Alas Smith and Moans

Barmy Kev reports on a surprising amount of cricket for Hants 20/20 game at Richmond

Some good omens of rare events for today’s game. Yesterday we won the toss, the game and even more extraordinarily a sunny day with sweltering temperatures was forecasted.  As I left work with light drizzle in the gloom and then a text from Beefy saying we lost toss my temporary optimism had disappeared.. Despite, my best efforts to get to the ground and just miss the first few overs there was a series of factors that resulted in me arriving ½ hr. late. Relying on a Beefy text that score was 55-1 from 6 overs this didn’t look good as I assumed Hants elected to bat. Nobody, from the crawling over ground train told me we were batting and was oblivious to this until my arrival.

At 6pm I arrived at ground io discover we are batting and the score was 66-1 from 8 overs.  The first comment to me in in our area was where’s your hard hat? Carnage on the scale of Canterbury was predicted.  Meanwhile I asked a summary of the first 8 overs. Beefy described as follows " there was a boundary over there another one there, Denly was caught going for a big shot over there and so far we are doing well". Thanks Beefy.

The next over we scored 5 and we were gradually pushing on before the expected carnage but Adam Rossington certainly did not look entirely comfortable. This was followed by a 3 over lull , the kind you get in a 50 over game at around 20-30 over mark. There was a mini acceleration led by AC after Rossington was bowled.  Most of boundaries were in 3rd man long leg area and there was little forceful hitting. There were two schools of thought. This good score as ball not coming on to bat or we wasted our wickets in hand.

Ollie's 1st over indicated the former as only 1 off of it.  However, according to the scoreboard in 2nd over we are in trouble as only 6 required. 

can you see target?

As closing in on this target suddenly 150 runs were added. Things got worse for Hants as they lost 2 early wickets. At 17-2 without any fireworks it looked promising. There was an irritating stand between Katich and Mckenzie then with score on 40 in the 8th over they completed 2 , I turned away thinking dead ball but there was a risky third, was run out + a 1 run docked as one of 2 short. These kind omens make me think this could be our day after all.

Ervine seemed to have positive intent while our slower bowlers were trying to take pace off making it difficult. After 10 overs the score was 70 and we were marginally ahead on Vera. Dext was put on. A big 6 that nearly knocked my wine over followed by more clean hitting . 18 I think off that over. Then next over our most economical bowler Ollie went for 11. The game was suddenly being taken away from us. There was hope after a spectacular boundary catch to get rid of Katich by Denly, why does he miss the easy ones?  There was a further flurry of wickets, with scoreboard ticking with singles and at least one boundary per over.

With 6 wickets down 11 needed off 2 TRJ bowling.  According to the Vera scoress were was equal. 3 singles off 3 balls we are still in it. Then pushed to AC they chanced a 2nd AC let ball through his hands.  This boundary signalled the end. Hants won with 4 balls to spare.

The after match chat we bemoaning all their Kolpak/ iPL specialists us missing Finn and Morgan and what was Smudge doung in our team at 11 and not bowling.  Someone did ask him there was a non committal response.

Despite the obvious disappointing result I always enjoy the out-grounds. There was some great lively conversations with many players, officials etc after game in the bar. I ‘m sure this has been said before in our campaign. Good day, shame about the cricket.