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The Wimbledon Club - Sunday 24th April 2005
With an unexpectedly fine day, eleven players, an umpire and a scorer all being at the ground well in advance of the 2:00pm start the signs were good for a successful start to the clubs 54th season.
After a discussion with a the opposition captain a 40 over limited over game was agreed with the added twist of their wanting to be able to retire batsmen that got too many runs as they were fielding a lot of batsmen and only 3 bowlers. The track looked like a mid summer belter, had yielded in excess of 500 runs off 80 overs the day before and the sun was shining. A good toss to win then and elect to bat – captain called heads, tails it was.
Gale opened with the wind, Martin into it – how did that happen? The openers began at an easy pace, some deft late cuts and the odd good shot mixed in with some luck. Gale gave way to Kevin Marshall who combined with the agility of Perky behind the stumps got rid of their hard hitting captain with a very good stumping. Oh how age catches up with us medium fast bowlers!
This bought to the crease a young fella who had blasted us around the ground at Hurlingham last season and it seems he still likes our bowling attack. The bowling was then shared between the debutant Mark Solomann, Kevin Marshall and Richard Holden
Holden had earlier picked up his first wicket for the season after another deft piece of glove work by Perky – waiting for the ball to pass the line of the stumps - he had the bails off in a flash after what seemed an age for it to get to him. This was followed by a beautifully flighted delivery that was caught in the deep by Solomann for his 2nd wicket. Caught Thompson bowled Gale followed in Gale’s second spell.
Then we were treated to a spell of great seam and swing bowling by Vance Thomson - bowling with the wind over his left shoulder he extracted significant movement in the air and off the pitch and troubled all their batsmen – quite why the captain took him off and gave the last 2 overs to Gale we will never know. Vance picked up 3 wickets; caught Perkinson and Fanning (which accounted for the star batsman) and a better late than never LBW. There was a run out – direct roll down the pitch from the skipper and Kevin Marshall picked up an LBW in his last spell into the wind. Their innings was closed out by a young hard hitting Kiwi lad who it is fair to say will be getting plenty of pressure put on him to play for the club at some stage this season. Bearing in mind in order to qualify for the Trevor Campbell Cup fixture he will be required to do so.
What had looked at various stages like a pitch worth 220 plus in 40 overs in fact only yielded 208 for 9 for Wimbledon. The only retiree went off because he needed a cigarette – only to come back and lose his wicket. We held 4 catches and despite the years and the fact we had not caught a cricket ball for 6 months were more than useful in the field.
So with a reasonable task in front of us, the sun shining again and light actually improving and their limited bowling attack our innings should have been a whole lot better. Gale and Fanning mixed caution with improvisation. In hindsight caution may have been preferable. They put on 30, Fanning falling first after some clean strikes caught at mid on. Singleton and Gale followed soon after then closely by Tippen and Marshall. 46 for 5 on a flat track, sun shining and limited bowlers available to the opposition was a poor performance thus far. Martin and Perkinson put on 31. Martin then succumbed to the approach for the day – just give it a heave and hope. Caught off the leg spinner who managed to pick up 5 for. Vance Thomson then put on 53 with Perky as they made it all look as easy as it was. Both hitting the ball cleanly and a long way until Perky was unlucky to be caught off an unusually non-tracer like shot. Needless to say we lost the last 3 wickets for 10 runs and were all out for 138.
It was apart from the result a thoroughly enjoyable day at a great venue where we were well looked after and well supported by some of our families and Mr Lester and his girls. Thanks to Martin Conway for umpiring and to Peter Coleman for scoring. And finally congratulations to Vance Thomson and his fiancé Belinda – Vance had failed to mention the fact that they had got engaged the week before to the team until the end of the game.
Sam.
Scoreboard Wimbledon 208-9 (40 Overs) LNZCC 138 All Out. Loss by 70 Runs
Batting Runs Catches Stumpings Matt Fanning 16 1 Aaron Gale 15 Michael Singleton 7 Pete Tippen 2 Shaun Perkinson (w) 48 1 2 Kevin Marshall 1 Sam Martin 14 Vance Thompson 21* 1 Mark Solomann 0 (Gold) 1 Richard Holden 0 Pat Brockie 0 Extras 14
FOW 30, 33, 40, 45, 46, 75, 128, 133, 138, 138
Bowling O M R W Aaron Gale 8 1 48 1 Sam Martin 7 1 26 0 Kevin Marshall 7 0 35 2 Mark Solomann 5 0 25 0 Richard Holden 6 0 45 2 Vance Thompson 7 0 20 3
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