Full Fixture Information

Result Descriptiom

EMCC 226-5 vs Barford 214-7

Man of the Match

Will Atkinson - fine hundred

Champagne Moment

Will's enormous six into the rushes

Teddy Bear Moment

the collective (non) catching (or dropping) of the team.

Full Match Report

Saturday saw us playing Barford CC in their president's game with the match taking place at Ashorne Cricket Club.

Ali Wheeler had organised a great tour to Warwick and this was the highlight of the matches, a lovely ground with the odd mogul field and slopes in all directions, a great team to play against and a lovely spirit between the teams.

I won the toss and decided we'd bat. A timed game, slightly reduced, was agreed and Will & Ali opened up against some good straight bowling. All was looking good until Ali did something to himself and hobbled off the pitch unbeaten on 10. George joined his son and did the job of a number three in seeing off some fine bowling, but with the score on 55 he was bowled in the 15th over.

I joined Will and we cantered along against a range of good and less good bowling, bringing up the 100 stand before I was out for 35 - 165-2.

Will soon retired having made a fine hundred and Oli C / Oli A / Chris M / Josh H all contributed to getting the score up to 226-5 at tea.

Aaron & Matt opened up after tea, with Aaron bowling comfortably his best spell of the season and ending up 6-2-17-1, Matt - 5-0-18-0 offered the batsmen very little, Tim L 5-1-19-0 and Dave Rees - 6-0-26-0 all bowled well and tightly.

George 5-0-27-1 and Jeff 5-0-19-2 bowled exceptionally well and it was at this point that the catching gremlins took hold and we dropped a series of really bad catches. Josh H twice, me once, Aaron once all dropped catches that were straight to us and we'd back ourselves to catch 9 times out of 10. It was very sloppy and nearly cost us the match.

After the first hour (and 19 overs) Barford were 67-4 and needing 160 off the last 20 overs, their young opener was looking very solid albeit not yet out of 2nd gear.

The next 20 overs went for 147, Oli A and Josh bowling at the end being expensive as finally Barford realised that they might win this game, but it possibly came too late for them - Josh picked up the opener's wicket out for 90 brilliantly (in the context of the game) caught by Tim L on the boundary and it was probably only at that point that it looked like we wouldn't lose the game.

So a draw. I think we probably got away with it - but had we caught any of the catches (I think there were 7 drops) then we would probably have won.

But a lovely match, great hosts, a fine curry, two Bellingham goals, a couple of Tequilas and it was the end of day two of tour.