SCORECARD

Match Abandoned - No Result

Wet Wet Wet are a Scottish pop rock band that formed in the 1980s. They scored a number of hits in the British charts and around the world. The band is composed of Marti Pellow (vocals), Tommy Cunningham (drums, vocals), Graeme Clark (bass, vocals) and Neil Mitchell (keyboards, vocals). Hits included "Sweet little mystery" and "wishing I was lucky".

Duckworth Lewis made his debut in this soggy encounter at Wast Hills.

As the Sportsmen dragged their sodden feet slowly towards the International standard changing facilities, an 'arranged' toss (Jim - chalk that up as a 'won' toss!) resulted in the Fitmen preparing for a spot of fielding. With the covers removed an excellent dry, flat track was revealed, but with the outfield a little damp, scoring was always going to be difficult.

The opening spells came from Howes and Martin delivering dot ball after dot ball before the suffocation became too much for both openers who surrendered their wickets. Jon Ashton then brought his own unique selection of deliveries into the game, with the Sportsmen's best bat perplexed by the variety of bounce induced by Jon's variation of pace and direction. Volcanic Ash following a bout of man flu had an extra spring in his step and delivered a quality spell of bowling accounting for the middle order with 2 for 5 off his 4 over allocation.

The fielding throughout was of an excellent standard, with Mark Tucker snagging yet another 2 good catches standing up, but the catch of the night came from Rob Green (who ran out the great Viv Richards many moons ago..) off the bowling of the ever improving Guy. Misjudging the flight of the ball at first Rob moved swiftly to pouch a difficult chance, and with Ade and Guy bowling at the death both claiming wickets the Sportsmen crawled to the finish posting a score of 65 for 8.

The bleak black sky had threatened all night to deliver a devastating deluge and as Bice and Howarth padded up so the rain began. Fair play to the Sportsmen (and umpires) for putting up with the dreaded, dire, drizzle but with bowling, fielding and batting becoming increasingly difficult only 10 overs could be completed. As this constituted 75% of the overs being completed, fantasy points were awarded, but it was a difficult night for the batsmen with Bice 8, and Howarth 7 both being bowled by low skiddy balls and Jack and Jim held out with a selection of singles.

Consulting the online Duckworth Lewis calculator the winning score after 10 overs was 31 with 2 wickets down, and the Fitmen delivered 33-2, so a moral victory or Abandoned game? I will let the reader make up his own mind....

A.Martin