Wield vs Dummer, Sunday 7th September
Weather - Warm enough for September
A nice sunny day, and Yorkie won the toss. The outfield had been mowed, but not to the lowest level Wield has seen, so boundaries would always be difficult. Toby opened with Andrew Frome, who was soon replaced by Michael H-T. Toby hit the ball hard for 21 runs: he hit the ball so hard onto a Dummer bowler’s shins that he retired hurt, but he then hit bit hard to a Dummer fielder who did well to hold it. Overall, both sides were to hold more catches than they dropped - a point of interest for the historians. Various batsman joined Michael, but were out cheaply in a variety of ways. The bowling was quite tight and the runs were coming slowly, or they were just coming slowly anyway. Eventually Michael was out for 37, run out by a direct hit and the score on about 75, with tea looming. Things then speeded up with Ken Thomas hitting 20 and Aidan Blackman hitting his first boundary of the season, and then a second in the same over, speeding to 16 not out. Tea arrived with Wield having reached 127 for 8. Wield had 10 men, including Graham of Dummer, who nobly dashed back to Dummer for his kit. Dummer were reduced to 10 fielders because of their injured bowler.
It did not look like a winning total, but the Dummer skipper told me that a year or two ago Wield scored 120 and won by 5 runs, and shortly after that they lost 3 wickets. Dan opened the bowling with Sam Thomas. They both bowled well, but it was Sam who got the wickets, including the day’s golden moment of Andrew Frome taking a splendid slip catch low down. Toby was wicket keeper and did not drop anything, but could not emulate Max’s wonderful 3 catches last week. Robin held a very good catch when the ball was hit extremely hard towards him by the best Dummer batsman, which proved to be the turning point, and also held a second catch - indeed the score book wrongly recorded that he had taken 3 catches and qualified for a jug, until he corrected matters. At 20 overs, Dummer only needed about 4 runs an over, but after Robin‘s catch, Dummer limped from about 60 at that stage to 87 all out, with 3 overs remaining, despite some sturdy lower order resistance. Aidan Blackman got 3 wickets for about 18 runs, including a caught and bowled. Michael held a catch off Robin Hunt’s bowling, or at least clutched the ball to his chest. But it was Ken Thomas who bowled very well and got 2 wickets, who pushed for victory, which was sealed by a blistering ball from Dan, who eventually got a wicket for his efforts.
Michael H-T
