Petersfield Inter Club Friendly

In a complete contrast to last weekends freezing conditions the inter club pre-season game between a mix of 3rd XI, 2nd XI and colts took place at Penn’s place in glorious sunshine (more on that later). 3rd team captain James Stratford-tuke won the toss and elected to bat on a dry used pitch. Eoin Seager (51) and Bob Wemyss (32) opened the batting facing up to the new opening partnership of Dave Squires (1-18 off 5 overs) and Sam Howe (1-42 off 6). After some low full tosses and some beautiful shots from the 2 openers the partnership was finally broken with the score on 51 with Bob Wemyss missing an inswinging ball from Squires removing his middle stump from the ground. After losing his opening partner Eoin Seager continued in fine form to make a very nice 51, before being bowled by Captain Straw (3-12 off 5) bowling offspin off 2 paces with the occasional very fast delivery which accounted for all his wickets! Paddy May (72) had come in after the fall of Marcus Sampson (7) who had smeared a cover drive in the air straight at Matt Salmon rather than over him. Paddy had set about dismantling the young bowling attack and was particularly brutal against his own son (was heard saying “he has got to learn” after smashing 1 huge six over mid-on). Paddy’s early season form is fantastic having made a fifty in each of his 2 innings to have an average of 64.5 ! Despite some very good swing bowling from Simpson (0-40 off 7) the scoring rate continued after May was clean bowled by Alex Squires (1-28 off 3) with Rob Allerston (39) and young Josh Bird (12) scoring quickly before a late order collapse caused by spins twins Matt Salmon (2-43 off 5) and Frank Straw. The final wicket fell remarkably to the ‘Welsh Gazelle’ Thomas who had earlier got so excited by a near run out (well he thought so) that he turned very primal with what was described by the umpire as a ‘rutting call’ as the ball whistled just past the stumps. Off went the gazelle jumping around like a frightened sheep as he took his first wicket for the club bowling Simon Dodd (3) around his legs. The tea refreshments went down very well with all the players as the chilli and sausages were all gone much to my dog’s disappointment this morning as he only got 2 leftover sausages! Thanks to Liz, Richard and Judith for the chillis and the cakes. The only disappointment was the lack of colts who turned out for the ‘skills challenge’ that James had spent so long setting up (better luck next time James). After the tea James’ team got off to a great start removing the ‘spin twins’ and ‘Welsh Gazelle’ within the first 3 overs with only Straw making any runs leaving Straw’s team on 7 for 3 as James’s opening bowlers Simon Dodd (2-16 off 5) and the returning Ed Davenport (1-8 off 4) ripping the top order apart. Omar Iqbal (10) who had popped in for some chilli and then found himself playing and David Longland (33) started to make the score a little bit more respectable taking the score to 24 before Omar missed a straight one from Rob Allerston (1-18 off 5). This brought opening bowler Squires (33) to the crease as the pressure was put backs on James's team bowlers as the two ‘Daves’ frustrated the bowlers and then opened up in a partnership of 65 which helped Frank’s team to make it a long hot afternoon for James’s fielders. The partnership was eventually broken by Eoin Seager’s (3-22 off 7) leg spin as Squires fell for the old ‘throw it above the batsman's eye line and he will try to hit it out the ground trick’. Ollie Simpson (15) then came out to hit some lovely shots before he skied one to his Under 15 team mate Josh Bird who took a very solid catch. Once David Longland had gone the lower order went down without much of a fight leaving captain James (3-18 off 3.4 overs) with very respectable figures.The game finished with Frank’s team falling 115 short of James teams 250. Man Of The match IMHO was Eoin Seager closely followed by Paddy May Moments of the match In the first inning was the aforementioned Gazelle rutting call and celebration of his first wicket. In the Second innings the bank of 6 catchers in the slips waiting for the Gazelle to edge one it was like watching England v Australia in 2010 Good luck to everyone for the new season which starts Saturday, lets hope the weather continues like this and we all enjoy the cricket as much as we did yesterday.