Our 2nd round game saw us up against WPHC Blue (2005 & 2006 champions). The Blues batted on day 1 and things were looking good at the first 2 breaks (1/55 after 20 overs) & 1/130 after (40 overs). Although our bowlers did not pickup many wickets we bowled good line and length and the fielding was sharp. The last 20 overs saw the Blues turn up the pressure and I’m afraid our fielding fell away and we conceded 140 runs in the last session. Plenty of dropped catches and some poor ground fielding aided the run feast. The Blues finished with a score of 4/270 from their 60 overs.

On day 2 our batsmen had one instruction from our coach “ bat the 60 overs”. Shashankh & Jamie opened the innings and they batted superbly to put on a 125 run opening stand. Shashankh was finally run out for an aggressive 74 with a direct hit from the outfield. Jamie was the 2nd wicket to fall caught close to the wicket for a very patient 58. A quick fire partnership between Alex R & Stephen W looked to put us in with a chance to win the game. But with Stephen’s dismissal for 20 and then Alex for 32 we lost our momentum and the Blues ran out winners by 35 runs.

On reflection our coach was very happy with our batting performance against a very strong bowling attack. But we realised that the game got way from us in the last 20 overs on day 1. The learnings from this game were that we must concentrate in the field for the entire game and when the opposition goes on the attack we need to respond in kind by setting defensive fields and by rotating our bowlers effectively.

Peter Rashleigh - Manager

Posted by on October 11, 2007 06:49 AM