Stanton-by-Dale, 8th July 2007
Posted Sunday, July 8, 2007
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Sunseekers 175 for 6 (40 overs)
v Stanton-by-Dale 136 all out (34.4 overs).
Sunseekers won by 39 runs
The sun finally shone during the worst summer any of us can remember and the Seekers finally grabbed their first win of the season.
And it was a tremendous game, much closer than the winning margin would suggest. In fact, up until an inspired piece of fielding by Sam Taylor, we were probably inching towards defeat.
Useful and steady as our innings card looked, with four of the top five batsmen notching 25 or above (Wenn 34, Bennett 25, Nicholls 37, Gibb 32), there was a nagging feeling that our 175-6 was probably 15-20 runs short of a winning total.
Especially when we had just the one recognised frontline bowler in our XI. Even more especially when the opening Stanton batsman opened his shoulders and clouted our one recognised frontline bowler back over his head in the first over.
Luckily for us, Fred was just starting one of his most inspired spells of swing bowling, which would see him bowl 17.4 continuous overs from one end throughout the innings. The big-hitting opener was his first victim, falling for 6.
With Carl bowling tidily from the other end and the Seekers looking remarkably sharp in the field (fresh from the enforced midsummer break) we managed to keep the run rate down, although the Stanton batsmen were able to pick off a boundary in pretty much every over.
Our second main breakthrough saw the useful-looking No2 batsman A.Taylor risk a single from a shot straight at Duncan Gibb. And, as the batsman was sent back by his partner, Dunc's accurate throw to Robin saw another dangerman heading back to the pavilion.
By now Fred was working magic tricks with the ball, bamboozling a succession of Stanton batsmen, but S Mistry was taking it out on the support bowlers, with Sam and Brian coming in for some harsh treatment. And the winning target kept getting smaller and smaller.
But, crucially, wickets kept tumbling, including a 'hit wicket' to Fred, while Sam weighed in with two wickets including that of a hoiker, who holed out to Steve at deep midwicket after bashing a few runs.
We needed to either get Mr Mistry out or keep him off the strike. And Mr Mistry knew this which was why he gambled on a second run with the ball at Sam's feet out at mid off.
It needed a good throw from Sam to Fred over the stumps ... what it got was a low exocet that cannoned into the only stump Sam could see, scared the hell out of Fred and left Mr Mistry yards out of his ground. A fantastic piece of fielding.*
We knew the game was ours if we could just keep our heads.
Fred dutifully cleaned up with the final two wickets to finish with brilliant figures of 17.4-5-40-6 and the MOTM award.
Stanton were gracious in defeat and the game had been played in exactly the right spirit. Another excellent tea, great facilities and a lovely setting on one of the few proper summer days of the year.
SN
* for the record, this was in marked contrast to Sam's high exocet that flew over the wicketkeeper's head and went for four overthrows during this author's solitary over in the previous game against the Jolly Sailor at Hemington
