Cavaliers match Report v. Nat West Bank. 24th May 2003

We extended our run to 2 losing draws with this one sided game at Nat West.

Nat West fielded a side with at least 2 bats who would have looked at home in the Kent League. Having lost the toss and our opening bowler to the Third Eleven the bowlers and fielders aided and abetted the Nat West no 3 to a 116 Not out off with his hundred coming off 78 balls..The Captain Chris Atkinson contributed to this by failing to clutch onto the ball dropping over his head having run about 15 yards from wide mid on to try and catch a steepling mishit drive behind the bowler off which the batsmen ran two whilst the ball was in orbit with which the batsman recorded his second ton having posted a 151 a few weeks earlier. The Captain had earlier held onto the only two chances out of 10 offered by the batsman to Catford`s butterfingered fielders.

All the Catford players should attend church before next Saturdays game. To paraphrase an old Fred Trueman story from John Arlotts book "their prayers may not be answered but the practice of putting their hands together to pray would be good practice for when they next try taking a catch".

In mitigation it can be said that this was a very good batting wicket. However apart from Richard Coles 2 for 56 off 16 overs and Rob Thompson 1-36 off 9 overs the rest of the bowling disappeared regularly over the leg side boundary for 4 or 6 as the batsman had time to pick his spot with a lot of short pitched bowling.

When it came to bat we managed to occupy 48 overs making 108 for 8. Apart from Rob Thompsons aggressive 34 and Milind batting soundly for nearly 30 overs for 16 with Richard Coles 14 there was nothing of note to report. We will struggle to make 150 most weeks even on a good track. However, there is a good team spirit and whilst we were completely outplayed the side observed the sound principle that it is for the stronger side to win the game and not for weaker side to lose it.

Chris Atkinson
Cavaliers Captain


RESULT DRAWN TIME GAME