Not such a great day at Sandiacre this time
Posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007
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Sandiacre Town 194ish
Sunseekers 125ish
CC: Your regular reporter could manage only the first 30 overs, and that from the scorebox, for what we hope will now be our annual visit to Sandiacre Town but, despite the negative headline, our mid-July visit can be counted as another social success, if not one on the field. There was nothing especially wrong with this match, apart from us losing, it was just that last year's epic last-ball tie was a hard act to follow.
Sandiacre started horrifically, with three early batsmen providing Sunseekers opening bowlers Karl and Ross with encouragement, one, apparently a decent young bat, aiming the stupidest of hoiks at Karl to get bowled and two others contriving to hit deliveries straight up in the air, one for Sam to catch and one for Kevin.
It got better for Sandiacre from that point, however, as the remaining young opener and his new partner settled down to play more sensibly and add over 100 for the fourth wicket when I had to leave... handing over reporting duties from this point to my colleague Mr Nicholls...
SN: Oh. I thought you saw the whole innings. Well, what I can remember is one of the teenagers scoring a century and them racking up 194ish.
After the usual fantastic Sandiacre tea spread Howard and Mick opened the batting and found themselves facing some pretty accurate and troublesome bowling from the kids.
Howard survived a caught behind appeal, which seemed to spark their young wicketkeeper into sledging mode. Not discouraged by a couple of adults in the side, he then began having a go at Howard for still being in. Howard stuck around for 37, Steve added 30 and Stuart added some valuable runs, but all found themselves in the bizarre situation of being sledged by a 13-year-old.
Sandiacre's hospitality was, as ever, excellent and highly appreciated.
But it was a shame to see that they are actively encouraging and coaching young players to get involved in the practice of sledging. Not least because our games are never considered anything more than social occasions. It's an ugly side to cricket and needs regulations to stop it worsening. We can't just accept it's growth just because everyone else is doing it.
Sorry, seem to have slipped into an Editorial Rant.
Weather was nice, though.
