Scorecard

Aldenham Cricket Club v Saint Albans 5XI on Sat 04 Jul 2015 at 1400
Aldenham Cricket Club Won by 227 runs

Match report Ten man Aldenham were greeted by calm after a stormy end of the week at the Parish as two opposition teams blew out late in the week leading to a mismatched fixture pitting the A’s against St Alban’s fifth XI.

Most of the pre match work was spent clearing the square of rabbit detritus as the local inhabitant seemed to have taken the comfort of the manicured pitches as an ideal commode and laid thousands of little presents.

The A’s watched with apprehension as the St. Alban’s squad turned up, the average age of the opponents dropping with each arriving car load being ferried to the grounds by mother’s looking pleased they had an afternoon of practically free babysitting.

Skipper/wicketkeeper/cakemaker/toilet administrator extraordinaire Jerry went out to do the toss and tense negotiations ensued, eventually convincing their skipper that fielding was the best choice to ensure both teams got the most out of their day’s cricket.

Obviously feeling that he was in decent negotiating form, Jerry returned to the pavilion to set up a batting order. Char and Darpan were given the option to commence the innings, whilst Dan Knight was designated 6, a position where surely he could get away with both a bat and a bowl following Cup game disappointment. This left Amit, Joe, Greg and Watfa to fill the rest of the spots up to 7.

Jerry placated the season’s top run scorer with a spot down the order with a promise that he would be getting a decent bowl, so Mr Watfa eventually agreed, knowing surely a man with great integrity such as Jerry would not back down on his word and so off he went with a ball to start practising his variations with Sheep.

The innings got underway, but things didn’t quite go to plan as Darpan slapped a short ball straight to cover to end the opening partnership with 39 on the board. Char followed almost straight after as he too was caught, this time edging behind. He stomped off into the pavilion to work out how he could get a bowl after only a few weeks earlier refusing to let one of his top wicket taking challengers have a bowl having been put up the order.

This brought Amit and Joe ‘The Hitman’ Hensman to the wicket, Joe taking no prisoners as he smote 4 fours to the boundary in an entertaining 27. He and Amit both fell however, lobbing up easy catches to the young fielders. In came Greg, who smashed his first ball for 6, and Dan Knight, who blocked his first 6 balls.
Sheep motored his way to 31 off just 16 balls but suddenly the A’s found themselves 121-5 as he too offered a tough chance to a fielder to took quite the snare to send Sheep back to his pen.

Tanios, meanwhile was taking last minute instructions from his skipper to ‘hang around please mate, we might need a few more runs here’. Mr Watfa stood true and loyal to his promise to his skipper and made his way to a careful and chanceless 73 off 46 balls putting on a stand of 106 runs with Dan Knight who scored 33 off 41 deliveries as the pair took the game away from the youthful St Alban’s.

Dan lost his wicket, managing to be bowled which saw Dan Morgan join Tanios at the crease, before Tanios finally fell attempting to increase the tempo of the afternoon and bringing Sen to the party. Send and Danny put on a quick 30 for the A’s before the skipper declared with Aldenham on 261-7.

After an excellent tea offering from Dan Morgan, the A’s went out to field with Jerry sticking true to his word and opening as expected from the batting order with Sen and Dan Morgan. Tight lines ensued and after a 11 overs, Sen had picked up two wickets and Danny had bowled three maidens.

The skipper then turned to his son, who had earlier enjoyed the second longest innings of the day to have a bowl and he was rewarded for his choice with Dan K picking up a wicket with his first delivery on route to a wicket maiden then following it up with a triple wicket maiden bowling some fantastic line and lengths becoming too much for the St. Alban’s batmans to deal with, clean bowling two and drawing two others into false shots.

The next change however saw Charlie, who presumably had spent most of the Aldenham inning’s whilst Watfa was out saving the team from the top order failure in the Skipper’s ear about how he hasn’t got a game so far and therefore should get a bowl, given the nod. It’s fair to say this outraged the Aldenham saviour Mr Watfa.

‘Oi, Jegs. What happened to “If you do a seven for me I’ll definitely give you a bowl”?’.

‘Well yeah, but you got a bat.’ replied Jeg’s rather nervously.

‘Yes I did, at seven, like you asked me to’ Watfa replied. ‘Char opened the batting’

‘Yeah I did,’ Char chipped in, ‘But I didn’t get any runs,’ conveniently forgetting about the same position he’d been in as skipper a couple of weeks ago when he’d given Amit a bat who had got out early and refused to allow him to bowl.

‘You got a decent bat though.’ Said Jeg’s to Watfa.

‘So did Dan, and he’s bowling right now.’ Tanios replied.

Jeg’s became quiet, Char carried on insisting he got the ball. Tanios kept protesting; ‘If I had opened the batting and got nothing, would I have got a bowl then?’

‘No, probably not’ were the first three words containing some honesty to Tanios the Skipper had said all day.

Dan Knight meanwhile deceived the St. Alban’s number 8 into a mistimed shot, looping an easy catch up to Greg in close for his maiden 5fa, finishing with fantastic figures of 5-9.

‘How about if I change my name to ‘Tanios Knight-Munroe’ would I get a bowl then?’ enquired Tanios.

Jeg’s stance began to soften as he realised that he is a man with great honour and integrity, not the type of man that back tracks on his solemn word.

Sensing the opportunity, Watfa turned the screw: ‘You know what they say, never trust a salesman.’

Jeg’s relented, his eyes opened to the error of his ways as Char took the cheap wicket that may placate him and announced; ‘Come on then Mr Watfa, next over from the top end.’ to the wild cheers of teammates feeling justice had been served.

Watfa, began his warm up and then chucked it up to see what would happen. It was a dot ball. He chucked it up again and waited to see what happened and the batsman slapped it straight up in the air to Greg at deep midwicket. A proper spinners wicket.

Aldenham had bowled out St. Alban’s for 34 and a 227 run victory, all promises had eventually been kept and everyone lived happily ever after. Except for half a beer match, which really wasn’t much fun at all.

Aldenham Cricket Club Aldenham Cricket Club Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
15w 1b  
for 7 wickets
16
261		        
Charlie Munroe ct Milton 13 20 2 65.00 1
Darpan Gorsia ct Milton 23 27 4 85.19 1
Amit Chakrawarti ct Rafe 10 16 1 62.50
Joe Hensman ct Mistry 27 35 4 77.14
Greg Hill ct Rafe 31 16 5 1 193.75 2
Dan Knight b Kevin 33 41 4 80.49 1
Tanios Watfa ct Rafe 73 46 12 2 158.70
Dan Morgan Not Out  22 10 3 1 220.0
Sen Bala Not Out  12 5 2 240.0
Julian Knight   2
A.N. Other  

Saint Albans 5XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Melling6.013000.005.00
Milton7.0028128.004.00
Greg4.004200.0010.50
Rafe7.0039313.005.57
Mistry5.0225125.005.00
Pelham5.005100.0010.20
Kevin4.0048148.0012.00

Saint Albans 5XI Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
3w  
for 10 wickets
3
34 (14.0 overs)		     
Sprowson ct Bala 9
Pizzey ct Bala 1
Mistry b Knight 10
Raufe b Morgan 0
Pelham Bowled  4
Hancock Caught  2
Goodfellow Caught  0
Mellins Caught  4
Gregg Bowled  0
A. Milton Bowled  0
K. Milton Not Out  0

Aldenham Cricket Club Aldenham Cricket Club Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Sen Bala5.011628.003.20
Dan Morgan6.03700.001.17
Dan Knight3.01951.803.00
Charlie Munroe1.00313.003.00
Tanios Watfa0.20010.000.00