News, reviews, updates and abuse for the London Fields midweek team.A beautiful evening for cricket was hampered before play even began when police were called to remove a ranting lady carrying some slightly controversial opinions who was more than a little worse for wear, not that this is an excuse…
Batting first, Paul (22) and Will (27) put on a steady partnership, before Paul was carelessly stumped by an eagle eyed keeper, whose enthusiasm was typical of the excellent Tower Ravens fielding performance. Wickets tumbled as we tried to open up against their spinners, but efforts from Ruby (11) and John (who hit a fine 6 in his 21 not out) helped us to a competitive 117.
In reply, we knew we had a game on when one of the Tower Ravens openers hit Grant for one of the largest 6’s any of us have seen at the VP Astrodome. It went so far that two minutes later, having circumnavigated the globe, it landed somewhere beyond the nets. Our bowlers kept their cool though, with Pete taking a key wicket in four economic overs and John ripping through three further batsmen.
Ravens were stuck on 47/3 from the first 7 overs and we were well in control. At this point though, we lost our minds more than the drunk who joined us at the start of the match – our fielding became increasingly erratic with (often difficult) catches going down when they would normally be held – Dave being particularly unlucky diving for two tough chances. In addition, there were wild throws at the stumps causing overthrows in a range of unnecessary situations - Ravens needed just 15 from the last 18 balls. Bringing himself on, Chris only went for three off his 1st over, put a poor 2nd over allowed a four to be struck from the penultimate ball and seal victory for Tower Ravens by 2 wickets.
A terrible result, especially as weather appears to have aspired against us, leaving a team we bowled out for 49 a few weeks ago above us in the league and heading to division 2 because of a rained off tie. We need to beat Vallance next week to give us a hope of avoiding the third tier ‘super’ 6’s.
