Friendly Match vs Camberwell Beauties, 15th June 2008, London Fields

Fields Win Ugly Against Beauties
by Chris Skinner

A game of twists and turns saw London Fields emerge as one wicket winners in a great team performance.

After losing the toss and bing forced to field first, Ryan Dunn might have left the opposition skipper regretting his call, with two wickets in his first over. With Ryan picking up a further wicket, and ably supported by Grant and Tony, scoring was slow and the pressure was building up. Travis and Dave also bowled tight spells with little reward, and Chris, Colin and Shannon chipped in with a wicket each (Colin dismissing their opener when on 77. [The opener, not Colin - ed]). Ryan later returned with his fourth to round off a great spell in the field. Despite a late acceleration, a score of 163 seemed a little short on a good looking pitch.

Of course, we decided to make things a little difficult for ourselves. Matt, Vince, Colin and Dave all fell early on, despite each one showing some good touches. Steve stopped things falling too far apart with a good 29 before being run out. A quick 17 from Chris added to the ebb and flow and we had half the runs for the loss of half our wickets at the half way stage.

A second collapse didn't help matters as wickets fell to a new Camberwell Beauty, whom the undermanned team had recruited from the park. With boundaries flowing, run rate was never going to be a worry but 9 down and needing 20 still we looked doomed. Number 11 Ryan was then dropped, leaving bitten nails and much noise from the sidelines before Shannon decided to step up a gear and spanked some great shots under pressure, winning the match with 3 and a half overs to spare. His 35 not out was our top score.

Amazingly, we then went to the pub.

Here's the scorecard:

Camberwell Batting

Batsman	Scoring	How Out	Bowler	Total
Redmond		caught Tony	Colin	77
Martin		bowled	Ryan	4
Crawford		Bowled	Ryan	0
Redmond		Bowled	Ryan	4
Arnott		Bowled	Tony	1
Gordon		Caught Vince	Chris	6
Spittles		not	out	32
Crawford		Caught Vince	Shannon	18
Laurie		Caught Colin	Ryan	0
Altaf		not	out	0
			Extras	21
			Total	163-5

London Fields Bowling

Name	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Average
Grant	4	0	22	0	-
Ryan	7	2	23	4	5.75
Tony	5	0	19	1	19
Travis	5	1	15	0	-
Dave L	5	0	17	0	-
Chris	3	0	28	1	28
Colin	3	0	21	1	21
Shannon	3	0	16	1	16

London Fields Batting

Batsman	Scoring	How Out	Bowler	Total
Steve F		Run	Out	29
Matt T		lbw	Dave	1
Vince		Caught	Peter	6
Colin		Bowled	Altaf	9
Dave L		Bowled	Dave	9
Chris		Caught	Steve	17
Shannon		not	out	35
Travis		Bowled	Altaf	9
Grant		Bowled	Altaf	6
Tony		Bowled	Martin	8
Ryan		not	out	1
			Extras	30
Total 164 in 31.3 overs