Under 15s vs Farnham Royal, 12th June 2005

Ian Walter

Back to the drawing board lads!

Half way through the season and I still find myself with sufficient enthusiasm to pen a match report, but after our under 15s performance against Farnham Royal on Sunday 13 June I am asking myself why?? This was comfortably our worst performance of the season and there were few positives to take from either batting, bowling or fielding!

Resources were once again tested to the limit with our under 14s having a game on the same day (must try to avoid that next season!) and we were indebted to Sam Harrison (broken arm), Alex Wallis (clash midway through the game with a music lesson (!!)) and David Falconer (12 year old brother of Richard) for turning out and making up the eleven.

Initially, all was going reasonably well with Farnham on 32 for 2 after 8 overs and the game under a semblance of control. However we then foolishly took wickets 3 and 4 which appeared to let in Test class batsmen who had 144 on the board only forty minutes later. Admittedly however Farnham were assisted by some very friendly bowling (26 conceded in wides and no balls) and some decidedly second-rate fielding. The honourable exceptions to this were Sam (good excuse) and one fantastic diving stop by Richard. As for the others, so much for the ‘long barrier’ we have been practising for years. On too many occasions it was neither ‘long’ nor a ‘barrier’! We also seemed to shepherd the ball to the boundary once or twice when it would have been easier to stop it.

I must though mention another splendid spell of bowling by Ben Ford amongst the carnage (1 for 6 from 4 overs).

Needless to day our innings started disastrously with ducks for openers Richard and Alex (stumped in his anxiety to escape to his music lesson) and only three players scored more than 1! These were Paul Boden (14), Stephen Walter (12, run out off a no ball... aaaagh) and Daniel Wilde (11) who finished with a runner after their opening bowler missed with a shy on the stumps and caught Daniel a nasty 90 mph blow on the back of the knee instead.

Their opening bowler by the way (South of England apparently), by the common consent of those present, was probably as fast as anybody in our club (Saturday first XI included). You’ve got to start getting used to that lads as you get bigger. In the end we were dismissed for 66 in the 15th over, comprehensively beaten by a good side but really we should, and could, have made more of a game of it than we did. In essence we allowed ourselves to be intimidated by some hard hitting and (later) by some quick bowling which too many didn’t fancy.