Bath plugged

Easton Cowboys C.C. Saturday XI v Bath C.C. 4th XI

Mixed fortunes on the field for the three Cowboy league teams this weekend, with a crushing defeat, a last ball thriller and a wobbly victory. The Saturday XI travelled to Winford for their home (?) game against Bath 4th XI, some preparing for the match by lying under the trees in the shade while the Bath contingent took over the square and performed their well-drilled exercise routines.

Captain Budge nonchalantly shrugged off losing the toss, possibly because the opposition chose to bat first on a warm and muggy afternoon with a lot of cloud cover. Still, those short boundaries at Winford do look appetising.

The leporine captain sprang down the hill and found most of the things that a bowler likes to find, like pace and bounce and swing, but despite keeping it tight, a wicket eluded him. RobT came up the hill from the flightpath end and kept the pressure on, once the autopilot was engaged, but the breakthrough wouldn't come.

The 2G combination of Grove and Gibbons struck first, if memory serves, but it doesn't and it's all a bit of a blur (others promised to help tell the story) but suffice to say, all-rounder on fire Ev's introduction into the attack tugged the zip up further on the Bath innings until something was going to burst.

And if that bowling change worked a treat, then Kalu's first over piled up the jelly and ice-cream, flighting and tempting and ripping the ball until a beguiled batsman walked out of his crease and Gretch behind the stumps made no mistake. Later in the over, the pair served up a plate of deja vu and the opposition innings suffered indigestion.

It was hard work in the field mind and both Grover and RobT had close encounters with boundary fences and hedging, edges occasionally flew and Iggy and Gretch dived but returned with no pearls. At one point, Kalu nearly pulled off a remarkable caught and bowled, but was just unable to grab the rebound, earning him both a Cider Moment award and a fine for the drop. Ev showed off his throwing arm to all on numerous occasions but the batsman must have been looking the other way, as after a while, he attempted a ridiculous second run when Ev had almost gathered the ball, and was run out by miles.

Four or five wickets down and the score was still below fifty, the run rate below three. The batting became more obstinate, stylish and coached but still the boundaries were few and far between. The captain took a remarkable catch, or made a simple one look so, deep and straight, off the bowling of Kalu, and later returned for another spell with the ball and dislodged the eventual top scorer, Beth Howe, LBW for 17.

A young tail wagged and resisted a while, but the innings crumpled, then ended with another run out in the 32nd over, with the score on 105. Behind the feeling of pleasant surprise was the possibility that it could have been even less, sitting next to the thought that perhaps the bowling attack would be deadly.

And so to tea, to enjoy Iggy's excellent provisions, eat melon in the sunshine and make passengers on incoming FlyBe jets sigh at the vision of pastoral bliss a few hundred feet below them.



Iggy and the returning Grover opened the batting to face another new ball that had been agreed upon at the start of the match. Unsurprisingly, it behaved nastily in capable hands and scoring opportunities were very limited. The score crept along until first Iggy, then Ben was bowled from the top end, the latter with a corker.

The as-yet-uneaten jelly and ice-cream had started to wobble a bit. Enter Alan, to partner Grover's stable left hand and create a solidifying toffee coating: All very sweet until Grover went LBW for 25 and Ev came in to face bowling changes.

Bath had responded to pressure and become more vociferous in the field, although the underlying bleat always evoked fear and desperation rather than confidence and certainty. But then Ev was bowled cheaply, Justin went to a good catch and Kalu went out to join anchorman Alan.

Together, on occasions, they threaded and launched the ball around the ground, Kalu scoring a six over long on to scatter the worried fielders and stir a stagnant run rate. When he was caught a few boundaries later, the Cowboys were six wickets down with about thirty runs to get in more than a dozen overs.

As a parent, your correspondent has got into the habit of not smacking a ball bowled by a small child as hard as possible to the boundary, (a la Simon Day's 'Competitive Dad') but rather spooning it up for one of his/her chums to catch in a manner that even granny would be ashamed of. So he did and the toffee coating cracked and the melted cream came out. There were more enthusiastic squeaks from the bottom field when Gretch was run out, also for a duck, but long distance, Man of the Match Alan was still there.

The Cowboys' cause was greatly bolstered by a a large number of wides that agitated and angered a few of the opposition although there was no doubt that the balls were out of reach. With many overs still to go, RobT went out to join Alan in looking in control of the situation, pulling it off with aplomb, hitting the winning runs of a two wicket victory to secure a third win in a row

Scorecard