at Rawreth Lane, Old Ground, June 22nd 2013
Friendly
Team: Adam Bailey, Joe Barnett, Jamie Coleman†, Jack Collins, Aaron Golstein, Simon Hall, Tom King, Tom Lopez, Kian Norton-Reeves, Craig Smith*, David Watts.
Canvey Island B visited us at Rawreth Lane for a recently arranged friendly game. Craig Smith, captain, won the toss and decided to bat first.
Craig and Joe Barnett opened and prospered. Canvey’s bowling was a little short and with the ball bouncing both players were able to play their preferred cross-bat shots. There was not much running as both preferred to play strokes. This nearly caused a problem when Craig got a top edge, called for the run whilst Joe stood and watched to see if the catch was taken. It wasn’t, but neither was the run. Fortunately it didn’t disturb Craig much as he then hit a 4 to retire not out on 26.
Tom Smith joined Joe and continued the positive approach. Tom hit less boundaries (despite trying very hard) forcing Joe and him to run which they generally did. After one of these Joe retired not out on 25.
Simon Hall joined Tom at the wicket and played more carefully. Simon was playing his first game of the season and concentrated on getting used to the middle. Tom played through and retired not out on 25. The first time I can remember 3 Rayleigh players retiring not out as batters.
David Watts joined Simon and played a slashing stroke at the first delivery he faced, was a little early and hit the ball up for a catch.
Adam Bailey joined Simon and started in his normal way by hitting a 4. Simon was out soon after, Kian Norton-Reeves was also out for 0 and Jamie Coleman joined Adam to continue scoring. Jamie was eventually out for 13 allowing Tom Lopez to come out, score a run and finish not out. Good for the average. Adam was also not out on 17 (even better for his average) including a big 6 as his final scoring stroke.
Having scored 141 for 4 with 3 batters retiring not out we clearly had a good start. Yes a few balls went into the air but avoided fielders and yes a couple of times we didn’t push the runs when we should have but overall a lovely relaxed innings with the players enjoying themselves.
At half time a number of the bowlers said they were going to try things out in the second half – this mainly seemed to mean the seam bowlers were going to try spin. Always interesting.
However the Tom Tom partnership opened (King and Lopez) and started with a wicket maiden from TK and an ’ordinary’ maiden from TL. Neither could keep this up and after 4 overs the Tom Toms had conceded 11 runs for 1 wicket. Not bad.
Jack Collins and Craig were the next pair and kept the scoring rate down with Craig taking a wicket in his first over. Aaron Golstein followed trying leg spin for the first time and was a bit more expensive but still reasonable. David had a couple of overs and got a wicket, Adam had a couple of overs and didn’t, Kian had a couple of overs and did Joe (normally the keeper) had a couple of overs and conceded less than Adam, just.
Canvey had needed 53 runs from the least three overs. They scored 11 in the 18th and 12 in the 19th. Could they score 30 runs from 6 balls?
Aaron bowled the final over and despite bowling 9 balls stopped Canvey from getting the runs they needed.
At the end it was a comfortable win for us but in the second half we clearly relaxed too much. Only 64 runs came from the bat and there may have been 7 byes. That means an awful lot of wides and no balls. Our fielding was also sloppy with runs being conceded, including unnecessary over throws, too often. It was a friendly and we were in a good position after the first innings but.
Anyway next week back to a League game, home against Rankins.