season tally move up to 79 points – good enough for 8th equal (along with Goring) in the 10 team division.
Dick of the Day Award – Simon manages to win it this week as he became increasingly frustrated with his stumping misses off Potts (while Phil smirked on the sidelines). Probably should have gone to John Cox for his temper tanty at half time, but he will no doubt have plenty of opportunities to win it later on in the season…
Next week sees Farley Hill visit Ibis Mapledurham and the leagues best batting track.
Regds Skip
Match Stats
R Ditchburn 16 S Longfield 4 R Hammond 8 M Salter 120 T Clacey 35 8-1-34-1 P Jameson 5 D Scott 2 8-4-18-5 G Coney 0 J Harvey 0 5-0-18-2 J Cox 0 6.3-0-32-2 Potts 7* 2-1-1-0
