After failing to defend a total of 170 on Saturday we ramped it up a notch on Sunday and failed to defend 219, which is actually a great shame because our batting deserved better – it was quite brilliant at times, especially in the partnership of 98 between Captain Dip (77) and Johnny Baker (65).
On a hot afternoon batting first we’d reached 26 with no problems when Ward was out in bizarre fashion. Just beaten by a lifter outside off-stump, he went for a little stroll, presumably to have a quiet word with himself, and the wicketkeeper threw down the stumps. Then Eagle, who had reached 19 with some nice drives through the offside, misjudged a full toss and offered it straight back to the bowler.
Part-time cricketer Brennand-Carter glanced a four through the slips from his first ball and added another run in the same area before he was bowled trying to hit it somewhere else. At this point we could have been in some trouble at 50-3, but with the outfield like a snooker table there were always runs to be had. Ken Stewart joined Dip and they added a useful 43 together before the big stand between Dip and Baker put us in a strong position at 191-4.
Despite Dip, Griffiths and Baker falling in the last few overs we felt happy with a total of 219-7 knowing that T&T had 41 overs to either chase or defend. But if there was something rather spectacular about the way we gave the game away against Greys, this defeat in Theale had an air of inevitability about it quite early in the second innings.
It started OK: Withers opened with a maiden then bagged a wicket in the third over thanks to a safe catch in the covers from Bruce Main. Then Ashman found a top edge and the catch was taken at mid-wicket by, um, Bruce Main. Five catches in two games for the Kiwi. Meanwhile the other opener looked to drive anything over-pitched and the scoreboard started ticking quite alarmingly.
Things started to go very wrong at the arrival of a left-hander known as Aids (short for Adrian, not for any other reason). He repeatedly showed us exactly why it’s a bad idea to bowl short on the leg-side and soon reached 50 as the required run rate never got out of hand. He was eventually dismissed by a brilliant catch at deep square leg by Baker (who had quite a weekend) off the bowling of Ken Stewart.
Baker picked up a wicket with his third ball, a full toss caught by Dip at mid-on, but the runs continued to flow from the bat of Osborne as too many four-balls were bowled. Very Young Rahul picked up his second wicket of the season but the home side passed 200 with three overs still to go. Some streaky edges prevailed and the winning boundary was hit with three balls to spare.
Two consecutive matches taken to the final over but both ended in defeat for RUASCC. So far this season our scores have been 151, 164, 170 and 219 but our bowling has lacked the cutting edge needed to stem the flow of runs or (in the game against BBC) take the final wicket. Our catching, which was superb against BBC, was less assured this weekend but ultimately it didn’t cost us the games.
RUASCC Highlight: Baker’s catch and Rahul’s wicket were both lovely moments, but the highlight has to be the superb batting of Baker and Dip.
RUASCC Man of the Match: Dip for his Captain’s innings.
RUASCC Team: Ward, Eagle, Dip (capt), Brennand-Carter, Stewart, Baker, Griffiths (wkt), Rahul Patel, Main, Ashman, Withers
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