Tour match II - Chardstock

13th June 2009

After about 30 minutes of driving around in one of Dagenham’s finest, Dave and I found the Chardstock ground, writes Nigel Barfoot. The pitch was pitched at around 10 degrees from leg to off and had a pretty short boundary. Nice.

After a quick toss with the opposition’s captain, he informed me of their weak batting line up and suggested we bat first to get more of a game. We batted first…

I faced, with the Chigwell talisman Rob Allum dropped to number 2. Frustration at not scoring an early six on the short boundary caused Rob to hit one straight to a fielder at mid off which was subsequently dropped. I did the same thing the next over then something strange happened. The score board showed 116 for no loss of wicket? Seagulls started talking to me saying there was no trawler to follow. Then the BGC was bowled making 56.

Steve Drabwell padded to the hilt entered the fray with a nervy start to then hit a couple of fours which settled him down. I hit my fifty then decided to go for a big six and got stumped. Richard joined the crease then departed before his Marlboro red was extinguished which caused a fracas in the changing room as Nick had to rush his box in. Steve was in hitting mood and managed to crack a huge straight six into the field next door. Very nice.

Dave came in next with Graham and Brad following in quick succession after Nick had scored 9. Adam came in after Graham and managed to score a quick 22 with three fours and a six. We finished on 215 for 8.

Dave the Kiwi rave opened the bowling with Ricardo Hannante and it wasn’t long before Dave bowled the #2 bat. Once the second wicked fell there was a huge Chardstock collapse with five ducks in a row, a few golden too. Nick had a huge amount of W’s and one M so had to be taken off so everyone got a game.

With 16 overs gone, we didn’t have much of a game to play with the score at 53 for 7. Rob O bowled 3 overs collecting 2 wickets and was replaced by Brad. Graham was brought on with everyone hoping to see the legendary swing that the Wiskas can produce. We didn’t have to wait too long with Graham beating the bat virtually every ball. At one point we had 4 slips and a gully due to the swing which was especially useful as Graham bowled one straight to 3rd slip.

Owen replaced Beef and picked up an amazing wicket caught by Ricardo at cow corner. Nice catch mate.

They finished on 106 all out so we could have an early beer which was jolly kind.