Friendly Inter-Club Match, 29th May 2005, London Fields
Impossibles Beat Improbables
Without a friendly fixture on this Sunday, London Fields arranged an inter-club game - an opportunity for current and new members to take their chances against Colin "Killer" Black's bowling or to attempt to bowl out Vince "The Prince" Croft or Dave "The Pimmster" Pimm.
The match was arranged as a game between teams picked by two members of the selection committee (we meet at 7pm on Tuesdays in Pub On The Park, fact fans, if anyone fancies a pint. Most of the selectors disregard beers bought for them by team members when picking the sides for the weekend, but we still accept pints if bought on the off chance). So it was that Gully's Galacticos took on Wyatt's, er, team on Sunday at London Fields.
After some horse trading over the respective sides in the pub before the game, we arrived at two reasonably well balanced sides, with a mixture of club stalwarts and new members on both teams.
Gully managed to lose the toss and was forced to bat for the shortened 30 over game (we wanted to finish and get in the pub at a reasonable time).
Opening batsmen Dave Pimm and new boy Rhodri put on a decent 23, before Rhodri was caught off last week's hero Vince's bowling having put on 12 from his three scoring shots. Dave followed soon after, bowled by Drew for 4, before Chris and Tony came together for a decent partnership of 22.
However, first Tony and then Chris fell, to leave captain Rob "Gully" Harries and Mark Nuttall at the crease. These two put on 41 and 13 respectively for a stand of 73 before Gully was LBW to Donny. New chap Neil arrived at the crease for his first game in some years (OK, 15, I think he said) and acquitted himself well with a couple of singles and a pair before being caught by Colin.
Captain Rob Harries had held back some of his big guns until the end, and Paul Turley (see last week's Hackney Gazette "Turley On Target" story) and Nick Beech blasted a quickfire 31 to round off the team's 30 overs on 183 for 7.
In reply, Andy Wyatt's team struggled to match the required pace, Paul Turley removing opener Nick Isaac and 3rd batsman Grant Straghan with successive balls, and narrowly failing to complete the hat-trick when the next batsman Will Isaac missed an edge to slip with all the fielders very close to the bat.
New boy Adam Stevens also bowled well with an opening spell of 1 for 16 off his 3 overs, as did old boy (well, he is retired) Tony Tedore with 2 for 11 off his 5 coming on as first change bowler. After an erratic first over, Chris Skinner also bowled well to record figures of 1 for 10 off 4 overs, as did Rob Harries (without the erratic first over) with 1 for 8 off his 2, including the caught and bowled of Drew, which ended the match and left opposition captain Andy Wyatt stranded on 0 not out.
After the game, which ended at a very civilised 6pm, we all adjourned to the Pub On The Park for a beer or seven and a chat about the ills affecting the world today, including the relative merit of playing Bangladesh, whether London Fields would have had a chance of beating Bangladesh if they'd invited us to use the spare day at Lord's on Sunday, and also the rudeness of my match report about Vince from last week. Happily, we agreed on everything and everyone went away smiling. Or drooling.
Oh, and Man Of The Match was "Extras", for his spirited 72 runs in Gully's team's innings.
Anyway, here's the scorecard:
Rob Harries' XI Batting:
| Batsman | Scoring | How Out | Bowler | Total |
| Dave Pimm | 4 | bowled | Drew | 4 |
| Rhodri | 444 | caught Colin | Vince | 12 |
| Chris S | 4421 | bowled | Colin | 11 |
| Tony | 12 | bowled | Grant | 3 |
| Rob | 4114144444442 | LBW | Donny | 41 |
| Mark | 1114141 | LBW | Andy | 13 |
| Neil | 112 | caught Colin | Drew | 4 |
| Nick B | 12111411 | not | out | 12 |
| Paul T | 1411411 | not | out | 13 |
| Extras | 72 | |||
| Total: 183 for 7 in 30 overs |
||||
Andy Wyatt's XI Bowling:
| Name | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Average |
| Drew | 5 | 0 | 26 | 2 | 13 |
| Vince | 3 | 0 | 21 | 1 | 21 |
| Colin | 4 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 8 |
| Grant | 4 | 0 | 17 | 1 | 17 |
| Donny | 4 | 0 | 24 | 1 | 24 |
| Paul D | 3 | 0 | 23 | 0 | - |
| Andy W | 4 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 15 |
| Will | 3 | 0 | 19 | 0 | - |
Andy Wyatt's XI Batting:
| Batsman | Scoring | How Out | Bowler | Total |
| Coin | 1444 | caught Rhodri | Adam | 13 |
| Nick | 14344 | bowled | Paul T | 16 |
| Grant | quack | bowled | Paul T | 0 |
| Will | 2414 | bowled | Nick B | 11 |
| Vince | 411 | LBW | Tony | 6 |
| Donny | 11142442 | caught Adam | Tony | 19 |
| Drew | 144144 | caught & bowled | Rob | 18 |
| Paul D | 1111314 | LBW | Chris | 11 |
| Andy W | - | not | out | 0 |
| Extras | 26 | |||
| Total: 109 all out in 22 overs |
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Rob Harries' XI Bowling:
| Name | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Average |
| Paul T | 4 | 0 | 29 | 2 | 14.5 |
| Adam | 3 | 1 | 16 | 1 | 16 |
| Tony | 5 | 1 | 11 | 2 | 5.5 |
| Nick B | 3 | 0 | 21 | 1 | 21 |
| Chris S | 4 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Neil | 1 | 0 | 6 | 0 | - |
| Rob | 2 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 8 |
