Saturday was D-day for the return of the veterans! The average of the team rocketed as 2 of the seniors re-emerge, relegating Kev to the younger ranks. Both having tenuous, celebrated sporting connections, Ray Clive Dyal, a compatriot of the great Clive Lloyd and John Pops Fosten, whose Dad nearly signed for Spurs! In a rearranged game against New Ash Green both made there mark. The promised thunderstorms failed to materialise and the afternoon saw the ground bathed in warm sunshine and the persistent calling of marauding parakeets. No Miles this week as he had abandoned us for a trip to some leaque game! Unusually, Park, fielded first. Missing 3 players to start, left plenty of spaces for runs but we coped. Having not picked up a ball since early last September, Pops was asked to open the bowling along with Chat. A few rusty overs in and Pops managed to get one past the opener and the first wicket fell. Chat was bowling his usual tight lines without reward and Nick was doing his best in the field,throwing himself in all directions, adding to his collection of bruises. the fall of the first wicket brought in a muscular number 3 who showed his intent by heaving Pops into the trees. Our outstanding players eventually arrived including Ruwan and a man in a woolly hat! Ruwan decided to get into the game by taking out the bowler with an attempted throw at the stumps, straight out of the Anil fielding book. From a short distance he hurled the ball in the vague direction of the stumps only to connect with Pops who just had time to get one hand up to deflect to ball and save a worse bruise. However this act gave the batsman some form of false notion. JF was replaced by Kev bowling his mixture of flight and guile and the bat seeing a shot guided in the direction of Ruwan, went for a single. Ruwan pounced and this time demolished the stumps for a great run out. Runs were easy to score on a slow wicket but wickets were taken regularly with Chat getting reward eventually, Barry having success with 2 and Chris weighing in with 1 bowled. The only catch to hand was taken by JVS behind the wicket to remove their skipper for 88. Tea arrived with New Ash Green on 187-6. Bowling stats; Chat 13-3-33-1, JF 9-1-40-1, Kev 5-1-38-0, Barry 9-1-43-2,Chris 4-0-29-1. Park started slowly against accurate bowling. The first 2 wickets fell to LBW and Ruwans brief innings of Biff,bash,bosh,oops left us well behind the rate. Nick stuck at it gamely including wearing one on the helmet and adding more bruises. Chat started well but fell pushing and Ray was a little unlucky! Having been given not out when pretty close,next ball, the umpire decided the ball ,having hit Ray above the pads, was dropping and gave him out LBW. Enter the man in the woolly hat,Shanka. Not expecting to play but agreeing to make up the numbers, he hit the ball with some style and when falling, had added 37 very valuable runs to the score. Wickets continued to fall and when Pops, adopting the Miles batting position, joined Kev, 6 overs were still to be negotiated to gain a hard fought draw. Not too many scares until the final over when first ball, Kev thinking he was playing with Usain Bolt, called a quick single. Fortunately the throw was not of the Ruwan class and we survived. The final total was 137-9. Batting stats; Anil 9, JVS 4, Ruwan 16, Nick 5, Chat 26, Ray 5, Shanka 37, Barry 8, Kev 6 no, CF 0, JF 12 no. Adjournment to the 5 Bells with friendly opposition led to a few delightful beers in good company.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 11:53:03 +0000
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