INFAMOUS BASTON COLLAPSE REARS ITS UGLY HEAD

By Jon Howard - May 15 2007
INFAMOUS BASTON COLLAPSE REARS ITS UGLY HEAD
UGLY HEAD
Dear, oh dear, oh dear, these match reports are actually beginning to affect my natural ambience. Monday mornings at work are tough enough as it is, writing about Baston’s cricketing efforts this season is sending me spiralling into deep depression.
The first home game of the season brought the visit of carrot crunchers Spalding, Baston won the toss and on an overcast day with a woefully unprepared pitch Baston skipper Dyer put the visitors into bat.

A combination of some tight bowling, extremely negative batting and generous fielding helped Spalding crawl to 114 for 6 of their allotted 45 overs.

Although the Baston fielding in general was tidier this week…and stop me if I’m contradicting myself, they still managed to shell five fairly regulation catches. Totting up the runs these batsman went on to score having been given a life amounted to 39 runs. Put that along side the totally unnecessary head high beamers and long hops the Cuntingham brothers kept feeling the need to bowl Baston could have been chasing under 70.

Staziak and Newman were the stand out bowlers for Baston, Stasiak bowling ten straight overs opening the bowling for a miserly eight runs including five straight maidens. Newman proved again what a handy addition the all-rounder could be to Baston this year taking three wickets and moving himself up to third in the fantasy player points table.

Some would argue that ageing Spalding opener East assessed the pitch perfectly and played a very intelligent controlled innings guiding his team to a total that turned out to be far and beyond Baston’s capabilities as he scored his 25 runs from 36 overs.

The Baston batting line up however believed East had assessed the pitch all wrong and free scoring should be a doddle. Simply to block only really really good balls and then just pick even numbers out of the rest which shots to play seemed the way forward.

The pitch contained certain demons but no more than the ones East and his team-mates had to contend with. Chasing a very modest total, up against some decidedly average bowling Baston collapsed from the word go.

You may have heard this old adage before somewhere but apparently ‘good batsman should never get bowled’. Five of the Baston batsmen were bowled, that’s twelve in the last two games.

Long time servants Townsin and Bibb were brought back into the side this week to bolster the top order, that’s a joke. Bibb went in the second over followed by Newman in the third, when Cunningham was caught in the covers hanging his bat out like some sort of fairy Baston were 9 for 3 in the seventh over and the writing was on the wall.

Townsin held on for twenty overs to tot up a mammoth 12, which was of substantial relief to some as he narrowly edged out extras to top score, the first time a Baston batsman had achieved this monumental feat this season.

Chasing 114 for 6, Baston dribbled to an insignificant, trivial, frivolous, pathetic, shabby, threadbare, paltry, dismal, depressing, not worth mentioning, feeble…what was I talking about…oh yeah…Guy...err no…37 all out.

Another 3 points in the bag, they all count I suppose.

For further match reaction please click on the link below for the next edition in Townsin Diaries. To keep up to date with 'Tubs blog' keep your eye on his link on the side menu.