Flies Galore

After a slightly nervous Saturday looking at the pitch, the clouds and the forecast; the Sunday morning pitch inspection showed that despite a wet outfield, with the presence of a towel to dry the ball, the match could go ahead.

The flies appeared to have been busy during the humid weather and every piece of equipment put down was soon covered in them. The weather during the match was overcast and warm and we were fortunate to get the game completed before a patch of rain came in.

The game took place in a slightly unusual atmosphere with some thumping tunes coming from the keep fit class in the netball courts to our left and the regular loud bang of a starting pistol from the athletics event off to our right.

Lily was our captain today, we lost the toss and were asked to bat first. Our wicket keeper volunteers this week were Megan and Lily and I thought both did a great job behind the stumps - because of the way they both managed to stop the ball we kept the opposition byes total down to 3. Whereas in our innings 12 of our total came from byes.

Our opening pair of Megan and Lily started strongly with some good running between the wickets. In their 4 over period we amassed 27 runs with 8 for Megan and 6 for Lily for the loss of no wickets – a solid start.

Our second pair were Lulu and Erin, Lulu scored our only 4 of the innings and again the pair ran well between the wicket – making good use of some wayard bowling/wicket keeping. We did lose our first wicket during this period which pulled the score down a little - the score moved on to 243. Lulu picked up 8 runs and Erin 2 – Erin faced several wayward deliveries which were difficult to hit but not a wide - but the pair still managed score 5 runs - as byes these runs unfortunately do not count against the batters score but do show a good awareness.

Our third pair were Issy and Emily – this was Emily’s first appearance of the season. The pair again made good use of some wayward bowling/misfields behind the wickets - managing to add quick runs where they could and – apart from 1 mix up in the middle were good running between the wickets. The girls took us on to 248 with Issy adding 7 and Emily 2 – we did manage to lose 2 wickets during this period 1 run out and 1 bowled.

Our final pair were Jasmine and Nerys – they played the ball well and worked runs where they could pushing the score on to 258 – we lost our final wicket in the final over of the innings. Jasmine added 4 and Nerys 5.

Overall we lost 4 wickets taking 24 from our possible total. We have had a run out in every match of the season so far and need to work on watching where the ball has gone and evaluating whether there is a run available or not we also need to make sure our calls are loud and clear.

Our final score was 258 and was possibly a low score in the conditions – however there were not a lot of balls there for us to hit and we made the best of what we could.

Our top scorers were Megan (8), Lulu (8) and Issy (7). Our top wicket adjusted scorers were Megan (8), Issy (7) and Lily (6).

Our bowling was largely consistent we did still give away several wides but I think overall it was an improvement on last week. Because of where we are now placing the ball – it is often in a position to be hit and this did mean that Charlie from the opposition was able to plunder 3 4’s and it was these that provided the platform for them to come out on top overall.

Lily had the best bowling figures (2-0-0-6) only going for 6 in total – Lulu (2-0-1-12) weighed in with a wicket - her wicket adjusted figures show she also went for 6. Issy (2-0-0-7) and Emily (2-0-0-7) only went for 7 each. The bowing figures were largely impacted by wether you were bowling to Charlie or not. Nerys, Lulu and Erin all suffered in this way. Lily was the only bowler who prevented him scoring a 4 bowling 5 balls to him and only going for 1 off those 5.

In the final couple of overs the batters were largely just protecting their wickets – the runs were in the bag and the game was theirs.

The game ended with Greens scoring 258 and Wiveliscombe 266.

Overall it was a close game and the key differences between the teams were the 3 4’s they scored and the 4 wickets they took compared to our 1 4 and 1 wicket. Our bowling whilst largely straight perhaps now needs to be delivered with a little bit more venom to make it harder to hit.

The opposition chosen player of the match was Nerys. Stevens player of the match was Lulu - a good batting performance with our only 4 and our only wicket – but it was a close call between Lulu and Captain Lily.