Saffron Walden v Gidea Park & Romford CC U16 on Sun 12 Jun 2005 at 2pm
Gidea Park & Romford CC Won 5 wickets
Park took the field with poor James Salisbury reminding me that he is still to take a wicket in this competition . As we all know these things can easily change when the bowling gods decide to give you a break. Today James broke his duck with 6.5 overs, 3 maidens, 5 wickets for just 10 runs. James gave us an excellent start putting Saffron in a precarious 2-2. All along the bowlers were supported by good fielding and some excellent catching. Stephen Gallagher has now made the gully position his own and took two fine catches. Other than a brief period when the Saffron No. 4 Pinnington(41) took some healthy swipes at Mark D'cruz and Ravi Rajani Park were always in control. He tried once too often however and was well caught by Waleed Wain to give the returning Ravi Rajani (motor mouth!!!) a wicket. Ed Gavigans second spell was very much better than his first spell and after he cleaned up Saffron second highest scorer, Coote(23) Park were well in control. Should mention Jack Klibers captaincy here, he stayed positive and kept faith in his bowlers even when Safffron were in the ascendancy. Well Done Jack .
Louis Stuckey was the fifth bowler called upon by Jack and I lost count of how many times he beat the bat. 6-1-26-2 never did him justice but it was good to see him bowling so well. Finally Steve Gallagher bowled a couple of really good overs of away swingers but the fact that Saffron were dismissed in 30.5 overs curtailed what was bound to be a good spell.
So Park needed to chase 130 to win. It looked a long way off as Saffron bowled some real hostility early on. Matt Tarr is now batting with maturity and showed great courage to face up to this initial barrage despite taking a couple of blows. James Salisbury applied himself equally as well and as Matt started to play some shots so did James. The lads took us to 80 odd before we lost James and then Sam Bragg played a nice little support innings which more or less got us home. We lost too many wickets by careless batting towards the end. Matt can be forgiven as he was batting in some pain at this stage and when he came off to a standing ovation for a fantastic 81 the game was won.
Well done boys. 3 played, 3 won and 1 abandoned sees us in a strong position at the halfway stage. One game at a time now lads and lets see what happens come the end of July.
Finally a big thank you to Chairman Greg Churchill who took the Under 15 game this morning (despite a very good Saturday night). This enabled Ian Gallagher to umpire this match and see his own son play. Thanks Greg .. it is appreciated.
Gidea Park & Romford CC U16 Batting
131 for 5
Saffron Walden Bowling
Saffron Walden Batting
130 for 10
Gidea Park & Romford CC U16 Bowling
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Umpire :
TBD
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Scorer :
Karen Kliber