"3rd XI Reminiscent of 1990s England in Defeat To Bradford"

During the 1990’s England’s test side regularly played with four bowlers, with keeper Alec Stewart batting at seven to help stiffen a fragile batting line-up. All too often this was (as least) one bowler too few, and the result was a head-scratching captain surveying the field for someone, anyone, who could turn their arm over for a few overs of respite for the weary foursome. Alas for skipper Jim Creed this was the scenario for the game against a weak looking Bradford on Avon 2^nd XI, although in this case, it was simply the selection crisis engulfing the club that caused the dearth of bowlers. With so many regular cricketers unavailable at all levels the inevitable weakness hit the thirds hard, even if the final eleven looked marginally stronger than the previous week, on the batting front at least. Of the eleven selected, only Jim, Graham Tanner and Mark Dixon would be called regular bowlers, with the addition of Matthew Jones leaving at least 9 overs to be filled from the ranks of the part-timers.

On winning the toss the BoA skipper chose to field. Jim opted to pair regular opener Rich Guy with your correspondent, and for once an experiment worked. Notwithstanding a couple of loose shots, the partnership reached 55 before Woodman was dismissed by a fullish delivery on leg stump. Jim and Richard now built on this opening and pushed on to 112 before Richard departed, triggering a mini-collapse to 128-5. Graham Tanner (25) and Jim (64) stabilised things and pushed the total to a respectable 177-8 from the full 45 overs.

In response BoA also started with a half-century opening partnership, before skipper Creed induced a top-edge from Harris that looped gently to Dixon (you mean huge waft that came down with snow on it? - Editor), loitering at first slip. With Graham tempting Robinson to pull straight to Keith, things were looking more positive for the home side. It was now that the bowling weakness came to play its role. With Dixon looking toothless, and the Guy experiment brought to an early end, Jim was left trying almost anything. Keith Pullin, whose last bowling stint was some years before was brought on to bowl some gentle spin and it was he who finally made the breakthrough – a decent caught and bowled return catch to dismiss Rendell.

At 109-3, the match looked delicately poised, with a definite sense that a couple more wickets would tip the balance decisively to Marshfield. Try as they did, the next wicket wouldn’t come, not helped by some poor decisions from the square leg umpire. When the fourth wicket finally came with the score on 153, the damage had been done. At least it was a first Marshfield wicket for Matthew Jones, and apparently a decent diving catch by Dixon at long-on, although as this correspondent’s view was obscured I can neither confirm nor deny whether he actually just fell over, or did indeed execute a catch every bit as good as he (repeatedly) tells me it was.

Opinions on the Champagne moment of the match differed somewhat!!.

Despite never scoring freely, BoA had kept up with rate all the way through their innings, and duly completed their win with six balls to spare. It is hard to escape the conclusion that just one more bowler could have tipped the balance in a tight contest.

Man of the match to Jim for a belligerent 64 (‘the feet were starting to move’) and a tidy spell of bowling that should’ve yielded more than one wicket.

 Tim Wooman