Right, obviously our wafer-brained pony cousins are getting a little anxious without any news of our fantastic exploits. Quick... to the stats sheet... On second thoughts, better leave that excitement till last.
Our second two-dayer of the season resulted in an extremely close draw... which was much more exciting than it sounds. We were 127 ahead on the first innings against Collegians Spartans, but somehow couldn't quite finish off the job on Saturday. Some of our bowlers may want to attribute a large portion of the blame for the result on the 130 or so that Collegians' 'run factory' scored after a certain drop. But we all know that those bowlers ought to just run in and hit the stumps... We dropped five in all, which made the difference on the day, as they rode their luck and slashed away. Our bowling was decent, and everyone toiled away on demand, but the devastating spell didn't turn up, which meant that it was a long day in the field. The undoubted highlight was Richard 'Yes, Minister' Taylor's unfortunate call involving 'lubing it up' when we finally thought we'd reached the the tail (at around 7 for 250).
Eventually they declared at 305/8, setting us 181 off 23. This seemed eminently getable, and we got off to a flyer (after Matt's rather unfortunate and extremely fine-worthy two-ball innings ended with some mid-pitch prayers). Jo and Tony seemed to be pretty keen to finish things off quickly, but both fell short of fifty. Rohann hit his usual two glorious shots... and then was caught on the boundary. Some other guy came out and flailed away briefly (including sending one into the upper regions of the Hinkley/Bidwell pissing tree, which the gobby Collegians keeper dismissed off the bat with "that's not going"...twat...). We were down to chasing 23 off four or so, with four wickets in hand. Unfortunately a few mis-timed shots later it was time to play out for a draw- not before Mr Lube clubbed the last ball of the match a full two feet over mid-off's head to grab a dirt boundary...
Falling ten short was pretty frustrating, and we could clearly have thrashed them if we'd reproduced the first day's performance. Hopefully we can get it right in the two-dayers and not become the NZ of 2A. Still, some promising signs over the two days. Everyone has managed to contributed at some stage so far, and the turn-around from last season is really pleasing.
Good turn out at the pub. Considerable energy was generated during the fine session, which was fuelled by a copious bounty of fried foods and flavourless Speights. Hope you're proud of the disgraceful state of the back of the book, Josh.
MVP points- officially decided by me, right now.
5 Tony
3 Jo
1 Matt
Stallion A. Liefting for sweating it out on the first day, setting up our eventual... draw.
Pony G. Martin- at least 70 short of redemption on the day...
Honourable mention: G Mann.
We hear that Sheryl is, like, totally going to move to Wellington soon, so she might be able to play our lunch-time show instead of the Martinborough Town Hall...
| NAME | Inn | n.o | Runs | Ave | H.S | 4s | 6s |
| M. Boa | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0.50 | 1 | - | - |
| M. Butchard | 4 | 1 | 19 | 6.33 | 7 | 4 | - |
| R. Da Silva | 5 | 1 | 124 | 31.00 | 53* | 17 | 3 |
| J. Harris | 3 | 1 | 86 | 43.00 | 45 | 12 | 3 |
| A. Liefting | 6 | 2 | 199 | 49.75 | 84 | 26 | 3 |
| C. Luey | 2 | 2 | 6 | - | 5* | 1 | - |
| G. Mann | 5 | 1 | 107 | 26.75 | 45 | 13 | - |
| G. Martin | 2 | - | 73 | 36.50 | 38 | 12 | 2 |
| P. Patel | 5 | 1 | 51 | 12.75 | 29 | 3 | - |
| J. Seton | 2 | - | 24 | 12.00 | 24 | 4 | - |
| M. Sleyer | 3 | - | 9 | 3.00 | 7 | 1 | - |
| R. Taylor | 2 | 2 | 18 | - | 14* | 3 | - |
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| | O | M | R | W | Ave | R.R | B.B |
| M. Boa | 36.2 | 4 | 134 | 7 | 19.14 | 3.69 | 3-57 |
| M. Butchard | 4 | - | 23 | 1 | 23.00 | 5.75 | 1-23 |
| R. Da Silva | 32.1 | 5 | 137 | 9 | 15.22 | 4.26 | 4-9 |
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| C. Luey | 33 | 6 | 117 | 4 | 29.25 | 3.54 | 2-45 |
| G. Mann | 39 | 3 | 172 | 11 | 15.54 | 4.41 | 4-29 |
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M. Sleyer | 37 | 3 | 181 | 8 | 22.63 | 4.89 | 3-45 |
| R. Taylor | 40.1 | 6 | 163 | 3 | 54.33 | 4.06 | 1-13 |
