League Match vs Village CC, 14th June 2008, London Fields

Solid victory and a first century for our new(ish) Friend!
by Alec McCrindle

London Fields 250+ (36 overs)
Beat Village <50 all out

On one of our recent summer days, a game was played against our friends from the Village CC on London Fields. Annoyingly for him, Dave Hickey was apparently suckered into working, so the armband went to Jason Lord who promptly won the toss and decided to have a bat.

First up were the now established pairing of Paul Teasdale and Robin Friend, facing the Village new ball pairing of White and Ireland. Bowling tightly, with swing at one end and seam at the other, the Village did not take long to establish a stranglehold on the game, with the Fields batsmen working hard for any runs while keeping the dangerous bowlers at bay. Several low scoring overs into the game saw Paul T (9 runs) lose his wicket to a fine slip catch (b White), soon followed into the pavilion by his replacement Doug Precey (2 runs) bowled by White.

With disaster looming (and early drinks in the pub beckoning... wait, yeah, that is bad sometimes...) we limped along to 16-2 in the ninth over. Fortunately, Jason Lord was batting soundly at the crease and we managed to avoid losing further wickets, while starting to raise the run rate. This happened slowly at first, and then injury struck! After a night of crowd-surfing and limbo dancing*, Jason Lord's back gave out, leaving him in a large amount of pain and leaving the Fields batting facing further risk. Jason, though, batted on manfully with a runner, and even managed a few sweetly timed boundaries before succumbing to his injuries and handling the reins over to the author of this report.

Fortunately for me, while first-change bowlers were displaying some swing and guile when I joined the party, they didn't quite match up to the openers as a unit, and we started to accelerate the scoring even more. Meanwhile Robin, who had patiently played the part of the Boycottesque opener until now - fending off the quicks while nipping the odd single or two, now emerged a more Haynes-like figure - playing proper cricket shots to all parts of the ground.After a time, the day's earlier troubles seemed a distant memory as we rather quickly put together a 170 run partnership.

We should congratulate the Village here; not a single over saw them lose their enthusiasm as they stuck to their task with excellent spirit in some trying circumstances (their spinner bowling particularly well without much luck).

During these bountiful overs for The Fields, Robin Friend scored his maiden century for the club. Nice work Robin. Everyone at the ground will remember your innings for its dashing correctness and joie de vivre. Watching it from the other side I will remember how often you stole the strike.After I slogged myself out in the final over, followed soon after by Arthur playing a short one-ball-four, next-ball-out innings, we managed over 250, a fine total given the early inning tussle.

In reply the Village started well, but soon got themselves into trouble. The Fields' crack opening bowling, combined with Paul Teasdale's sharp keeping were suddenly making massive inroads into their batting lineup - Simon Yates took three wickets, and a vintage Paul Turley took one, to leave their run chase in tatters.

Their last clear hope of victory was in hands of the ever dangerous White, but Jason Lord sent in Tyrone with a simple goal, get him out. One looooong over, filled with multiple no-balls and one legitimate, magical, out-swinging, off-stump tickling delivery later, White was casting his helmet away on his way from the field, and the job was almost done.

Bar some good slogging from the opening bowler Ireland late on, good fielding and some excellent spin bowling from "magic fingers" Arthur (along with Doug's medium pace) resulted in The Village being bowled out for under 50 for an excellent victory, and we did get some early beers in the end.