Skippers Final Farewell Finishes Fantastically

Shoreham Win by 4 Wickets

After winning the toss in his final game of the season the Sunday Skipper had no hesitation in putting the opposition into bat and being the unselfish guy he is decided to open the bowling down the hill with the wind, while poor Ed Walker had the hill and the wind to battle against (I suppose it’s the advantage of being skipper!!!).

Within the first 6 overs the home side got off to a cracking start with runs coming thick and fast with the batsmen getting full value for their runs, 4’s a plenty. With the score on 60 the first wicket was well over due and the skipper duly obliged with a delivery cutting back and cleaning up the opener Skivingtons middle stump. With the confidence now flowing Walker clean bowled the other opener Rasho for 36 another peach of a delivery leaving the stumps in tatters and Alex and Pat diving for cover from the flying bails !!

This brought together the two most explosive Betsham batmen, Whifield and Bam (Whitfield always getting a ton when the two teams meet and Bam an overseas player from South Africa with a KP hairstyle and Kamikaze batting style to match). The skipper persisted with himself and Walker knowing if both batmens could be got rid of the game would be in Shorehams reach !!

The Skipper came up trumps and clean Bowled Bam for 18 and in the following over Walker got the all important wicket of Whitfield for 27 with a rasping delivery taking middle stump out of the ground, the score now on 110-4, this quickly went to 110-5 with the skipper getting his 3rd of the day. A great display of partnership bowling from Walker and Bromfield !!

With the damage done, Bromfield turned to his younger brother to take the fight to Betsham and this inspired change bore fruit with James’s first ball, another cleaned bowled and only Bromfield Jnr 2nd wicket of the season .

At the other end Brad Simms replaced the impressive Walker and was immediately getting more swing than a 1970’s disco, Confusing the Betsham batsman and even managing to get a SUNDAY LBW decision to everyone’s amazement. Bromfield Jnr was causing trouble at the top and had a great shout from LBW which was turned down but the quick thinking Haysler seeing the Batman out of his crease stumped him.

the betsham innings was coming apart at the seams and Brad Simms finished off them with a great catch from Jack Rivett and a lovely cleaned bowled.

Betsham were all out for 142 after being 102-2. Great effort Boys. (Don’t worry Greg I told you I wouldn’t mention your dropped catch)

With no early tea Nick Walker and S Bromfield opened the Shoreham innings at 2.30pm which surely has to be a record !! with both batmen struggling to move their feet and chasing loose delivers, it looked like an early wicket would fall but it was not the case with both batsman battling to get the score to 37 without lose but in the final over before tea, Nick lost his head and chased a wide one and was caught for only 4. With the score on 37-1 tea was taken.

After the break, Alex Haysler joined the skipper but didn’t last long and was clean bowled by the impressive Hermitage for 1. This brought Bob Simms to the crease and he took full of advantage of some early luck (dropped 3 times) and played some magnificent strokes rolling back the years. Meanwhile the skipper still struggling for a little bit of form managed to get to his 6th 50 of the season taking the team to within victory when he played a silly stoke against Bam, clean bowled for 63, with the score on 108-3.

Jack Rivett came to the crease and played a nice cameo of 8 from 2 balls but was soon clean bowled. Greg Taylor didn’t fair much better and was bowled for 0, this brought the score to 117-5 (surely not another collapse), but James Asplin came to the rescue and scored 16 with 4 impressive drives off some fast Betsham bowling (the feet was more impressive considering James left his glasses at home-Nick mentioned he should do this more often !!).

Shoreham were now within a whisker of Victory. However Asplin was clean bowled and left it to Pat Barratt to get the teams level with a lovely stroke for 1 but fittingly it was impressive Bob Sims who glanced the winning runs of his pads for 4 (leg bye’s) !!

Great Win in the Skippers final game

Man of the MATCH: THE BOWLERS (Great effort)

As it is my final game for a while I would just like to make a few Thank You’s to everybody who have helped me this season.

Most notably Richard Nash, Francis De Sousa, Kumar, Russell Brooks, Alex Haysler, George Rivett, Steve Gear and most especially Ed Walker (playing 2 games a weekend most weeks to help the Sunday team be a lot stronger).

These players have been the back-bone of the Sunday team through thick and the thin this season helping not only on the pitch, making it easy to captain as they are a great bunch of lads but also helping get EXTRA players when the team was ever short.

Thanks As well to Bob and Brad Simms, Ray Trick, Nick Walker, Dan Setterfield Russell Smith, Nick Pearce, Tom Palmer, Greg Taylor, James Bromfield and Steve K and all those I didn’t mention ESPECIALLY THE W.A.G.S and John Bromfield for lovely TEA’s.

Thanks to Ray Trick and Chris Brown who were also ready to over advice and sympathy over player recruitment.

But as a note to the CLUB where the atmosphere of League Cricket seems to dominate current thinking, please do not let the Sunday Team slip down the pecking order.

Sunday is a great day to play a good game of VILLAGE CRICKET in the best location in KENT, it is not a dead rubber game with nothing to play or aim towards. Sunday Friendly cricket offers the opportunity to not only develop new players but develop life long members and friends.

Have a great season next year guys, hopefully I will try and play at least 1 or 2 games.

Many Thanks

Sean Bromfield

‘Right boys’, said Captain Brown in the Shoreham dressing room before the match, ‘Flimwell are far too good to be in division 5. It’s our duty to make sure they get maximum points from the game today so that they go up to div. 4 and we don’t have to play them again until I’m in my bath-chair. I want to see loose bowling, cavalier batting and dodgy fielding. I don’t care how easy the catch is, make sure you drop it.’ I can safely say that we did not let him down.

Shoreham had assembled a fine team to face Flimwell at home on Saturday and certainly our strongest since Mr Contract-Killer played for us against Leigh. Things looked good after Captain Brown lost the toss and was asked to field since this would have been our choice had we won it. In our first match against Flimwell earlier in the season, we amassed 150 hard-fought runs in 40 overs which they picked off in 20 overs so we knew what we were up against. Flimwell’s opening batsman, M Gibb scored a fluent 75 runs (90% of them through extra-cover, a gap which we had cunningly left open to help him on his way) before being run out by his batting partner, E Cameron, who went on to score 116 not out.

We had a few decent LBW shouts rejected (to be expected really) and a sharp chance to square leg off Gibb went to ground, but this was only the rehearsal for Mr Danny Prince’s non-dismissal. Danny is a polite teenager, known throughout Kent for his quiet demeanour and stiff upper lip when given out plum LBW. He is also a fairly dangerous batsman with a penchant for hitting sixes onto the golf course. To set the scene, Shoreham had just got M Gibb out after Ray did a dainty bit of delegation and jumped out of the way to leave Hofmann to throw in to Martin who made a confident run out. Suddenly we were back in the match and a quick wicket here would really put the cat amongst the pigeons. Danny took a massive heave at a shortish ball and the ball skied towards the vacant short leg position. ‘Mine’ shouted Martin, skeetering towards the square-leg umpire. Time stood still. The ball looped gently up in the air, the gloves clapped together and the ball popped out and landed at Martin’s feet. Danny had already reached the pavilion, thrown his bat at the kettle and sworn at Pater before his team-mates shouted at him to go back. Clearly the RTFA is going to be a hotly contested affair this year.

The rest of the Flimwell innings went by in a blur of lost balls, hawthorn scratches, bowling changes (8 bowlers had the chance to be put to the sword during the match), bad language (all by Flimwell players directed at Flimwell players) and they ended with a rather daunting total of 263 from 40 overs. Pick of the bowlers was Montie with 2 for 24 off his 6 overs. Still, the Peck tea was waiting to salve bruised hands and egos – cucumber sandwich anyone?

The Flimwell bowling attack was not quite as fearsome as earlier in the season but they were economical and accurate. Nick Walker Senior failed to gorge himself on the juicy bowling that characterises most 5th division bowling and Montie top-scored with 24 runs, thus completing an unusual double for the Preston Farmer. Shoreham scored a rather disappointing 111 (Nelson) runs and the match was over by 6pm, so we headed for the pub where we waited and waited and waited for the Invincibles to return from Kemsing.

And the wrong glasses? Linda had been dispatched to the car to find Martin’s proper cricketing glasses in the previous over.

- Alex

Win this game, win the League. That was our mission upon arriving at Kemsing’s ground. The weather was bright and humid as Shoreham’s elite took to the field, and Ed Walker and John Dinnis were given the responsibility of getting our attack under way. Nick Walker Jr was delayed, however, due to a perilous detour through Croydon on his way to the game, so Shoreham were a man down for the first 10 overs. Ironically these turned out to be our best 10 overs, as Ed (9-27-0) and John (7-29-0) kept the runs down, although neither could force that vital early wicket.

Peter Wright then took over where John left off, bowling all of his 9 overs for only 31 runs. A good first 20 from Shoreham had Kemsing only on 65 (if my memory serves me correctly), however their two openers, Wood and Shipton, had not been dislodged, and were starting to open up.

Bob Stacey (5-39-1) finally got the breakthrough, getting Wood (60) and leaving Kemsing on 106-1. The collapse Shoreham were working for never came though, as Shipton (80) accelerated the run rate. James Trick (9-47-2) earned his two wickets when Kemsing’s top order were in full flow, although Sandy Clark (1-13-0) was not shown any mercy. After 40 overs, Kemsing finished on 195 for the loss of only 3 wickets. A disappointing afternoon for Shoreham’s bowlers who toiled away in the heat, but a strong total for Kemsing’s batsmen who gave away very few chances and batted steadily throughout.

Faced with our largest total to chase since our third game of the season (against Halstead back in May), Shoreham’s batsmen looked a little out of sorts; with the wickets of Nick Walker Jr (3), Peter Wright (2), and Andy Monteith (5) all going cheaply, leaving us on 27-3. Having dug themselves out of similar holes on occasions throughout this season, however, Shoreham’s lower order were not perturbed by their task. Shoreham’s surviving opener, Sree Kokkiligadda, battled through to hit an invaluable 57, and share an 80 run partnership with Sam Trick (33) to drag us right back into the game.

Unfortunately, Sam departed with our score up to 107-4, and Sree fell soon after. Then Mark McDonald (1) failed to make the impact we were hoping for, leaving the visitors staring defeat in the face on 115-6. James Trick (38) came to the rescue, sharing a 68 run partnership with John Dinnis (31no) before being bowled with only a couple of overs to go. We were trailing by about a dozen runs coming into those final two overs. But the day didn’t get any better for Sandy Clark though, as he was dismissed the ball after James. This brought our no.10, Ed Walker, out to join his fellow opening bowler, John, in the middle. Ed scrambled 4 runs, and John added a few more to his tally, to bring us within 9 runs of victory with 6 balls to go (or at least I think it was that – I don’t have the scorebook and got too drunk afterwards to remember the following moments with any clarity anyway). John walloped his first ball for four. 5 runs from 5 balls then. He smashed his next ball just as hard, but was stopped by a brave piece of fielding at mid-off. The next two balls then passed with John trying to emulate his previous strokes, but to no avail. A bustled single from the penultimate ball brought Shoreham within a boundary of victory and the cool-headed Ed to the strike…

Well, you can’t say I didn’t try to hit the ball really hard out of the ground. The fact that I missed it completely and was bowled meant that Shoreham’s winning run finally came to an end. And it may have cost us 1st place in the League, with only one game of the season remaining – against 2nd placed Weald.

A few glum faces afterwards were apparent, but John and Ed, who had started and ended the game for Shoreham, did make the brief trip back to the George to celebrate the Club’s first double-loss on a Saturday in 2008 with the cream of the 2nd team, and some ace Irish music, long into the night.

- Ed

P.S. We found out on Sunday that we had actually won the League the day before despite losing to Kemsing, because Weald hadn’t picked up enough points in their victory over Speldhurst. How pleasantly ironic?!

KCVL Division 3 League Table
30th August 2008 (One game to go)

There was a rumour that Jerry Stanyard and Nick Walker (London) might have been playing for the seconds this week but apparently they were called into work to help look for something: I forget what, but apparently it carried the batting and bowling statistics, DNA profile, bank account details and conviction record of every player in the Kent Village League.

So, the eleven selected made their way to a Four Elms ground that was basking in sunshine. We batted first, and Paul and Alex comfortably scored at 5 an over. A bowling change meant that the profitable supply of extras diminished and the scoring rate began to fall. Alex was dismissed for an enterprising 39 in the 17th over, and Paul, for a typically stylish 35, in the 27th over. By now the run rate had fallen to around 3 and what followed was not so much a story of the foreign legion as of the lost legion. In a collapse of staggering proportions, the remaining 8 batsmen contributed only 30 runs in 10 overs before we found ourselves all out for 130.

There were two run outs – neither of them involving the Usual Suspect. First Martin Bowden came charging down the wicket calling so loudly that poor Rupert was frozen to the spot. As Rupert didn’t leave his crease, he was the survivor after he found himself sharing it with Martin with the bails removed at the other end. Rupert was however run out when batting with the Next Most Likely Suspect, though not having witnessed this myself I am unable to give an accurate account of what occurred.

Pike’s figures of 9-5-4-18 and Patel’s of 6.4-2-3-18 tell the rest of the story, though neither was unplayable. A low bounce and mounting desperation to push the score along contributed to the debacle. The good news of the latter part of our innings was that the returning Graham survived without breaking anything (including his duck).

130 seemed an inadequate total to defend, but two quick wickets for Martin Bowden gave us some encouragement. Conlin and Hills, the numbers 1 and 4, then compiled a partnership of 50, which was only broken by introduction of Rupert’s wily spin bowling. He dismissed Hills with the first ball of his first over and Conlin with the first ball of his second. Four Elms were however ahead of the required run rate and the three next batsmen chipped in with contributions of 18,14 and 11 respectively. Despite tight bowling by Sims (8-1-26-0), Bowden (9-2-17-2), Peck (5-0-16-0) and Hoffman (4-0-16-0), the match seemed to slip gradually from our grasp. But Rupert the destroyer kept pulling us back into contention, taking wicket after wicket, to finish with splendid figures of 9-0-32-6.

The run rate slowed and slowed, but Four Elms always looked the more likely side to win. At the beginning of the last over Four Elms were on 128 for 9. With one ball to go the scores were tied. Captain Brown brought the field right in.

As in a slow-motion scene from the end of a movie, Ageing Hack bowled the final ball, it’s gentle trajectory bringing it finally into contact with a swinging bat. The startled Hack managed to clutch the return catch and a tie had been snatched from the jaws of defeat.

Amongst the less obvious statistics of this game, we conceded half the number of extras that Four Elms gave away. In part this was due to generally tidier bowling and in part to a good performance behind the stumps by Martin, who dealt well with the odd rogue ball and had a catch and a stumping to his name by the end of the game.

A splendid afternoon’s cricket.

- Wyn