In what the fixtures have dictated will be a season of two halves, we completed our mini-"round robin" against Little Shelford, Hardiwck/Shepreth II, Cherry Hinton II and Wilbrahams II last week, and this week played our first game against one of the three teams we were yet to come up against. And once again a win would put us in second spot in the league, and in line for promotion to Junior II.
Andy won the toss once again (although this is becoming increasingly irrelevant, as both teams want Romsey to field first) and so we headed out into the bright sunshine to find worms, dodge weird black dog turds and field. We started brilliantly -- after 18 overs Helions were just 29/2, with Andy Owen (1/21) and Daniel Mortlock (1/23) both moving the ball around enough to cause trouble. However what was probably more important was the sharp and largely error-free fielding: Phil Marshall made a number of spectacular saves at point (to go with a subsequent diving catch); Malcolm Creek was brilliant standing up to the stumps; Arnie Garside patrolled fine leg reliably and tirelessly; Jez Daniel took a great diving catch; Paul Henderson did the hard job of concentrating at silly mid-on for 40 overs; and everyone else did their jobs well, even if presented with fewer opportunities to shine. The second half of the innings was just as tight, although the Helions batsmen did hit out a bit more. Nigel Arnold (1/30) was ``on the dot'' (as Rog would say) and Russell Woolf's figures of 0/56 only go to show that, once again, statistics can only tell part of the story -- he had the batsmen playing and missing regularly with his tight line and surprising lift. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- all this good work, we were a little disappointed that Helions got to 135/4 when it looked like we should have kept them to about 120, but we should also have been very happy that they'd been restricted to such a low score on the Emmanuel pitch.
Whilst the tea (as in the cups thereof) of was excellent, the fractional representation of *****-**** *** **** in the sandwiches seems to be increasing from week to week. Due to that (and the fact that I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood) I give the whole thing a 6/10.
But more importantly our openers, Tony Desimone (28) and Rod Dennis (also 28) set off at a lively pace, not quite making the result a certainty, but certainly putting us the box seat. Phil Marshall (29) then guided us into a safe position, and even his awful dismissal (run out when a catch was dropped and the calling went to pieces) didn't matter in the scheme of things. In the end Arnie (7*) and Andy Owen (20* with excellent finishing) guided us home with over five overs remaining.
One revealing fact about our fairly comfortable victory is that any putative ``man of the match'' award probably wouldn't have gone to a Romsey player. The highest score of the match was made by one of the Helions batsmen, and the only bowler to get two wickets was their first-change medium pacer whose tight spell yielded figures of 2/20 or so. The obvious implication of this is that ours was a better team performance and indeed I think the biggest difference between the two sides was the fielding. Helions dropped several simple chances and gave away a number of runs; we dropped only one simple catch and were pretty sharp for most of the day. All this means we're back in second position, which feels like our rightful place, but it will take five more good performances to prove it so before the season's out. Stay tuned to see what happens next . . .