East Bergholt Cricket Club

Saturday 17th July Elmstead Grasshoppers (Home)

One of those days when you are unsure of what to do if you win the toss. Whilst the wicket is good, it has had a little rain on during the morning and the weather has is undecided with possible showers forecast. Best hope that the opposition skipper wins the toss and give him the headachce of deciding whether to bat or bowl. Elmstead duly win the toss and ask Bergholt to bat.

Dougy and Barney open the innings as usual. A steady, if unspectacular start until the first hiccup arrives in the 7th over. Barney has received a nice half tracker which should be despatched to the boundary but ends up into the safe hands of the mid wicket fielder. McGrath replaces Barney at the wicket. Sadly, Dougy cannot follow on from his Braintree ton, and on chasing a wide ball, has given a catch to the wicket keeper. Geds joins McGrath at the wicket and looks to be in good touch as he gets off the mark with a 6. Unfortunatly for Bergholt and Geds, his innings is cut short by a dodgy LBW decision. Bobby J's stay at the crease was even briefer, his "knock" of 4 lasting only 4 balls. At drinks, the scoreboard reads 77-4 after 22.2 overs. Mass has promoted himself in the order to 6  and today really needs a Captain's innings in order to set the opposition a challenging target. Over the course of the next eight and a half overs McGrath and Mass compile a stand of 34 which in turn would prove to be the biggest of the innings. With Taz being in and out within three overs, anchor McGrath falling for 34 off 79 balls, all hope now rests with Dan Last and Pottsy. A further 27 runs have been added before Pottsy and Cheese both depart in the 41st over. We have scraped three batting points so far and if Matt Skene can stay with Dan then at least we hope not to give any overs away and possibly might even gain another batting point. Unbeaten they were, with Dan 23 not out and Matt 9 not out, but the scoreboard only reads 171.

Without Jaimo to lead the attack, the Bergholt bowling, on paper, lacks  both pace and penetration. Elmstead try to help us out, as in the very first over, the No. 2 bat pushes the ball out to Mass in the covers and runs. The result is 1-1 off 1 over. Butcher, the other opening bat is looking ominously good and all ready has chalked up several boundaries by the time Frame claims the second wicket. This only brings Australian Harris to the wicket. The umpires claim the third wicket to fall as Butcher is given out caught behind, with the batsman clearly indicating that the ball had hit his pads. Following Butcher's dismissal, Harris then goes mad and over the course of the next three overs, 48 has been added to the Elmstead score. This includes six 4's and three 6's. Although Pottsy and Matt Skene each take another wicket, Harris looks unstoppable and the only a downpour of biblical proportions can prevent an Elmstead win. Victory is completed in the 26th over after two more 6's in the direction of the bowls club. His score of 97 not out is the reason for some rather sickly looking bowling figures.

Back on the road next week for an important match against Dunmow. It would only take 3 or 4 wins from the last 7 matches to avoid the drop to Div 3. Come on the Green and Gold!!

 Runfest at Nacton

487 runs in less than 5 hours is certain to bring the crowds back to Two Counties Division 6 cricket. White forgot his "tails never fails" line, so we fielded on the hottest day of the year so far. Nice!

The Nacton openers put on 183 for the first wicket. Ever nicer! However, we stuck with it in the field. LLewellyn was the stand out fielder, hotly persued by Keith Norman who set a new Central Suffolk record by fielding the ball in every single over of the game. A good effort with the ball from the McGrath brothers (one of them seems to have had a much harder life than the other) with Ben bowling 5 overs for just 19 runs. We then saw another great effort with the ball from Foster G and Wilgrove in the middle of the innings. In 3 or 4 years time we can confidently predict that this fixture will be dominated by these young players. Its worth noting that we are unlikely to be short of umpires or scorers for this game! Anyway, with White 2-57 and Munson 1-41 gave us some real control at the end of the innings, helped by 2 catches from Goodchild M behind the stumps. We were pleased to keep them down to 249 in the end on a flat track and a fast and bumpy outfield.

When we batted 117-0 became 162-6. The opening pair combined some big hitting with quite an amazing display of running between the wickets to set the innings up. But Fairchild (55) got out at the wrong time and McGrath D (veteran)(68) smashed a straight drive which was amazingly caught by the bowler. Norman (16) gave us mid-order stability but we had left Hunter and White too much to do at the end. They put on 76* for the 7th wicket. Hunter finishing with 54 not out after using his bulging physique to smash 3 enormous 6's into the tennis courts. Kissing his guns after one of those shots was clearly aimed at the cameras, but hey if you've got it! Ironically he now averages 140 for the season with both bat and ball.

So another close game but another loss, rounded off by some great service and very hot nuts in the Brantham Bull.