Southwick Wanderers Cricket Club

SUNDAY 14th June - Amberley vs SWCC

On a nice and warm Sunday afternoon, Amberley inserted themselves and probably regretted that decision. Luke and Jamie bowled beautifully and it was 5 overs or so before a run was registered, eventually the No2 flicked Jamie for 2, and at the other end Luke had the No1 caught behind off a no ball. The second time that has happened to Luke this season. The Amberley innings continued to stutter a long and wickets fell at regular intervals with Luke, Taylor and Jamie all amongst the wickets. Amberley ended up 73 all out just before the scheduled tea interval, from 2.5 hours batting.

The Wanderers response was swift and sharp, with John (38) hitting 3 fours off the first over, and John and his opening partner, Jeremy (30no) continued to pull and drive their way to 65 before John was brilliantly caught by gully as he advanced down the wicket. In came Mark J (8no) who hit two fours in agricultural fashion to bring about a 9 wicket win in just over 30 minutes of batting.

A fuller report will appear here shortly.

On a very warm Sunday afternoon Jamie lost the toss and the Amberly skipper decided to have a bat in the sun.

Jamie and Luke opened the SWCC attack and started bowling a superb line and length. In response, the Amberly batsmen resorted to a purely survival mode and it wasn’t until the 5 over that the first run was registered. The first wicket fell to Luke (LBW) in the ninth over with only 9 runs on the scoreboard. As the innings continued, the run rate never showed any signs of any improvements as only a handful of boundaries were hit, with wickets continuing to fall at regular intervals. Full credit for this should go to the SWCC bowling attack, with wickets shared out between Taylor (4), Luke (3) and Jamie (2) all well supported by plenty of dedicated fielding from the rest of the team – a number of times fielders put their body on the line (or in Kim’s case shin on the line) to prevent the score being added to.

Jamie suffered more than most in the field. First, by stopping a fierce off drive at silly mid off and bruising his fingers; secondly, by misjudging a catch and being struck on the forehead by the ball, which left a seam mark clearly imprinted on his head!! Fortunately, after stemming the flow of blood from the wound, Jamie returned to the field and even managed to bowl an over of off spin taking two wickets in the process.

The Amberly innings ended after 2.5 hours at 73 all out, just before the scheduled tea interval.

After the tea interval, John and Jeremy began the SWCC response. As they walked out to the crease they agreed to try and run singles to keep rotating the strike. The inning didn’t quite go as planned....They both enjoyed the bowling on offer, running only 6 runs in a partnership of 68 before John was well caught in the gully region (for the 2^nd week running). The fall of the wicket brought Mark Johnson to the crease. With his unique style of batting, he found the deep mid wicket (cow corner) boundary twice to bring about the victory for SWCC within 7 overs.

A good team performance all round, with man of the match points being dominated by the bowlers with Taylor (5 points), Luke (3 points) and Jeremy (1 point). A special mention has to go to Gemma for stepping in at the last minute and who certainly doesn’t look out of place with the rest of the wanderers.