Firsts let win slip through their fingers

Keyworth welcomed the youthful Radcliffe-on-Trent side to a freezing and windy day at the Field of Dreams.

Two changes were made from the defeat at the hands of Gedling.
With Alex (Teddy) Sheriston away and Ted back leading the 2’s, Geoff Tinsley and Dale Collison had their first outings of the season. Housewives favourite Geoff is currently working in Mauritius and will miss the majority of the season, but was back in the country predicting that he would drop two catches and get a duck having netted only once since January.

The heavy rain on Friday meant that the wicket was not going to be easy to bat on early doors, and was likely to get better as the day wore on owing to the near gale force winds drying out the pitch. Skipper Rendu was happy to win the toss and elect to field.

The plan worked nicely, with Steve and especially Andy Hiller-sister bowling very tight spells to restrict the scoring in the testing conditions. 25 off the first 10 overs was a perfect start. But in the 12th over a tone was set for the remainder of the innings; having set the trap, the opener pulled a short delivery from Rocket towards the deep square leg boundary where butterfingered Collison dropped the easiest of chances. More was to follow as Andy Hiller-sister and Geoff Tinsley (matching the first part of his prediction) both dropped 2 chances each in the deep, with Geoff’s outstretched arms looking like he was more used to catching beach balls than cricket balls.

Rob Baker is reportedly carrying a slight groin injury, cause unknown, and has yet to find his rhythm in 1A. His brand of pies we’re much to the taste of the Radcliffe opening pair as he was hit for successive maximums into the vicarage.

The Keyworth fielding was so hopeless that Ian Graham (3-44) decided the only way to get a wicket was to hit the stumps himself, which he did, bowling the opener for 43. More wickets were to fall at regular intervals, but with so many wickets in hand the early good work was undone and Radcliffe ended up posting 226-5 off their 48 overs.

Had KCC fielded like a 1A side, the Radcliffe total would have been around 200. Not surprisingly all the talk at tea, an Aussie smorgasbord, was about a new training regime, including catching and fielding practice…

Iggy and Grant opened up as usual with the icy wind still howling across the outfield. The young bowler, sporting longer locks than Rocket and a John McEnroe style headband, opened up the hill assisted by the wind. Although his loosener was the quick side of military medium, his second ball off-stump Yorker whistled through Ian’s defence in the blink of an eye, for his second consecutive 2nd baller.

Grant and Tinno (successfully avoiding the predicted duck) put on a useful partnership before Geoff (14) fell caught at midwicket after struggling to up the run rate. Following his return from long-term injury, Emma-Dale looked in good form and he and Grant, batting with his usual authority, went along comfortably at 5 and over until the drinks break. The opening bowler was brought back on to break the partnership and nearly did first ball after drinks with a sharp chance being dropped off Grant at first slip. Fired up by this, the bowler resorted to short stuff, which Grant took on, and unfortunately top edged to the keeper for 63.

Under 7 an over was required in the second half of the innings, and with the change bowlers regularly offering 4 balls, the target was always in site.

Skipper Rendu became a victim of his own making when facing a spinner with a 2 pace run up. During his second over at the crease the longhaired buffoon went through his normal routine of taking his guard and wiping the hair out his eyes only to look up to see the ball on it’s way down. Taken by surprise the skipper stuck out a pad and was adjudged plumb LBW. Despite his reluctance to walk and bat tossing at the wicket, the umpire said he should have stepped away if he wasn’t ready and the decision was upheld. On his way back to the pavilion the toys came out of the pram and a new world record distance for helmet throwing was set.

Doug Bayford came in at 6 and initially struggled to get to grips with the pace of the pitch and the bowling, but runs soon flowed with the Aussie notching up a useful 26 before being well caught at deep long on. At the other end Emma-Dale was still finding the odd boundary.

With 8-an-over required in the last 10, Dave Strong quickly took to the slow off spinner, sending him to all parts of the ground for a quickfire innings including one enormous straight six before being caught.

Dale was running out of partners, but as is the KCC way, the prospect of winning outweighed shutting up shop for a draw in the final 5 overs, and this led to him being run out for 52 trying to take a suicidal 2 in an effort to keep the strike.

Beaky and Dave Hiller were unable to stop the opening bowler from clearing up the tail leaving the Millers all out for 205 in the 46th over – a brave effort.

KCC are quickly realising that there is a very fine line between winning and losing on 1A, and above all catches win matches… See you at nets on Wednesday!