Scorecard

Great Waltham Cricket Club 1st XI v Eastwood on Sat 06 May 2017 at 1pm
Great Waltham Cricket Club Won by 178 runs

Match report The dawn of a new season, but like for reals this time. The 1st team were in high spirits following their comprehensive victories in the two pre-season games and looked ahead to a newly promoted and largely unknown Eastwood side. So eager were the team in fact, that all had turned up considerably before the allotted meet time. A quick pitch committee decided on using the same pitch as the last two weeks due to the other strip’s (ahem) excessively grassy nature. Winning the toss and batting first was the sensible decision on a pitch would sure to be tiring by the end of the day.

Clouty and Si opened up looking to take the attack to the Eastwood bowlers. Unfortunately Si nicked off in the 8th over, shortly after unveiling the Duggan™ shot of the day; a beautiful, lofted straight drive over the bowler’s head.

That was about as good as it got for the Eastwood bowler’s all day as they were put to the sword by the rest of the batsmen. Dave continued his early season form by punishing any wayward bowling. The pitch wasn’t quite coming on right, even at this early stage as Dave and I attempted to find our timing with a few mistimed pulls and drives, some of which were airborne. Despite this, the partnership forged on full steam ahead as the run rate continued to pick up. (36-1 off 10 to 108-1 off 20). In my opinion this has been a greatly improved area of our game as we have been able to increase the scoring rate almost at will with very little increase in the risks taken. Dave completed his well-deserved fifty and looked to press the accelerator with the feeling that the bowlers were under increasing amounts of pressure. Regrettably, the pitch came to Dave’s downfall as one popped and stopped from around the wicket allowing a simple catch.

There was no let up for Eastwood, with 18 overs to go, as this brought run machine Bloom to the crease eager to add his already impressive run tally this year. They always say double your runs after 30 overs for ODIs, so following that rough trend, a good score for us would be doubled after 27 overs. We started the 28th over on 161, so 320 seemed on the cards. It’s safe to say that expectations were exceeded in the next 18 overs as some powerful hitting combined with pinpoint placement and tireless running yielded fantastic rewards, as well as some injudicious catching.

Any small err in line or length was punished to the extreme as the Eastwood bowlers were put to the sword. We scored 148 in the last ten overs and 76 the last 5. Dan finished with an expressive 76 and I padded my stats with a final over romp as we finished on an imposing 354-2. I can’t remember a higher score at home but I’m sure there are many others in a better position than I to remember. We can’t claim to have the highest score of the day in T Rippon cricket though as that fell to Great Wakering who finished on 355, pipping us by 1 run.

The bowling performance up front was as clinical as I’d called for in the huddle, as J. Fitz 2.0 inswing king found out what happens when you don’t bowl cross seam for 7 overs, picking up 2 well deserved wickets. Tucks at the other end was tight, accurate and thoroughly miserly in his opening spell, only conceding 11 runs and getting the one wicket. 3 down with not many on the board, a slightly demoralised Eastwood team were on the ropes.

We lost our intensity for the next phase of play, floating half volleys and digging in half trackers to allow Morrant to construct an aggressive 71. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals, Ollie somehow picking up 2, although many are unsure as to how and why the batsmen were so generous. Swanny started to find his length and this proved too much for the Eastwood lower order as he got 4 quickly. It took Duggers all of 3 balls to clean up a rather combative Stirrup as Eastwood were 176 all out in 35.3 overs.

Miscellaneous musings
1. Furthermore to my point last week about big individual scores winning games, big partnerships win games. We had one partnership of 132 and another of 194 at the weekend. Couple this with a partnership of 165 against Writtle and one of 174 against Tillingham it seems quite clear our batting is heading in the right direction. These partnerships put pressure on the opposition bowlers as they know they cannot afford to bowl any bad balls. This inevitably leads to bad balls. We have a variety of styles and techniques right down the order to take advantage of any weaknesses in the opposition bowling line up. Long may this continue. #NewWaltham

2. The bowling was great in patches but lacking in others, a trend shown in the last few years. We need to keep up the pressure for considerably longer when we come up against better batting lineups otherwise we’ll be the ones chasing 350. We have shown the ability and temperament to keep pressure up when we’re batting. The bowling and fielding has the same talent and I hope the execution will soon follow.

3. I think we took all our catches, apart from a tough, low chance at 2nd slip. I’d quite like to keep that record up.

4. Thanks to Chappy for doing the barbeque and to anyone who helped facilitate that.

p.s. Hopefully we’ll have some more statistical breakdown if the scorer from Eastwood sends over his spreadsheet. Might have to step up your game JT, this guy had a laptop. Bar charts, line graphs, the works. Just something to contemplate.

Great Waltham Cricket Club 1st XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
7nb 14w 4b 6lb 
for 2 wickets
31
354		        
Simon Richardson Caught  9 2 1
David Clout Caught  87 13 1 1
Samuel Harris Not Out  151 15 6 2
Daniel Bloom Not Out  76 6 4
Craig Swan  
Ollie Fitzwater  
Gary Bloom   1
Lewis Tucker  
Matt Duggan   1
Mark Chapman  
Joshua Fitzwater   2

Eastwood Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Deeming10.0147147.004.70
Morrant10.027200.007.20
Stirrup4.002900.007.25
Ganeshalingam 10.0066166.006.60
D. Howe8.008400.0010.50
G. Howe2.002000.0010.00
Leonard1.002400.0024.00

Eastwood Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
10lb 
for 10 wickets
10
176 (35.3 overs)		     
P. Genashalingam ct Duggan b Tucker 16
T. Byford b J. Fitzwater 0
S. Coussins ct & bowled J. Fitzwater 5
B. Morrant ct J. Fitzwater b Swan 71
B. Deeming ct Richardson b O.Fitzwater 23
M. Leonard ct Harris b O Fitzwater 11
G. Howe b Swan 0
S. Cooper Not Out  15
C. Hill ct Clout b Swan 0
D. Howe ct Bloom b Swan 0
H. Stirrup ct Harris b Duggan 25

Great Waltham Cricket Club 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Joshua Fitzwater7.0037218.505.29
Lewis Tucker7.0111111.001.57
Ollie Fitzwater5.0049224.509.80
Craig Swan10.0262415.506.20
Mark Chapman6.021500.002.50
Matt Duggan0.30212.004.00