Fillongley Cricket Club

Pickwick 119 all out   Fillongley 123-8

We held on to third place with a narrow win over bottom club Pickwick yesterday afternoon. The league is as close as it could be at the halfway stage with just 12 points separating the top 7 teams. Phil put the opposition in again and the game had a strange start. Juniors first ball to Sattar was a wide but was a difficult stumping chance. Hussain then offered another sharp stumping chance from the second ball he faced, and then was stumped fourth ball. Sattar should have taken note, but no. He went the same way, this time to Binga. Khan and Sharif took the score to 42 before Ian Webster had Khan caught for 24. The rest of the innings was a bit of a shambles in truth. Sharif battled through to a well earned 50 off 143 balls, but none of the other batsmen made double figures. We did our best to get the score up, dropping about six catches and conceding 16 wides, but Pickwick were a few players short and those drafted in coulgn’t take advantage. They should have been out for 70 tops. There were three scoring shots off Juniors first 9 over spell and also three off Webbys first ten overs.

120 to win was a formality against a side that has only bowled their opposition out once this season, just like it was a formality against Atherstone. Not so. Ben Fleming went in the first over, Chris Hill in the second and Tom Nightingale in the third to leave us 10-3. Aaron made 16 before losing his off stump to Khan, who was causing all sorts of problems, and then Tom Barber called a tight single and Phil Hammond was run out by a direct hit. At 44-5 it was down to Tom and Reg, who had dropped to number 7 because of a bad leg. Tom is averaging not very many this season so there was gloom all around but he does back himself and was soon scoring freely. Most importantly he was getting on top of Khan, hitting him for three fours and one gigantic hook for six. Khan got him for 44, scored at a run a ball, with the score at 93. All of a sudden we were in trouble again. Binga and Webby went cheaply leaving 21 needed with Reg and Junior batting and Sladey to come. We tend to flap situations like this but this time Reg had got himself in and the runs we needed came without too many scares.

Another nice tea today with lovely fresh sandwiches. Excellent carrot cake but I do question the idea of trifles in a cricket tea. Don’t get me wrong. They were very good but are they really appropriate in a tea. Isn’t this really pushing the boat out a bit too far. I might be old fashioned but for me what it’s all about is cakes, and trifles are puddings not cakes. It’s the difference between strawberries and cream in a bowl (wrong) and strawberries and cream on a meringue (right). You have to be able to eat it with your fingers. Comments on this important issue are very welcome.

Written out scorecards today, as I understand that the internet has now reached Nuneaton and a sanitsed version of the above, complete with the card has been sent in to the local paper.

Pickwick Innings

Fillongley bowling

Fillongley Innings

Pickwick bowling

Fillongley (20 points) beat Pickwick (3 points) by two wickets