Fillongley Cricket Club

A pretty comprehensive tonking from Solihull Blossomfield this afternoon. They are now third, ten behind Highway and in with a good chance of a return to the Birmingham League.

We won the toss and batted, which should have been OK given we had our strongest batting line up today. At the start we were scoring quickly due mostly to generous donations of extras, but a sequence of dismissals got us to a pretty catastrophic 120-7 at drinks. Only Pro and Barbs got in, and they both went to rash shots. Everybody else seemed to face a couple of overs then get bowled. To put it in context Junior and SB added 18 after tea, and both faced more balls than any of our front line bats, Pro excepted. JC had moved to plan B on the wicket after rain, and there was variable bounce, but we can’t use that as an excuse. For Solihull I thought Harvey Satterthwaite was impressive again. He is as quick as anyone in this league and has been a handful in both of our games against Solihull.

Thoughts were that if the wicket was playing up and we could get a couple of early wickets we might get ourselves back in it. The word was that they were batsmen short today. No chance though. Altaf and Bashir were got the score to 50 before tea with some sensible positive batting. When they were out the next two looked equally composed, and numbers 5 and 6 looked pretty good as well.

Seconds won at Corley. JK took 5-11, then 50s for Michael Gales and Dan Howells to land the 24 points. Congratulations to Michael on getting a first in Sports Journalism. Also a return from Africa for Binga. I’m told his first ball was pukka but the rest were pies!

Our seconds are mounting a late challenge for promotion. We are currently 5^th, just 27 points behind third place Masseys, who we beat last week. Continue reading Seconds on a charge

Fillongley 183 all out    Bretforton 173 all out

We are through to the quarter finals of the npower Village Cup after a tense 10 run win over the Cotswold Hills League leaders and champions. In two weeks time we host Quatt, who hail from Shropshire.

Batting first , Reg and Pro made a steady start, seeing off the opening bowlers and taking us to 39-0 in 11 overs. The introduction of their captain Jones led to things going wrong. He took wickets in each of his first three overs to leave us at 51-3. Waqar tried to hit us out of trouble but nicked to the keeper after making 14 off 11 balls. We needed a partnership, and it came from Azza and Tom Barber. 59 were added in quick time before Azza fell to what looked a very tight run out decision. Barbs went on to make 48 off 43 balls – ultimately a match winning innings. Runs from the tail got us to a competitive 183, though we were bowled out a couple of overs short.

Strangely the feeling amongst the opposition camp seemed to be that it was start the car time, even though 183 will win more games than lose them in this format. They soon knew they were in a game as the openers had no clue how to combat a brilliant spell from Junior. Davies kept out 20 balls for 2, but could have gone any time. Daud got him well caught at slip by Barber. The openers made 3 and 2, then Dell and Berry started to rebuild, taking the score to 71. At the end of Steves spell the big shots came. A six and a four, then both were back in the hutch within 4 balls. Reg took an excellent over the shoulder catch to get rid of Berry. With rain about Bretforton needed to stay ahead of the run rate so shots started to come. Jones tried to hit his second ball from Tom Nightingale and holed out to Daud on the boundary. With him gone and the score 86-5 at halfway we looked well placed. There was work to do though as Witts and Stanley put together their best partnership. They took the score to 40 short of the target before Stanley was tempted by the straight boundary and hit Tom Nightingale to Barber. A diving one handed catch from Waqar saw off the number 8 then another straight hit from Witts and a great catch above his head from Barber. Tom Nightingale took a fourth wicket leaving the last pair 11 short with 14 balls left, but an attempt to scramble a second run gave Reg a shy at one stump from 20 yards. Champagne moment!

Thanks to all who travelled. The support was magnificent. Thanks of course to all the players. A fantastic performance against a good team, but we were the best team on the day and the result was right. Apologies for not getting the report up earlier but for most of the day my liver has been recovering.

Fillongley 207-8, Atherstone 197 all out

 We came out on top in another see-saw game with Atherstone this afternoon. As far as I can remember it’s the first time we’ve beaten them, but for much of the day it didn’t look like it was going to happen. Continue reading Adders Azzered

Our Under 16s host Bedworth in a title decider next Friday (6pm). Let’s have lots of support for these lads who have done the club proud this year. They are the future of the club! Be there!  Continue reading Juniors take it to the wire