6th August Brighton and Hove 2nd¹s League
For the second time this summer, we descended upon the sunshine coast. This time, the opposition managed to make it on the same day as well all well and good. Due to this being a re arranged game, (and excessive celebrations from last week) we were missing a number of first team regulars, however, we were buoyed by the addition of Janice Fraser, who was excused her duties with the Mx U13¹s, to captain us.
Loosing the toss, we were put into bat, and things couldn¹t have got of to a worse start when Janice was unable to get her bat out of the way of one that followed her¹, and edged to the keeper in the 3rd over. Emma Jones joined Sue Donaldson and the two proceeded cautiously, with the Brighton openers bowling a tight line and length. Just as they were beginning to pick up the singles, a misheard call, coupled with the ball going to the best fielder, who pinged it straight in over the stumps, lead to Em being run out by the smallest of margins. Meobs walked past a very unhappy Em, determined to get us out of the slightly sticky mess we were in. Very quickly, she was walking back, equally unhappy, having been clean bowled. At this point the score board made very bad reading - 24 for 3, with 35 overs still remaining, as Chander Kaul walked towards the middle, in desperate need of some runs. Such has been her poor run of form in recent games, that she¹d abandoned her bat in favour of Janices. How pleased we were as she proceeded to play the kind of innings that made her one of the best bats in the world, not too long ago.
Along with Sue, the pair put on a display that any aspiring young bat could not fail to learn from. They manipulated the ball around, rotating the strike, treating the good ball with respect and punishing the bad ones. Sue continued from where she left off last week, whilst Chander started playing shots she¹d not played for ages. One thing that really struck me was their experience twice in one over, Chander really timed the ball, straight to mid wicket, who somehow managed to stop it. Rather than getting frustrated at two great shots for no runs, and doing something rash, or attempting a sucidal run just because she¹d played a good shot, she merely waited a bit longer for the next bad ball, and made sure that that was put away properly and with the minimum amount of fuss.
From a rather ropey position, we steadily moved on at a rapid rate we were looking good for a run rate of 6 an over, when disaster struck Chander was caught behind for 80. Still, Sue was still there, rolling back the years and batting like it was 1988 all over again. However, the last 5 overs, which promised so much, went with a wimper 6 runs were added, as Sue failed to the 2 runs she required to make her first century this century, finishing unbeaten on 98. The last time she carried her bat, there was a different political party in power.
Defending 235, Janice threw the ball to .herself and Danni Warren. A great start Wendy wide deciding to visit us, as Janice struggled to control the swing and bowled 2 wides. Still, the amount of swing got Danni¹s eyes wide open in anticipation she claimed the first wicket with her 5th ball - a fantastic catch from Aasharaya Shankar at cover. Quite how she managed to get her fingers to the ball, let alone hold onto it, is beyond me; it really was the sort of catch you see re-played over and over again on the TV. Danni was back in the wickets in her 3rd over, this time Janice holding a regulation catch.
With the score on 19 for 2, Hopkins and White put up a sturdy defence, waiting for the bad ball. They were ticking along quite nicely, until an inspired bowling change saw Laura Titch¹ Gardiner pick up Hopkins Titch is proving a real handful, with her left arm over bowling she gets a great deal of lift and is deceptively quick. This breakthrough was quickly followed by Binaisha Shah picking up another senior wicket, when Tor Begg held onto to a regulation catch at square leg. With the score on 44 for 4, something in our fielding just seemed to click Binaisha picked up another wicket, before Janice brought herself and Danni back on to finish off the tail which they did with aplomb. Janice taking a wicket with her first ball of her second spell, Danni in her first (and only) over of her second spell another great catch from Aash, before Janice decided to be greedy and make up for missing out on the runs and claimed the last 3 Brighton wickets in 5 balls, to finish up with 4 for 20. Brighton were all out for 71 a great performance and to top it off, we got an extra 2 bonus points for bowling them out inside 28 overs!! All together now Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside¹