SCORECARD

'Titanic Tussle in penultimate friendly fixture'

As the T20 2010 season draws inexorably to a close, another sell out crowd assembled at Wast Hills.
The only problem was that the opposition failed to assemble. Having seen in previous seasons as the nights draw in, captains proclaiming 'oh they're on the way' only for 10 ninja's to emerge from trees and bushes minutes after an 'arranged toss' wearing night vision equipment.

Apparently this time they went to the wrong ground! Not being born yesterday, virgin captain R.Bice taking up the reins from mathmatically challenged J.Frost agreed to field first but reduced the game to a Fifteen-Fifteen format. Opening up, down the slope, an under nourished Volcanic Ash bowled well after his first 3 balls, and captured 2 early scalps (nice juggling exhibition by R.Green) leapfrogging Sunny as club leading wicket taker.

After watching his compadres getting widely slaughtered in the weekend fixture, a chastened A.Martin (with a point to prove) kept things very tight in an 18 ball spell resulting in 1 wicket thanks to an excellent stumping by M.Tucker for 4 runs. Sunny and Sharif then very sportingly allowed the opposition to garner some much needed runs before another Tucker stumping and a high class peice of work in the field by A.Tarr running out a dangerous Titan bat.

Tarr who has requested his Ashes to be sprinkled on the Wast Hill track commeth the day, showed how to bowl with a wicket with his first ball and a selection of ploppers (arm ball), shooters (doosra) and variations in pace resulting in 2 for 13. Sharif did a super slow motion run out on the very last ball of the Titan innings with the score finishing on 96 for 7 (or was it 95,93,89 according to the scoreboard!?)

Amazingly the sky brightened as the opening pair of Tom and Rob strolled to the middle, but it wasn't long before Tom literally walked out of his crease and back to the pavillion. M.Butcher and R.Green then added a crucial 53 with a mixture of nerdles, glances, dabs and hoicks, intimidating the Titan bowlers into wides searching for the killer ball.

With 9 overs gone there was a bit of a wobble with both batsmen departing playing aggressive strokes, but when you have quality of Don 'Bradman' Baker and Rich "I'm not going to hang around tonight" Bice in at 4 and 5 respectively the win was never in doubt.

Over 12 went for 18 runs and it only left the simple task of El Capitain to smite the ball for a final boundary to wrap up proceedings quite nicely. 1 quality pork pie and a pint later over discussions of roadworks on the A46 and you sometimes wonder how life can get any better.
A.Martin