Ley Hill 3rds v Wendover on Saturday 16 June 

Another game against Wendover, another deluge, at least in Ley Hill. Miraculously however the lunchtime downpour that sadly took out the seconds’ home match as well as the town carnival by-passed Bellingdon and, having arrived at the ground, I found myself on the phone having difficulty convincing players to turn up as they were busy at home piling up sandbags by their back doors!   

Another week of press coverage saw 3^rd team players hitting both the back and front pages of this week’s Examiner (it’ll be ‘pedalo Peplow’ next!), and further ‘enforced’ team changes meant that our number of players this season has already reached 30, and it is only mid-June! Once again unfortunately there were enough seniors around to keep the juniors out of the side so they were having to content themselves with matches over the weekend for the under 13s and under 14s.  

This week’s debutants were Talib Hussain with a welcome return and, playing his first match for the club, the incredibly keen Umar Tanveer, who must have rung me every day this week checking the latest on the build-up to the big game, his first for some time apparently.

 

Fortunately the opposition arrived both on time and en masse and for once we were able to start promptly as the rest of Hill’s team were able to escape Chesham’s monsoon. Not only that but Paul Green also arrived after losing his game and very kindly offered to umpire.  

Having won the toss one look at the Bellingdon wicket was enough to convince Wendover’s skipper that he should bowl first and with Hill’s seasonal aggregate at Bellingdon a meagre 202 for 30 so far this season, Hill were right to be anxious about having first knock!  

But our fears were misplaced for once as Sam Wilson (30) and Rob Rooney (26) (sssshhhh don’t tell anyone he was playing for us) compiled a very sensible opening stand of 67 and we were in uncharted territory. By Bellingon standards the wicket (third pitch up from the bottom of the square by the way) was almost behaving itself, but an outfield that was both soft and on the long side meant that run-scoring more than singles was difficult. Wickets started to fall as the run rate eventually increased but it was left to Hitesh and Talib (both scoring twenty somethings) to apply some real impetus as they sought the aerial route with some big shots and, with old stagers Mortimer and Walter scampering quick singles at the end we were in the very rare position of ‘declaring’ at tea in the relative comfort zone of 146 for 8. 

To be fair, Wendover had bowled 47 overs at us in two and a half hours, including drinks and thunder breaks, but 146 felt like about 475 on that pitch so we headed off to the village hall and Jim and Mary’s tea in good spirits.  

Almost immediately on the resumption however the skies darkened, and after Hitesh and Talib removed the openers courtesy of good catches from Rob and Denis respectively the heavens did eventually open and that was that.

A shame, not least as I was looking forward to “I’ve got a strong arm, put me in the deep” Umar having a bowl. Arguably the day’s champagne moment was his retrieval of a ball from long on with the ensuing throw not far short of six overthrows, almost decapitating umpire Green in the process and requiring Hitesh to back up on the long leg boundary. He’s got a strong arm all right! 

So with Wendover struggling at 11 for 2 a moral victory perhaps, but we were very luck to see any play at all.