Wombourne 1st XI away vs Coseley-on-Sea
A top effort all round meant that a good flogging was in store for the boys from the lovely poolside resort of Coseley.
Somehow Clarkey managed to arrive, with Arif, before the warm-up had begun, causing much embarrassment and fund raising from a certain bat-salesman (Calv), although he still managed to beat Greg “The Sherriff” Tompkins (you’ll have to ask Clarkey about the nick-name, no idea!) who decided the quickest way to the ground would be via Bilston. Good on ya Greggy, making up for lost time on the fines there sir.
Anyways, Shorts Snr won the toss and asked Coseley to have first go on what looked a reasonable deck. Their openers weren’t up to much though, and The Big C opened up with yet another LBW decision, with a fair bit of help from the umpy methinks. The other opener perished to Arif, smashing one to Clarkey before there pro/overseas, Nitin, had a brain melt and tried to launch Calv to cow, prompting another rather sharp LBW agreement from the Umpire StrikesBack at the bottom end. Their middle order then proceeded to get themselves out at regular intervals, with only Adam Shermer (son of Andy) showing any resistance with a well made 53. We ended up bundling them out for 101, with the wickets shared around and Clarkey pulling off a VERY sharp stumping to go with his three catches…….. could be another week in the field for me then!
Our reply was delayed by 10 minutes so everyone could raise their core body temperatures back up to a normal level and apply cream to the wind-burn they’d suffered out in the middle (only a select few of the Coseley players required this). Shorts Snr and “The Sherriff” opened up and we looked solid for the first few overs, Greggy picking up a couple of boundaries and Shorts looking solid as usual. However, Shorts nicked what looked a fair seed and Lemming followed his ton and Derbyshire exploits last week with receiving a ripper that came back down the hill at him, and clattered into the top of middle and off. Unlucky pup, you’re gonna get them every now and again!
I went in at 4 with Coseley’s tails up slightly and managed to get a few away while Greggy held up the other end stoically. We ended up finishing the game off with us two down, greatly annoying them with some cheeky singles and me managing to find a gap with just about everything. Some of their slightly less-intelligent players even thought I was the overseas player, even though I’ve been playing against them for the last 6 years.
So, as I said, a top effort all round, the fielding was sharp, the bowling was tight and the batting held firm when we could, and probably would, have made that difficult for ourselves in seasons gone by.
Oh, and a big Thank You to Johnny Russon, for sub-fielding for Brando, who pulled up lame/got taken out by a sniper very early in the piece. It was nice to see Shorts Jnr’s sympathetic view upon Garry’s hamstring pop….. “throw the ******* ball in”!!!
Wombourne Sunday XI vs Wolverhampton University-08/05/2005
Wombourne’s Sunday side got off to a sound start yesterday as they took on a side representing Wolves Uni after Redditch couldn’t make the original fixture.
A side that were, in their own words, “mainly rugby players (!)” in the end ran the Wombourne side close with the game going down to the penultimate over of the game. A 40 over game was the order of the day and Wombourne, as is standard for a Sunday, elected to bat first on a very flat looking track. Edger and Greg Tomkins opened up against two very consistent Uni bowlers who managed to keep things tight from the word go.
The experienced pair of Greg and Edge kept things ticking over nicely until Edger perished-playing all around a straight one from the impressive spinner coming down the hill. Greg kept the board ticking over nicely with Diddy Heath coming and going in the meantime which brought young David “Chesney” Hemming to the crease. With a mix of solid defence and good attacking drives he moved seemingly with ease into the 20’s before perishing as he looked to push the score along. Greg also fell chasing a wide one which saw Postie come to the crease and play some impressive shots in a quickfire 15ish-apologies,not very precise due to lack of a sight of scorebook!).
Other highlights from our innings included a great knock late on from Smudge as Wombourne eventually finished up on 176-9.
A once lovely sunny day had now turned into a blustery cold afternoon as WSW and MBKR opened the bowling for “the ‘Bourne”. Windows finally bowled a straight one to dislodge the Wolves Uni’s number 2 who looked like he could do with a few sessions in the nets. However some “interesting” shots from batsmen 1 and 3 kept the students score ticking over nicely and Wombourne sensed they had a real game on their hands. Eventually Postie got the second wicket if I remember rightly with some tight bowling and by now Edger had begun his top spell of bowling down the hill (more to follow!). At one point the Uni lads were cruising until they lost their number 3 who had made a very unorthodox but steady 60-odd and from here Wombourne began to capitalise. Edger by now was having some real fun as he span his way to 5 (YES…..5!!!!!) wickets and Diddy helped himself to 4 stumpings as the Uni lower order apparently didn’t realise what the crease was for!
However with some stern lower order resistance the students needed 7 to win from 12 balls. Edger was entrusted with the penultimate over and from the first ball the game was won. A smash to the boundary and a hastily ran single resulted in a call for 2 but alas, disaster struck as the Uni No 11 tripped over his stray shoelace and the rest is history.
All in all a fantastic day’s cricket and a top bunch of lads the students were, apart from some bloke going by the name of Cappo who looked about 30 years too old to still be at Uni (sorry mate, had to drop that one in!!!!!).