Friday 10 June 2011

2011 - Game 5 - Sat 04/06 - KSCC 1s v North Newton

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are not big enough.  That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Biffer Zone."

After the disaster of the previous week, KSCC were desperate to get back into winning ways.  After winning the toss on the second attempt, Your Brave Leader (TM) elected to bat on a pretty good track that looked to have some runs in it.  From the boundary, the wicket looked superb...standing out white against the intensely green grass.  Lovely place to play cricket on its day our ground.
El Capitan started solidly, with some drives through mid off and cover.  However, Sammy G had left his fluency pants at home and was struggling against the swinging ball early on.  Things were still going well though, when El Capitan had a more-frequent-than-it-should-be brain explosion and managed to run himself out trying to sneak a non-existent and unnecessary single from a misfield.  The Anternator strode out to the middle for the first time in 2011 and immediately looked to dominate the bowling.  Sammy was still playing at ghosts at one end while Ant played some classic power drives that nearly left vapour cones in the air.  However, both followed their captain’s lead and handed their wickets away.  Sammy found himself run out and Ant swung wildly towards cow corner only to have the very sharp young keeper whip the bails off.  Livewire played a couple of trademark pull shots to show some form, but then he was also bowled in his trademark dismissal, playing back to a full straight one.  Biffer Burles and Rayzzo then buckled down to try and form a partnership.  While Razor battled away for his runs, Biffer Burles started to open up and play his back foot drives...those ones that would possibly set the pages of a cricket text book on fire if they were ever written down.  His innings was highlighted by a thunderous (very) straight six that flew beyond the boundary by a mile and landed on the roof of Tommy Reid’s car, which will bear the scar of its encounter with Burles Cricket forever more.  The chase for late runs began, but the charge never really came and KSCC lost wickets instead.  Duncan was stumped for a well made 67 (or less accurately, for 76) to stand out as the innings of the innings.  In the end, KSCC finished on a sub-par 207/9 where a score of 250+ was hoped for.
It would be up to the formidable KSCC bowling unit to do the damage.  Early on, North Newton made steady if unspectacular progress.  Snooky was bowling OK and Tommy B was doing well to maintain a disciplined line.  The openers started to attempt to up the tempo but were thwarted when Tommy B found his way through Number 1 with his first in game execution of his new split finger slowwy.  North Newton were looking on target at that point, with an opening partnership of 52 from 12 overs.  A surprised Livewire Benny was thrown the ball for a spell and he duly delivered a wicket maiden in his first over, having the threatening left hand opener caught behind.  The Golden Boy Freddie Barton then waded into the fray to completely turn the game KSCC’s way.  His fourth and fifth overs were wicket maidens.  Ant took a well watched catch at cow corner, standing exactly where his captain put him.....in a hole.  Tommy B looked as super-casual as ever taking a catch at cover, a rare occurrence against the prodigious turn generated by Frieber.  Another three wickets were garnered as he turned the ball a mile to slip through the gap created by an inexperienced batting lineup that intended to drive him all afternoon.  The Destroyer then chimed in from the other end to bowl all sorts of stuff, disappearing for a couple of mighty sixes while also picking up the last 3 wickets.  The last man was bowled with the last ball of the 37th over just as a forlorn Tommy Reid, who had been warming up for about 20 overs, prepared to mark out his run.
In the end it was an easy victory, but we were still less than convincing for large periods of play.  Our batting unit in particular needs to fire, considering we bat all the way down and have a fair bit of talent in there.  Still...35 points is 35 points and we sit second on the SCL Div 2 table....behind Middlezoy.

Batting:
            D Burles           67
            A Williams         40
            C Hansen          24

Bowling:                       o          m         r           w
            F Barton           12         3          40         5
            S Churchill        5          2          23         3
            T Barton            7          1          16         1
            B Chant            7          1          20         1

2011 - Game 4 - Sat 28/05 - KSCC 1s @ Middlezoy

Sport and politics shouldn’t mix, but that is not to say that they don’t share certain qualities.  While F1 teams argue vigourously about who won’t be going fastest around the Bahrain circuit later this year, I can’t help but look to other sporting events and political discussions closer to home.  Like watching a Coalition government play National Health System (3rd Edition Rules), anyone familiar with watching sporting events will have observed that amazing phenomenon of two teams playing the same game to seemingly different rules or intents.  Barcelona and Man U in the Champions league comes to mind, or the famous clash of Grandmaster Valery Checkhov and Anti-Chess World Champion Howard Breem in 1986, or the tragic events at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer when Chinese figure skater Li Chang suffered multiple injuries after a body check from USA Ice Hockey player, Jimmy Bigstix.
Rivals Middlezoy, who have won KSCC’s division two years running to be official promotion buddies, were sent in and got off to a quick start.  Tommy B fought back with a few good overs, but The Strangler couldn’t get in his rhythm and steadily leaked runs without going for too many.  Snooky made the early break through to bring in Harry Roberts, who looked to continue the quick start.  A double bowling change saw El Capitan wheel himself out after spending much of the week bowling poorly in the nets but insisting all the while that he would get Harry out.  It took 3 overs to get a crack at him, but only 3 balls to remove the dangerous left hander who has spent much of the last 2 years pummelling runs from the KSCC spinners.  Middlezoy were still making runs however, until the introduction of Tom Reid who bowled a superb 6-over spell.  He and The Destroyer restricted the Middlezoy scoring in the middle overs, while Tom claimed 2 wickets.  However, the opener Troman was still at the other end providing resistance.  Tommy was brought off to bring on The Golden Boy in the hunt for wickets, which proved to be an interesting decision by the captain as Freddie once again disappeared for runs through the short Middlezoy straight boundaries.  Suddenly, Middlezoy were scoring freely...taking runs from Spence as well.  The Strangler was brought back to face Nemesis Barnard, but he also shipped runs at an alarming rate.  However, like a morbidly obese cub scout with an XXL tub of bargain basement marshmallows, El Capitan kept hurling him back into the fire to seriously damage his figures.  Tommy B came back for one over but was blasted as the batsman used his pace against him.  Thus it was left to Your Brave Leader (TM) to bowl the 44th over and belatedly have Troman caught by an athletic Professor Jon Rowe for 89.  Snooky finally got his man, bowling Nemisis for 79, but the damage had been done.  The ball seemed to spend a lot of time travelling to places where the KSCC fielders weren’t, which either says a lot for the Middlezoy batting or not much about the KSCC captains field placement.  KSCC would be left to chase a challenging 275/6.
Middlezoy started tactically, playing two spinners early on to try and sneak some overs in before the real chase started.  However, the plan looked to back fire as Sammy G found gaps and Your Brave Leader(TM) counter punched to kick the innings off at over 5 runs an over.  Barnard eventually brought himself on, but was being handled reasonably well before the captain played a drive straight over a full delivery and had his stumps disturbed after a quick opening partnership of 78.  Rayzzo looked good early but also fell, bowled Barnard.  The Professor struck some delightful boundaries early and it was while I was off looking for the ball after one of those shots , hoping it was not wedged deep in a giant pile of horse manure at the front of the allotments, that the game fell apart for KSCC.  There were multiple appeals and congratulations heard over the hedge as wicket after KSCC wicket fell.  A minor batting collapse turned into a major rout as numbers 5-11 failed to make double figures.  By the time that Tom Barton was left standing on his own at the end of the innings, KSCC had succumbed to be all out for 164 in 36 overs.
A disappointing effort indeed, with the hurt multiplied by some bad blood between the two sides during the second innings.  Middlezoy has been our benchmark over the last couple of years and we shall have to put in a much better effort on the return fixture to ensure that we hand them the same level of defeat later in the year.

Bowling:                               o             m            r              w
                T Reid                 6              2              18           2
                C Hansen            5              0              25           2
                S Snook              11           0              85           2

Batting:
                C Hansen             52
                S Gillatt                 41
                J Rowe                  27