Southwick Wanderers Cricket Club

SWCC vs Ansty 2nd XI 9th August at Plumpton

SWCC vs Ansty

A somewhat one-sided game against a friendly Ansty team ended in a draw when the Wanderers were unable to extract the last pair from the crease.

Wanderers batted first and the lower order were never in any danger of having to pad up, as John and Martin compiled a superb partnership of 150 for the first wicket.  The dreaded variable bounce of Plumpton was not in evidence to start with, and the pair made serene progress in the sun.  An outfield that Dr. Livingstone would have struggled to hack through turned 4-balls into singles, so Martin decided bashing over the top was the way to go.  Several glorious lofted drives down the ground and big hits through the leg side disappeared for maximums, despite the generously deep boundary.  The greatest threat to Martin was from his loose glasses, which were constantly flying off in the direction of the bails - some impromptu surgery seemed to fix the problem.  Meanwhile Mark and Anthony were enjoying “the nicest 15 overs of umpiring I've ever done”(Mark) as the well-set batsmen and benign pitch combined to see not a single serious appeal from the fielding team.

Eventually John was bowled for 44 which brought Barry to the crease as Martin approached his century.  Barry rotated the strike well against an Ansty team who gave everyone a bowl in an attempt to break through.  On 93, Martin smashed another huge blow to the fielder at deep midwicket – who sportingly and quite correctly did not claim the catch as the momentum of the shot carried him over the rope for 6!  Moments later Martin jogged through for a single to complete a fantastic hundred.  He continued to blitz the Ansty bowlers until on 141 he picked out long-on and the declaration came immediately on 232-2.

After tea supplied by Dave F and Anthony (thanks also to Claire and Gemma for their help) Wanderers took to the field and it looked like a formality when Jamie clean bowled Ansty's opener with a jaffa from the first ball of the innings!  Luke was applying pressure at the other end with a miserly spell of 7 overs for 9 runs.  But Machin and Maher batted sensibly against Jamie, Luke and Paul, and took the Ansty score past 60.  Dave was introduced to the attack and immediately commented that he had rarely seen a Plumpton pitch where just 3 wickets had fallen for nearly 300 runs so far in the day!  Fortunately for Wanderers this proved to be a good example of the 'commentator's curse' and the Ansty wickets began to tumble – John crucially taking a fantastically sharp chance behind the stumps to remove Maher.

Barry's spell of leg spin produced a ripper that spun out of the footmarks to bowl Janman and then had another victim caught by Mark.  After Dave had bowled Machin for a dogged 34, “Goldenarm” Scholfield himself was then called upon to run through the tail.  He duly obliged, taking the critical wicket of Ansty's No.7 Jarvis who had looked very comfortable in defence.  But Wanderers couldn't quite eke out the last wicket despite Ansty's last man looking more than willing to belt the ball around.  A good game against very friendly opposition and we'll look to go one wicket further next time!