First Game New season.. vs Master of Puppets

Date 7th August 2006

Our lineup included in batting pairs, Cap'n Bob & Little Mahstar, Malpass & Thorpe, The King & The Don, Daints & Pax.

We batted first and we lost early wickets, finishing the first over on -2, after 3 overs we had 3, then Bob hit the majority of 19 runs in the 4th over to get our partnership to 22. The 19 runs included a 7 which the bowler got a hand to and then the back net fielder also, but it still made the net. I got caught out a few times, and we had a couple of runouts. I really only managed one half decent shot that got two runs. Unfortunately I seemed to have the majority of the strike. This increased our partnership average to 19.07

Malpass and Thorpe started really well with a four (doubled to eight) from the jackpot ball. However they seemed to regularly lose wickets, which prevented them from getting the score past 40. A wicket from the last ball meant they ended with a partnership of 6. This was the first time they batted together. People expect to much from Malpass, and it sometimes shows in his batting. There are games when he just seems to keep getting out, sometimes due to great fielding, but not always. I think they made 40 something from the bat, but the wickets really cost them.

The Don and The King continued their batting performances making an easy 41 runs. The key is keeping your wickets. Together they average 28.7 runs. We are coming to expect them to give some respectability to our scores. They came in with the score on 28, which looked like after 2 pairs that we'd have a low score to defend. But with some luck and good shots they took the score to 69.

Daints and Pax continued where they left off last season after taking out the partnership voting. Their thinking through of the shots has really been whats kept them from losing alot of wickets and as a result they consistently score 30+. They average 34.308 and in their last 9 innings they have scored over 30 in all but one. Tonight they made 32 which made our team total at 101.

This score was a good one to defend and our fielding started off quite well. The King bowled the first over which included a wicket or two. One of the wickets was a runout by me. Little Mahstar took the ball for the second over and managed to get the ball in a good position. A couple of wickets resulted from some good and bad balls. Pax had the third over and kept up the pressure and conceeded very few runs. Mahstar took the fourth over and some big hits meant the score was taken upto 24. This was similar to our 4th over whilst batting.

Pax took the 5th over and had an extra run stolen from the jackpot ball which was also called wide. 9 runs were conceeded. Thorpe bowled the 6th over and had another nine taken off it. Malpass picked up a couple of wickets which brought the total to 37 after 7 overs. Bob bowled the 8th over and conceeded 5 runs after some wickets.
Their 2nd pair partnerhsip was 18 runs.

The Don took the jackpot conceeding 7 runs total, Daints bowled the 10th over and managed to get some stumpings as the batters leave their crease and mis read the spin of flight of the ball. Sometimes he gets carted a bit, but tonight was a negative runs over. Thorpe bowled the next over and the batsmen took it to him, but they still only got 10 runs from the over. Malpass bowled the 12th over and conceeded only 2 runs after he bowled the batsmen a couple of times.

Their last pair need 44 runs to win the match. The King took the jackpot to the last pair and bowled an over which conceeded 14 runs. Bob then bowled a good over which kept them to 2 runs. Daints took the 15th over and got hit a bit more this time and leaving 16 runs to get from the final over. This was left to The Don to bowl well. It got down to needing 8 from the last two balls, then 4 to win from the last ball. The last ball was hit up and Thorpe took a great catch which meant we won by 8 runs.

Highlights in the field included The King diving forward to take a catch from my bowling just above the ground. Mahstar's one hand stop and runout in the first over of the innings. Thorpe made a couple of nice throws and catches. Daints continued his awesome keeping with some runouts and stumpings.

Next week is at 8:50pm just in case you wanted to come and support us.