Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club

Scorecard

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Crowthorne Saturday 1st XI v Bradfield on Sat 13 Aug 2011 at 1:30
Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Won by 1 wicket

Match report CROWS SECURE TENSE 1-WICKET WIN AS BRADFIELD FALL FOR PARTRIDGE'S 7 DEADLY SPINS

Crowthorne continued their good run of form with a tight victory against title challengers Bradfield at New Ground.

Winning the toss and opting to bowl in overcast and muggy conditions, Judith Chalmers opened up proceedings from the village end. Whilst extracting plenty of ooohs and aaahs from around the field, the Bradfield openers array of cuts drives and prods never really threatened to connect with the swinging, seaming ball as delivered by the carrot topped Zimbabwean. Soon learning that the batsmen were unable to get within a foot of the ball with their willow, he would aim for the other bits of wood, and Manan was sent back to the pavillion, stumps splayed.

At the pavilion end, Steve Northallerton was having little luck with the new cherry, and was replaced by Turbo Terry Charles after a few overs. The Trinidad Express bowled with good pace and accuracy, but Crows found the nature of what they were up against, with a handful of very tasty LBW shouts being turned down by Bradfield's cack handed umpire. More from him later.

The bowling from both ends continued to look threatening, the run rate was low, but wickets were hard to come by. For the first time this season captain Pete Northall decided it was time for Crows own worst enemy, a bit of dibble dobble; this came in the form of M. Gopie. Gopie, once of brisk medium pace, now seems to have modelled himself on legendary New Zealand baldy Chris Harris. He extracted both wibble in the air and wobble off the seam, inviting the Bradfield top order to miss the ball in new and ever more inventive ways. Opening bat Pringle was adjudged plumb in front by umpire AB, and Mickey's job was done.

Meanwhile, up the other end, Dan Partridge was thrown the ball. It's fair to say that the Bradfield middle and lower order frankly didn't have a clue how to play the left-arm spinning seamer. The feisty North family, both Craig and David (their mum was a big fan), thought wandering up the pitch was the way forward, and the skipper had them both sharply stumped. Saffraz and Bucksey opted for the 'smack it out the ground' technique, only to find the safe hands of the Greek Lothario Luke Jouanides. Stuart Brown decided doing nothing was the best course of action and simply stood and watched as an inswinger demolished his pegs. Partridge ended with his best figures of 7-23, putting him 7th on the Crows all-time figures list; and Bradfield were back in the pavillion for 156.

Crowthorne's reply started in all too familiar fashion, with both Sheppard and Gopie dropped on 0, but soon falling to deliveries that were nothing more than straight. Richard Barron continued his march up the duck leaderboard, caught behind, and memories of Crows 87 all out against the same opposition earlier in the year came flooding back. Captain Pedro continued his wretched run of luck whilst looking in decent nick, and it was left to Kevo Gravier to save the face of the top order. 'Gravy' went on the attack and a flurry of boundries pushed him to 56 before he popped one up to Pringle, who took a crisp catch behind the stumps.

The lanky Northallerton looked to be taking Crows to the finish line before he too was snaffled by Pringle, but Crows had confidence in a lower order of exceptional depth, with batting prize candidate and former Adrian Chatters Trophy winner Terence Charles down at number 9. He came and went, caught well by Bucksey, and the tail was in.

Luckily for Crows Judith Chalmers was looking solid at the other end, and with just a handful of runs needed for victory and Ross facing, nothing could go wrong. Enter the Bradfield umpire. Quiet all day, he decided this was the time to take the game into his twisted grip, as he adjudged Chalmers leg before wicket to a ball that struck somewhere between hip and right nipple. The howls of derision from all corners of the ground were audible from Sandhurst to St Sebastians, and the Bradfieldians looked sheepish as Chalmers quietly and honourably left the stage to be replaced by Partridge.

Partridge was not to be denied victory on this day of his finest bowling effort, and one over later he guided the ball neatly to third man and scampered like the onlookers had never seen before the two runs needed for a deserved Crowthorne triumph.

Ducks: Richard Barron;
Baggy Greens: Kevin Glazier

Bradfield Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 10 wickets
0
156 (0.0 overs)		     
B Pringle lbw  Gopie 30
A Manan b  Chalmers 20
D Filmer b  Chalmers 19
J Atkinson b  Partridge 32
B Saffraz ct  Jouanides b. Partridge 22
C North st  P Northall b. Partridge 5
E Brown ct  Barron b. Partridge 8
R Lafford Not Out  0
D North st  P Northall b. Partridge 1
S Brown b  Partridge 0
A Bucksey ct  Jouanides b. Partridge 0

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Crowthorne Saturday 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Ross Chalmers12.0732216.002.67
Steve Northall6.003400.005.67
Terry Charles6.021200.002.00
Micky Gopie5.0119119.003.80
Dan Partridge8.212373.292.76
Luke Jouanides4.002700.006.75

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Crowthorne Saturday 1st XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 9 wickets
0
157		        
Simon Sheppard b  C North 8
Micky Gopie b  A Bucksey 5
Richard Barron ct  Pringle b. C North 0 1
Peter Northall ct  Atkinson b. Bucksey 9 2
Kevin Glazier ct  Pringle b. D North 56
Mark Knight ct  Manan b. S Brown 4
Steve Northall ct  Pringle b. Lafford 36
Ross Chalmers lbw  D North 21
Terry Charles ct  Bucksey b. D North 9
Luke Jouanides Not Out  1 2
Dan Partridge Not Out  2

Bradfield Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
A Bucksey8.0139219.504.88
C North10.3149224.504.67
S Brown6.0030130.005.00
D North6.021635.332.67
R Lafford3.0019119.006.33

  • Umpire :
    Alan Brown
  • Scorer :
    D'Jimmy Carson