Your Cricket Season

[Jarquis]

Had a pretty abysmal start to the season. Made my Plymouth debut on the 8th iirc. Made 0(6) batting at 3. Got a leg stump half volley and rather than play naturally and put it away I played it a bit tentatively due to the fact I was yet to get off the mark for my new side. Tried clipping it round the corner and got a crappy leading edge.

Followed that up with a golden duck two days later in a T20. Was told the bowler was angling it in, bowled be a jaffa that held it's line and took the outside edge on my back foot punch.

Next game for Plymouth I was dropped to number 8, wasn't required to bat. Took a good catch and then later dropped a sitter at slip. Bowled the final over for 3 runs. My only over to date

My latest game for Plymouth I was nudged up to number 6. Walked out at 60 odd/4 chasing 155 iirc. Thought it was manageable, especially with a usual first teamer down the other end who's recovering from surgery after breaking his arm in 14 places. Not to be. I played out the rest of the over and by the time I next faced a ball we were 60 odd/7. I moved on to 8 and we moved onto 72/7 and then 72/8. We needed 104 for the losing draw so I thought I'd have to get a move on. Got out pulling a ball that hit me on the ankle. Had the pitch done what it should've I'd have been on 12* after that shot. As it was I was plumb lbw and we were 74ao not long after.

Played a game for Liskeard yesterday as Plymouth didn't have a game. Bowled 6 overs 0/37. Could tell I hadn't bowled that much as when I was really trying to rip it I was dragging the ball down. Had 3 catches put down off my bowling and bowled a ripper to their left hander that missed off stump by a coat of varnish. I've taken a few positives from the spell and will be better for it. Batted at 3, moved my score to 4 pretty quickly before top edging a pull which would've gone for 6 on any other part of the ground. Stupid wonky boundaries.

After typing that out, I realise I get out trying to play on the back foot a lot.. bit ****ty.

 

[MW1304]

Good thread this. I shall join in by boring people about my school 3rd team games, of which I only got three before study leave kicked in, and managed to perform woefully throughout (as a team at least).

First game was a tough one against some nearby team. We decided to bat first as always, and make it a 25 over game (cause the guys insist we finish as early as poss on a Saturday). Got a half-decent score (for us) of about 130, with myself contributing the first golden duck of the season batting at 8. Our number 9 managed a cheeky little 31, smashing their spinner to all parts of the field (one six was clocked at a whopping 33 yards). With part one done, I opened the bowling and, whilst not picking up wickets, managed to painstakingly build pressure with consistently menacing line, restricting their batsman with a miserly economy of, like, 6 or 7 (again, for us). Wickets tumbled at the other end, due to my pressure, and we gave them a close run before they inevitably finished the job with a couple of overs left. I was pretty shocking but could only improve from here after my first game (or net, or any cricket in general) in 3 years.

The second game was a tough one against some nearby team. Obviously win toss, bat first, get skittled was our formula. We stuck to this plan in some style, getting done in for 51 despite a monumental first wicket stand of 21. I managed to contribute more to the batting this time, witha gorgeously paced 3 not out off as many balls, although batting at 11 due to my previous embarassment. We had to go out and bowl well to stand any sort of chance, and that we certainly did, picking up two early scalps thanks to our opening bowlers. However, and ominous partnership grew, skittling the target down to within about 15. Of course, I'd been shoved down to second change thanks to a certain aureate aquatic bird, so had very few runs to play with. But I proved the doubters wrong, getting the outswinger going perfectly on a sloped pitch, before taking the leading edge. The silly mid off somehow managed to drop it (tough chance) but the keeper made up for it next ball by snaffling the ball after it clipped the outside edge of his defense. Spurred on from my first dismissal of the season, I troubled the next batsman before giving him a top-of-off-stump pearler, sparking wild...sorry...mild celebrations from the close fielders. Then the new batsman ruined everything by hitting me down the ground for four before wrapping it up against the other bowlers. Disappointing team performance but had to be pleased with the individual effort, selfishly.

Managed to get picked for the seconds next match, but don't wanna talk about how that went...

 

[Neil Pickup]

For today's district game, we had three players in the side who had scored runs at the level before. After 2.4 overs, all three of them had been bowled and we were 12/3. Fortunately we then had four of the middle order stand up and be counted, as a couple of stands (44 for the fourth wicket and 33 for the seventh wicket) helped us grind our way to 114/7.

This, however, proved to be more than sufficient as we took two wickets in the first over, and another in each of the next two, before finishing things off with the scoreboard still reading 31. Job done - looks like Monday's game will be re-arranged as a title shooutout - unless someone does us a favour tomorrow...

 

[Neil Pickup]

An infuriating couple of days... The district boys put in one of the most appalling 60 overs' worth of cricket of the season but still had enough to ease out the U13 county girls - in spite of extras, misfields, overthrows, get-out shots, play-and-misses, dropped catches... you name it.

Today, I came in at 34/1, proceeded to see the remaining opener lose his off stump leaving, and ground my way to 12 before finding a way to spoon a full toss aerially to point. That is now twice this season I've got myself settled and then chucked it away trying to put crap away, and it is immensely frustrating. We made 170 all out, thanks to a last wicket stand of 55, and rotated our bowlers around as Deddington made it to 135/5 with plenty of overs to go. We then gave the ball to our usual opening bowlers and knocked them over for 137 - despite my dropping a thick outside edge (up to the stumps) at 135/6.

The keeper's face mask had its first run out, and I am yet to be convinced.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Appear to be talking to myself here, but whatever. Thursday sees my first captaincy in years, as the staff cricket merry-go-round comes around to my turn. Unfortunately this is a game that's clashing with various meetings, fixtures and commitments, and today has seen plenty of scrambling for players... it looks like we're going to be able to scrape 11. However, it looks like I might be opening the bowling.

Anything could happen.

 

[weeman27bob]

Appear to be talking to myself here, but whatever. Thursday sees my first captaincy in years, as the staff cricket merry-go-round comes around to my turn. Unfortunately this is a game that's clashing with various meetings, fixtures and commitments, and today has seen plenty of scrambling for players... it looks like we're going to be able to scrape 11. However, it looks like I might be opening the bowling.

Anything could happen.

For the record, I actually quite enjoy reading your posts in here.

 

[vicky]

For the record, I actually quite enjoy reading your posts in here.

Agreed.

Love hearing stories of players playing at Park/Village/Club level; I've got plenty of mates who play cricket at various levels; many of whom I've played with at various times who have since gone on to bigger things or down to lesser things but regardless when we catch up during the season (or on the emails on a Monday) the conversation inevitably turns to our respective exploits over the weekends.

The narrative nature of cricket at any level makes always makes for compelling conversation and discussion as against; for example; football where I describe the weekends game as "we lost 3-1; they score first, we equalised then they scored 2 more times. i kicked the ball a few times and made a few tackles."

Would love to see more threads like this (or this thread more active) given the number of regular contributers here who play at some level. For me I'll keep following this thread as a way of getting my amateur cricket fix while I wait for spring to roll back around.

I may even indulge myself and provide a couple of reports of games from last season, time and work permitting.

 

[Outswinger@Pace]

This is a good thread and thought I might contribute a bit. Haven't played professionally since moving to Europe last year.

So, this would be the report of my last club season match from June, 2010 in India. It was the local Maharaja F.S.Gaekwad tournament comprising of two-day matches (90 over limit). We were already out of the competition and this was a dead rubber meant to salvage some pride.

Since, it was my Baroda club career's (played from 2003-2010) last match, I retained the actual scoresheet as a nice memory and still have it with me!

June 3rd week, 2010: Hindu Gymkhana (my team) v/s Kiran More Sports foundation

1st innings
Hindu Gymkhana batted first in the MotiBagh cricket ground renowned for its good bounce. They had quick but somewhat inaccurate opening bowlers so fortunately much damage wasn't done. Our skipper was a very strong back-foot player and made 84 batting at no. 3. Including one of the longest sixes I've seen at that ground (played about 25 matches there) lofted straight over extra-cover!

Our very capable left-arm spinner and no. 6 batsman scored a fluent 51 in 60 balls. He and I managed to add some runs in a crucial late lower-order stand.
Yours truly, batting at no. 9, managed to scratch out 17 in 32 balls in a somewhat awkward fashion. For the umpteenth time, I fell LBW to a medium-pacer's delivery slanting in . We were all out for 255 in 74 overs.

2nd innings
Our bowling was disciplined and opening up, my right-arm fast medium swing and my left-arm partner's pace through the air caused them difficulties. We had them reeling at 27/4 when the two of us finished our opening burst of 12 overs. I got the right-handed opener caught behind off a feather and went through the left-handed no. 3 batsman's gate in the same over. My opening mate got the other two wickets to fall with very good incoming balls.

Their lower-middle order made a recovery of sorts and they managed to tally 131 in 59.3 overs. I got one more wicket (caught mid-wkt miscuing a pull) with the old ball and our super-accurate left-arm spinner picked three. Their veteran keeper with 43* was the highest scorer. He played some delightful strokes between cover and point in his innings, IIRC! Not the first good knock from him that I saw in my club career.


3rd innings

Leading by over 100, we could make them follow on (acc. to tournament rules) and we did. I picked up their right-handed opener for the second time in two innings with the new ball - LBW this time offering no stroke to an off-cutter. This was delivered after three consecutive outswingers, so I was pleased that I set him up for it and it worked. My partner hit them a few times on their ribs and gloves, but was unlucky not to pick up a wicket. There was a first slip catch grassed off him and he went past the bat on a number of occasions!

The two change bowlers - our left-arm spinner and a medium-paced guy - gave them a real scare by picking up 5 wickets in the space of four overs. They held fort after that and finished day two at 91/6 off 33 overs. Once again, their 29-yr-old keeper played with remarkable composure and stayed not out.

We walked away with all the five match points and that was that in the tournament for us. Poor series but a good last match to finish off.

My bowling stats were:

1st inns: 13-2-30-3 & 2nd inns: 7-2-17-1


Our left-arm spinner was the player of the match and nobody was surprised. He had scored a half-century and taken six cheap wickets in the match.

 

[MW1304]

Yeah so I was getting ready to play a match for my school the other day, and Mohammed Amir walks up...

 

[Daemon]

 

[Outswinger@Pace]

Yeah so I was getting ready to play a match for my school the other day, and Mohammed Amir walks up...

I'm assuming that school cricket like Saturday league cricket is outside of the ICC regulations!

 

[Outswinger@Pace]

We made 170 all out, thanks to a last wicket stand of 55, and rotated our bowlers around as Deddington made it to 135/5 with plenty of overs to go. We then gave the ball to our usual opening bowlers and knocked them over for 137 - despite my dropping a thick outside edge (up to the stumps) at 135/6.

Wow! That's outrageous even by South African standards!

 

[ponting28]

starting cricket

Enjoy reading this, i have not started my career for the season. I'm looking for a new club.

 

[Howe_zat]

Whereabouts are you?

 

[Neil Pickup]

All clean bowled, as well.

I've managed to scrape 11 together for tomorrow night, and I've been working on my outswingers in the nets for the last three evenings. It is currently a mixture of beamers, long hops and actual good deliveries - including one that started leg stump, swung in to pitch middle and leg on a length, and then seamed away six inches to take the outside half of the bat and skew to an imaginary gully. Let's see if I keep it to under 10/over.

 

[Outswinger@Pace]

All clean bowled, as well.

I've managed to scrape 11 together for tomorrow night, and I've been working on my outswingers in the nets for the last three evenings. It is currently a mixture of beamers, long hops and actual good deliveries - including one that started leg stump, swung in to pitch middle and leg on a length, and then seamed away six inches to take the outside half of the bat and skew to an imaginary gully. Let's see if I keep it to under 10/over.

Aren't you the wicket-keeper in the side?

 

[hick2010uk]

Out of interest which cricket club runs the most sides on a saturday

Blackheath seems to run 9, does anyone run 10?

 

[Neil Pickup]

Aren't you the wicket-keeper in the side?

Yes, usually, but we're hilariously short. Plus, keeping + captaining is not really the most relaxing way to spend 20 overs. Also I want to bowl for a change... a couple of overs will get that out of my system!

 

[Neil Pickup]

Emeriti 193/0 (18 overs)
Dragon 194/1 (18.3 overs)

Quite possibly the worst bowling and fielding display ever witnessed. My figures were 0/15 off 2 overs, including a dropped catch at cover, and these were the most economical of the night. We had a 12-year-old kid field for us for extended periods as we were a man short, one of our gappers bowled a 14-ball over, and the scorers got so confused that they managed to miss two overs off the oppo's innings, a fact that no one discovered until we were in the bar later.

Unbelievable, Jeff.

 

[Neil Pickup]

I have never seen anything quite like today's game. It was a time/declaration match, played with the last hour (minimum 20 overs) starting at 5:30.

We made 163/9 batting first at a decent enough clip, thanks in main to a 78-run second wicket stand. Their dismissals brought Cheltenham back into it, but a series of efforts down the order helped us along to what was a decent, but eminently fair target off 31 overs on a pitch that had a square boundary that could have been no further than 25 yards.

In reply, Cheltenham started positively (admittedly against a field that looked like it had been set by throwing darts blindfold at a pitch diagram) but when the first wicket fell, at 26 in the seventh over, the shutters went down. We went from one slip, to two slips, to three, to four, to four and a gully, to four and two gullies, and still they wouldn’t make any effort to hit the thing. At 5:55, with the scoreboard reading 64/1, we chucked the ball to one of our change seamers and told him to try bowling off-spin.

By 6:30, we had somehow managed to squeeze 18 overs into the final 35 minutes’ cricket. One bowler returned 9-4-12-1, and the other - the first time spinner - recorded 9-8-6-5, which cannot have been recorded many times before. Ultimately, it wasn’t quite sufficient and Cheltenham ended on 82/7, but it hopefully emphasised a valuable lesson - on the importance of a positive mindset and playing to win.