Farley Hill 183-8 (40 overs)
Withers 2-17, Waqar 2-22, Dip Patel 2-63
RUASCC 182-7 (40
overs)
Loader 57, Greenhalf 33 not out, Ward 33
RUASCC lost by 1 run
It’s taken me a while to write this one up because I haven’t
been quite sure how to approach it. I
don’t think I’ve ever lost a cricket match by one run before – I’ve seen a few
last-over finishes go either way but to lose by just one run out of 365 brings its
own particular level of frustration.
A single run in the context of a whole afternoon of cricket is
a pathetically small unit. It’s not like
losing by a single goal at football; you lose 2-1 and your opponents have
scored twice as many as you have, of course you shouldn’t win. One run is a no ball, a wide, a streaky edge
through the slips or, more pertinently on this occasion, a dropped catch. By no means the only culprit, Withers perhaps
had the most to be ashamed of as he put down what Boycott would call “an
absolute cuckoo” at short mid-wicket that would have given Waqar the key wicket
of Jalil. Result: one run.
Earlier Withers had opened the bowling with four consecutive
maidens, but in the fifth over a bottom edge squirmed through the gully area, certainly
not where the batsman intended but safe nonetheless. Result: one run.
Every time a fielder failed to pick the ball up cleanly,
every time a bowler’s line drifted slightly down the leg side, not to mention that
chance that Waqar dropped off Tranter’s bowling, each and every time the result
was a single run.
The point about cricket of course is that it’s the
accumulation over time that really matters.
It wasn’t just one catch dropped, it was half a dozen. It wasn’t just one wide ball, it was 23. It wasn’t just one casual misfield, it was a
few overs of not quite reacting quick enough to prevent ones turning into
twos. We’d given away, at a conservative
estimate, 30-40 more runs than we should have done. After the first seven overs Farley Hill had
just one run on the board but went on to score 183. That one run proved vital.
The home side’s insistence on playing a 40-over game meant
that two teams with barely six bowlers between them had to figure out where a
significant number of overs were coming from.
For RUASCC it was good to see Jagesh and Greenhalf bowling their first
spells of the season, and very respectably too, but the use of Dip as a fifth
bowler is not something we would have called “Plan A” before the game.
In reply Ward and Eagle added 39 at four runs per over
before a mini collapse brought Loader and Weeks together at 56-3. In a particularly stodgy period of the game
the pair added just 10 runs in eight overs – it is apparently quite difficult
to time the ball when the pitch is slow, the bowling is tight and your name is
Tom Weeks. Weeks’ eventual dismissal seemed
to energise Loader and he passed fifty while Greenhalf looked to generate
momentum at the other end.
By various means RUASCC kept up with the required rate until
very near the end but with two overs remaining we still needed 20 to win. Greenhalf smashed a four and six off the penultimate
over yielding 13 runs but neither he nor Waqar could lay proper bat on ball in
the last set of six and Waqar’s run out on the final delivery sealed the defeat
by just one run.
While reflecting on how rare it is even for a 40-over game
to have such a tight finish, I’ve been watching the highlights of the final day
of England v Sri Lanka at Headingley. I’d
managed to avoid hearing the result so I lived every nailbiting moment while
Jimmy Anderson tried to block out the final over. Both Tests in a two match series going down
to the final over of the fifth day; one decided by one wicket, the other down
to just one ball. I like to think we
understand a little about how Jimmy feels this evening.
One fucking run.
RUASCC Man of the
Match: Loader for his fifty, and I
don’t remember him dropping a catch.
RUASCC
Team: Ward (wkt), Eagle (capt), Murphy, Loader,
Weeks, Greenhalf, Dip, Waqar, Tranter, Jagesh, Withers
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