RUASCC 136-9 dec
Eagle 46, Zia 30
Warborough 82 all out
Zia 5-33, Withers 4-7
RUASCC won by 54 runs
The second match of the weekend saw a RUASCC team with seven
changes from the previous day; only Ward, Eagle, Zia and Withers played in both
games. On losing the toss we were asked
to bat first in steady rain (that barely stopped all day), and the openers
started quietly before Ward was bowled by a full toss in the seventh over. Carpenter got off the mark with a boundary
but was soon bowled by Tilley’s first ball, 29-2.
Zia played himself in against the accurate bowling but then
found his range and hit consecutive fours off Tilley. Then a few overs later he hit three
consecutive boundaries to move to 30 but fell to a decent catch at mid-on
without further addition. Meanwhile
Eagle was playing the sort of innings that prompts people to say he’s not
scoring quickly enough, or talk about all his runs going through the slips, but
then when you look at the scorecard at the end of the match you realise he’s
far outscored anyone else.
Waqar, the batting hero at Blewbury, was promoted to
number five and he made 10 before being trapped LBW. The run rate slowed and wickets fell
frequently as Weeks (7), Malde (3) and Singh (6) tried and failed to push the
score along. Eagle eventually fell to a
weak chip into the covers and the innings somewhat petered out, eventually
culminating in an amusing run out featuring Ken Stewart and Dr Ashman. Not the first time Dr Ashman has been involved
in a run out on this ground, is it Dr Ashman?
IS IT DR ASHMAN? NO IT IS NOT, DR
ASHMAN.
Ahem, where was I? So
RUASCC made 136 in 40 overs and it was one of those pitches where you had to
see both sides bat before you could determine how good a score that was. As it turned out, it was plenty, even though
we decided to have one of our “dropping” days in the field…
Eagle made the sound decision to ask brothers Zia and Waqar
to open the bowling. Zia struck
immediately for the first wicket, and Waqar would have done too except that Withers
put down a simple chance at mid-on. One
of RUASCC’s most reliable fielders he may be, but he’s catching like a blind
seal so far this year.
Then RUASCC got the big breakthrough: Warborough’s captain
and best batsman Bradshaw given LBW to Waqar for just 5. Zia followed it up straight away with his
second wicket (clean bowled again) to leave the home side 25-3.
Several of the remaining batsmen were young lads with
excellent techniques, and RUASCC spent the rest of the match deriving new and
exciting ways not to catch them out. The
preferred method off Withers’ bowling was to put down the edges in the slips, while
the unfortunate Waqar saw another simple chance go down at mid-off (Eagle) and
Zia saw an uppish cut parried, and ultimately dropped, at point. The bowlers soon learned that the only way to
take wickets was to bowl straight and hope they miss it.
With the score on 68, still needing another 69 to win,
Withers bowled left-hander Owen for 17 and the run chase started to grind to a
halt. From then on it was all about
taking wickets, and Withers bagged two more in consecutive overs (one bowled,
one LBW) while Zia returned from the other end to take his fifth wicket. Of the nine wickets to fall six had been
bowled and three LBW.
With four overs remaining Withers finally broke the catching
hoodoo, holding onto a simple return chance to end the innings on 82 and seal
victory by a decent margin.
So that’s three consecutive wins for RUASCC following the
disappointment of defeats at Farley Hill and Mortimer, and there’s some reason
for optimism for the rest of the season – although we might not get away with
dropping quite that many chances in our other games!
RUASCC Highlight: Whenever it stopped raining for five goddamn
minutes.
RUASCC Man of the
Match: Zia.
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