Askham Bryan Cricket Club

Askham Bryan 87 all out lost to North Cave 219-5

Bowling
On a day of slightly mixed but generally sunny weather, the Askham soldiers assembled at North Cave for their latest battle. Sporting another new recruit (Veronica Morton) and with Sam Grewer selected again after a fine first week, the team was fresh and ready to go. Mis Slezak surveyed the pitch with the Geoffrey Boycott car key method (see the photos) and declared it was a “good little runner”. The ground also included a tree in the covers, which provided an excellent target for some of the batsmen…

Things started well, with Woody and The Grewer opening the bowling with some tidy offerings. The Grewer made the first breakthrough with the score only on seven, Rob Dale accepting a catch behind the castles. However, the pitch didn’t offer a great amount of pace and the Cavemen started to accrue runs at an increasing pace, punishing anything short with a swat to the boundary. The quick, freshly cut, outfield saw the ball running to corners of the pitch with some ease.

Ian Hall came on first change and bowled a fairly poor first over, before settling into bowling a mixture of full length and full toss deliveries that seemed to keep the batsmen in some sort of check. Prateek was his partner in crime at the opposite end and kept the batsmen guessing with a mixture of bowling, nearly getting their top batsman caught, with the unlucky fielder being Steve Mason. After Hall had run out of steam, The Grewer came back on and enticed the Cave batsmen to let loose. Only four runs short of a century, the top cave batsman went for a boundary to finsih the job, and holed out to Albert Hall, taking a fizzing ball at long on.

Wickets then began to fall steadily, with the Grewer bowling the remaining opening batsman and Woody chipping in, getting another Caveman to edge to patient Rob Dale. Mr Dale continued on his fine form from the previous week by taking a deft stumping off The Grewer, to see Cave 174-5. However, no further wickets were to fall and North Cave ended up with a formidable 219.

Tea
The tea was a rival in most camps for the “tea of the year”. Not only was there a solid range of sandwiches (in various good breads, including tiger bread), pork pies, cakes and cream, there was also a chicken and brocolli bake and – wait for it – a full cheese board with biscuits! After the match the tea lady also provided fresh fruit. Altogether, a cricketing tea masterclass.

Batting
The two bloated opening batsmen (Dale and Hall) emerged to face a mixture of medium pace and spin bowling. Dale started positively, aiming a lovely chip shot at the top of the tree for the first “tree four” of the day. After some blocking from Hall, Dale then decided to chase a very wide ball and give a catch to point. Prateek emerged as number three and hit a lovely four down the ground, before falling to a good catch at mid on attempting a similar shot.

The Grewer emerged at number 4 and he and Hall tried to slowly rebuild the innings. Slowly being the operative word, since – 13 overs in – Hall had amassed a total of 2 runs, barely threatening to get the ball off the square. The first time he did manage to get the ball away, he called for a very risky single, was sent back and was run out by a country mile, bringing an end to his most turgid innings yet.

Pete Wood then arrived and decided not to hang around, soon hitting the North Cave first change bowler for a couple of big sixes. Grewer too began to prosper and hit some lovely boundaries himself, until he was caught out, Askham on 66-4. Mis Slezak got a couple of runs himself before being bowled. Steve Mason followed him in and used his forward defensive to good effect…playing the ball straight back to the bowler for a golden duck. Simon Kelly emerged and survived the hat-trick ball, scoring a run straight away in the process.

Pete Wood then holed out at deep mid wicket, to bring in Geoff Seavers. Geoff looked in good form and middled a couple of early balls well, before he was given caught out to a ball that seemed to just clip the top of his bat. This brought in Veronica Morton with the side still needing runs to get a batting point. She played a very solid defensive innings which allowed Simon to open up at the other end, hitting some big shots and gathering some nice boundaries in the process. The score went passed the golden number of 75 before Simon was also caught on the boundary attempting a big shot.

Sam Grewer then came in for his first innings for the club. He began by facing one of the North Cave quick bowlers and did a great job in keeping the ball out. In fact, a couple of balls in he was given some width and played a lovely shot through point, scoring his first run for the club. Meanwhile, at the far end, Veronica guarded her stumps better than Michael Atherton and also got her first run for the club.

The two batted well until the wily Cave spinner came on to bowl Sam, and finish Askham off for 87, leaving North Cave the winners. However, cricket was probably the winner. Or, more to the point, cricketing tea.

Any opinions on the tea? Or the man of the match? Or on trees on cricket pitches? Please feel free to comment below…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Match Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.