Tom Flavell's century upstaged as Spencer cruise home

With the end of August fast approaching, our next fixture was a more local affair against Spencer Cricket Club in Earlsfield.

Coming off a 102-run victory against them last season, skipper Sam Martin was handed the luxury…. and headache of a wider squad to choose from. After a tough call or two, we arrived with 12 players ready to play, on what would ultimately turn into a very strong victory for one outfit. Was it us?!

Sam won the toss and decided that putting a target on the board was his idea of our winning formula.

Tom Flavell, opened the batting alongside Fergus Hegan and the pair immediately set about putting runs on the board. There was, admittedly, some generous assistance from Spencer in the form of a couple of dropped catches at slip but we’ll take them.

One thing became obvious very early in our batting, if you hit the gaps, save your legs, it was four. If you continued to hit the fielders, however, scoring was going to be a much tougher proposition. Luckily for us our approach was more balanced.

Fergus was the first to fall, dismissed with the score around 40 after making a 7. In came Callum McLean, joining Tom at the crease as the pair set about building the foundations of what would become a 100+ partnership.

Tom was able to capitalise on the loose delivery’s when given while steadily accumulating runs, looking increasingly comfortable as he moved beyond 50. Nice mate! At the halfway point, we had 90 odd on the board with nine wickets still in the sheds, at just over 4 an over. Particularly a certain Cheyne Voss with helmet on pacing the boundary ready to get in the action….

Credit to Spencer, who did a good job of restricting the boundary balls, keeping Tom away from the strike and reluctantly sent fielders to the rope. This meant the boundaries became harder to find, and the pressure was on us to keep the scoreboard ticking rather than simply waiting for the bad ball. Callum felt the pressure build as he was unable to find the gaps.

Callum was eventually dismissed for a gritty 28 (80), bringing out Vossy in the 29th over with no choice but to look to lift the strike rate and finish the innings strong.

Next Tom passed 100 (Century number 4) for LNZCC producing one of the best 100s I have watched, leading from the first ball.

As Tom continued beyond 100, Vossy was bowled for 8 bringing the match report author, wicketkeeper Eddie Commons to the crease. Alongside Tom, we pushed the score to 200 before finally at 124 Tom just missed one. Let’s just say the scoreboard and probably the result…. would have looked very different without that contribution.

And then, just when everything was going rather nicely, disaster struck. No, not a collapse, No, not a hat-trick, the iPad switched off.

Our scorer Maraka, along with several others, launched a valiant attempt to resolve the issue, but despite everyone’s best efforts, technology decided it had other plans with our scorecard wiped. Only the actual ground scoreboard saved Spencer, as we could have got away with adding a few more to the book!

After a 30-minute standstill we eventually got play underway and given the go ahead to resume the innings. We finished on 216/8 from our 40 overs. With a few more wickets falling as we tried to life the score. A defendable score? Absolutely. Should we have scored more? Yes!

After a top-notch tea, we ventured onto a very dry field to defend 216.

Starting with the new ball was Ryan Allan, who looked threatening up front with some lively away swing. At the other end was Ben Walsh, with Spencer making a strong start and getting through to 25 before our first wicket, courtesy of Ben, as the batsman tickled one through to me.

To cut a long story short, what happened over the next 20+ overs was a combination of a few things: an outstanding 172-run second-wicket partnership, some rather generous bowling from us at times with too many loose deliveries and the feeling that we just didn’t score enough runs when we batted. Ultimately, though, the simple truth was that our bowling just wasn’t up to it today.

Skipper Sam threw the ball around in search of inspiration throughout, whether that meant bowling himself, keeping it in the family with his son Jack having a trundle, or turning to James, Callum, Tom or Stan, fresh from representing the NZ Over 70s. Unfortunately, nobody could find the breakthrough. Some fared better than others, it has to be said, but Spencer’s batters were firmly in control throughout.

As Spencer neared 200, we finally got the breakthrough. I was able to stump their opener, S Naqvi, for a well-compiled 66, bowled by our skipper. This was closely followed by another wicket for Sam, giving us a couple of extra wickets.

Ultimately, however, Spencer’s skipper Jens Wagstaff scored a sublime unbeaten 100, leading from the front, and Spencer came away with a seven-wicket win with almost 10 overs to spare. A thoroughly deserved comprehensive victory.

Big thanks to Spencer Cricket Club for the game and for hosting us tremendously well, including a very tasty spread. Thanks also to Maraka for doing a resilient scoring job and to Malcolm for umpiring the game.

Hopefully, we can get back to winning ways against Ditchling Cricket Club over the bank holiday. At the very least, we’ll be looking for a better all round performance.

Photos

Tom Flavell with yet another hundred (4th for the club) and a bottle of wine to boot

Vossy bringing up his 100th cap