cricket 25 Jul 2006 09:28 am
Beaten at Bentley
Visiting Bentley Leisure Centre to play cricket is not an experience I’d recommend. In fact, I’m not sure any players from either team would really recommend it. Walsall YMF beat us by 6 wickets but several of their players looked like they were struggling after taking blows to the hands. Our main casualty was Jack, as you can see from the picture below! Missing his hook shot was out of character (and painful).
Jack - a few butterfly stitches and some swelling. Nice. |
Whilst Walsall were the better team, we should have done better after scoring 60 from the first 8 overs - thanks largely to some poor bowling. Two indifferent shots, a good ball and a blow to the head and we had four batsmen out of the game. Neither of our opening batsmen have gone on to big scores so far this year, and it’s something we need to change in the second half of the season.
Simon Baxter batted very well for his 29, and our lower-middle order grafted hard as the pitch got more difficult to bat on thanks to rain and poor light. 145 all out wasn’t an awful score but was going to be hard to defend. We needed to take any chances which came our way. |
It didn’t quite work out that way. We missed a couple of catches and some good batting from Waheed at the top of the order (who took some painful blows) saw Walsall home. After prolonged rain the pitch was pretty terrible, and we were lucky there were no more serious injuries - it did look as though there were some pretty bruised hands/fingers at the end of the YMF innings.
Quite why the fixture was allowed to go ahead at a ground which met almost none of the league standards is beyond me. “Rules are rules” we were told when penalty points were deducted for a slow over rate.
With lots of other games abandoned, the league table is more or less unchanged. Bablake visit us on Saturday so it’s our turn to have a shot at their unbeaten record.
5 Responses to “Beaten at Bentley”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on 25 Jul 2006 at 2:57 pm 1.kh said …
I agree with your comments Will; especially after hearing the news from Jim Hartley that our penalty points have been confirmed.
I dread to think what we would have suffered from the WCL if our ground wasn’t available because Yardley Great Trust wanted to hold, say, a car boot sale.
It is also interesting to note that we have no detailed reply to our appeal letter, although a considerable number of issues were raised.
The whole process looks anything but transparent and even more questionable after the 70% debacle of the previous week end.
on 25 Jul 2006 at 4:58 pm 2.will said …
I have emailed you another response… the whole thing is incredibly frustrating.
How much is the league fee each year? We spend that plus £550 in umpires fees (assuming 22 games @ £25 each).
Doesn’t feel like we’re getting value for money - but then what are the options?!!
on 26 Jul 2006 at 3:24 pm 3.kh said …
A conundrum??????????????
The process must be smoke and mirrors, if the following proves to be true …
A team playing in the Warwickshire Cricket League Division 1 was penalised 6 points by the umpires for bowling their overs too slow (including 25 overs from a slow bowler - no pun intended) during June.
The penalty points were not enforced because the Warwickshire Cricket League ruled that it was a hot day!
Anyone need a reality check?
on 04 Aug 2006 at 10:36 am 4.Tom said …
“1 Aims and Jurisdiction
These Regulations… are intended to provide assistance and uniformity to all Clubs in dealing with any alleged breach of League Rules, Playing Regulations, Playing Conditions and the Code of Conduct incorporating The Spirit of Cricket. ”
Straight from the league rulebook…
on 04 Aug 2006 at 10:37 am 5.Tom said …
I love the word uniformity; from the above posts it would seem that the League are not following their own guidelines!