Under 15s vs Dinton, 10th July 2005

--- A lovely outing to Dinton! ---

Ian Walter

With the stresses and strains of competitive cricket behind our under 15s for another year it was back to the ‘friendly stuff’ with this Sunday morning adventure to Dinton. For the record by the way we finished mid-table and reached the second round of the cup.

A glorious cloudless morning provided the perfect backdrop to the ground. None of us had visited Dinton before and there were gasps from everyone at their first sight of the ground which pretty much resembled Lord’s without the stands.

The square seemed to stretch for ever, the sightscreens were at least twice the size of ours, chairs and benches for spectators were scattered all round the pitch and there was a ‘proper’ boundary rope that could have hosted a tug of war between the entire populations of Europe and the USA. Where was their modest length of blue washing line and the little white flags!

We duly batted on winning the toss but soon discovered that even in these conditions appearances can be deceptive! Opener Paul Boden was adjudged lbw first ball (not by me I hasten to add) and only ‘guest’ player Alex Thomas of the early batsmen made double figures. Wickets fell with alarming regularity and with four down for only 22 Mike Shrieve entered the fray for his finest hour (so far at least). With some excellent strokeplay Mike (17) made a mockery of what had gone before and steadied the innings manfully to stave off total collapse. We were eventually dismissed on a wicket with a very uneven bounce for 76, in the process committing the cardinal sin of not using up our 20 overs. All on Dinton’s alleged billiard table of a pitch too!

Our boys were up for a fight though and our opening pair of Ben Ford (2 for 14) and Sam Harrison bowled particularly well (3 for 14) to keep us in the hunt. Well done Harrison Ford!

However mid-way through the innings came the game’s champagne moment and it was nothing to do with the cricket as we were treated to a low-level fly past by none other than the Red Arrows on their way between Silverstone and London’s 60th Anniversary of VE Day celebrations. A fantastic sight on a beautiful day. Thank you Dinton CC for laying on such a special treat!

Unfortunately though their appearance galvanised Dinton as they edged towards the target which they reached with only 3 wickets to spare. The wicket needless to say was behaving better by now as the sloggers arrived to finish things off but well done lads for sticking to the task on a boiling hot day.