Abberley Hall - Sports News

1st XI Abberley 118 for 9 Dean Close 119 for 3 - Lost

The season got underway with a below par performance against a good Dean Close side. We scored 118-9 in our 30 overs largely thanks to 45 by Rory. No one else made double figures. In reply Dean Close reached the target with 3 overs to spare for the loss of 3 wickets. They batted with patience on a difficult pitch hitting the all too frequent full tosses to the boundary with gusto. Matthew was the pick of the bowlers with 5 very tidy overs.

All in all a disappointing start. Our total was a good 25 short, not helped by a lack of singles and an inability to accelerate at the end of our innings. However fair play to Dean Close who played better than us on the day and deserved their win

The batting began well with Robbie, Captain, and Ollie playing some nice shots. However, the middle order fellaway and runs dried up until Jack.S clubbed the ball to the boundary to give us something to bowl at. JackB chipped in with some valuable runs but Dean Close bowled and fielded very well and our score was never going to be enough. Nevertheless, the team applied themselves to the task. Arthur bowled an excellent line and length and Jack.S steemed in with real pace. Corney bowled superbly and Jack. B gave very few runs away. The bowling was supported by some good fielding; Nick G. especially flung himself around the field with good affect. Nick. B got the break through and with a couple of more wickets Dean Close were in danger of running out of overs. The last over came, the scores were level, Nick G bowls and first ball takes a wicket, followed by three dot balls...could we squeeze out a tie? But no the batsman clipped the ball to the fine leg boundary and the match went to Dean Close In conclusion: an enjoyable match, played in great spirit and pleasant sunny weather.Well played 2nd.XI

Oh dear. They were very good, we weren’t. Barely had there been any games practice, when the first match was upon us. This team had been selected almost randomly from a large number of enthusiastic boys.

We “batted” first and scored very few. Dean Close rapidly won the game by tea. This gave a perfect opportunity to practise against an opposition and learn a great deal about the game. Everybody bowled, everybody batted – some boys twice. At least, now, I have seen what they can and can’t do and can work on this with them. Frankly the first match came far too soon. The result is not important, the learning experience

Andrew won the toss and put Dean Close into bat. Their opening partnership was very strong and they began to attack our bowlers, scoring freely. It was just going to be ‘one of those days’, when the Dean Close players struck the ball they managed to avoid our fielders and score boundaries, we had several chances to make catches but today the catches did not stick. Finally after an opening partnership of 59 our luck changed and Tristan managed to clean bowl one of their openers. Our bowling was a little wayward at times but we began to take wickets with Edward achieving two wickets in two balls and Tristan claiming a further 3 wickets. Although we got seven of their players out without scoring, the three remaining batsmen scored a lot of runs to give them an impressive total of 144 all out.

Our reply started slowly against a good accurate bowling attack, runs were hard to come by and wickets began to fall. Good fortune was with our opponents and it seemed that every time we struck the ball well and it was heading to the boundary one of their fielders was in the way and, of course, when the ball went in the air they held onto their catches. Once we had overcome the early accurate bowling from Dean Close, Timon(16), Edward(19 NO) and especially Alvaro(23) started to score runs and helped to amass a very creditable reply of 113-7 from our allotted overs

Well done boys, this was an excellent game. Just remember ‘it’s catches that win matches’