Match Centre

Ollie and Dex opened the bowling and were parsimonious with their opening spell. Accurate with good pace, Dex first ball saw him bowl the opener with an inswinger Jimmy Anderson would have been proud of. A second wicket in the over fell when Henry clung onto an excellent catch at midwicket. Ollie took a wicket in the next over and this tight start saw East Woodhay 10-3 after 4 overs. Henry and Monty came on for the 5th and 6th against some strong batting, but Sid introduction for the 7th saw an immediate breakthrough with some fantastic foresight from Reuben behind the wicket, flicking the bails off for a stumping after the batter had wandered. A terrific piece of work. Monty returned to the attack with a good start to the 8th over, before Eddie bowled a tight over, then running off to put his keeping gear on to swap with Reuben. Henry and Sid continued with steady bowling to keep the scoring down. Reuben then continued the theme of taking a wicket in his first over, bowling the batter with pace. Oscar and Nate then combined to 13 through 15, with Nate getting the ball to turn sharply with his leg-breaks. He could also consider himself unlucky not to have a wicket with another stumping after sharp work from Eddie, but the square leg umpire adjudged the batter to have made his ground. I was less sure. Henry bowled another good over with Reuben taking another wicket in the 17th (bowled again) before Nate, Dex and Ollie closed out the innings without too much incident to leave East Woodhay on 127/6, a net score of 297.

Overall, the boys fielded well with good keeping, a sharp catch from Henry and good work from Oscar, Ollie, Jacob and Reuben, though we did concede some overthrows with sharp throws at the stumps and no-one behind the stumps or backing up. Something for training as always!

Chasing 297, Dex and Oscar got us underway against some very strong bowling. Runs were hard to come by and the boys defended stoutly, but some singles and second runs were left behind. Oscar flicked away a very nice boundary in the 3rd over, but unfortunately was bowled on the last ball. 23-1 (218) saw us off to a good start though. Sid and Jacob came in next, and whilst starting slowly, soon got going. Sid hit his first boundary, but a mix-up from the next ball saw Jacob run-out. The 7th and 8th overs saw some excellent hitting from Sid who contributed 4 more boundaries to take the score to 52-2 (242).  Next up were Henry and Monty who kept the chase ticking over, with both boys despatching boundaries with cuts and sweeps. The captain’s cut was a particularly good shot. This moved us along to 82-2 (272) putting the Roundheads in a strong position. Reuben and Nate followed, but scoring opportunities dried up a little with 19 runs bring added for the loss of 1 wicket taking the score to 101-3 (286). This left the finishers needing to score 12 runs off the final 4 overs to secure victory. Ollie opened with a singled before exchanging boundaries off Eddie from the spinner. East Woodhay brought back their pace attack (who I’m informed are all at Hampshire) but Eddie cut and pulled 3 boundaries off the 18th over to put the boys ahead of the ledger, before stealing strike with a single off the last ball. Playing out a maiden off the 19th and batting calmly from the last, they saw out the innings to take the score to 128/3 (313) to give the Roundheads a commanding win.

Some very strong performances today amongst good all-round contributions. Ollie and Dex were dependable with bat and ball, Reuben superb behind the stumps, in the field and with ball in hand. Sid’s hitting put us in a strong position, but today’s player of the match (please forgive the nepotism here) goes to Eddie for the way he steered us home with Ollie in the final 4 overs, hogging the strike and all.

Less strong was the running between the wickets, which on several occasions I would describe as being kamikaze. I counted 3 times where the boys were stranded at one end, but the good news is, this is relatively easy to work on in training - guess what we’ll be doing tomorrow?!

Next up, West Ilsley away for the Cavaliers on Tuesday and Sulhamstead & Ufton away for the Roundheads on Wednesday followed by an intra-club clash for the Roundheads against the Falkland Girls u13s.