Corona bottle it
Highgate Woods, 6/23/2007
Strongroom won by 85 runs
Strongroom: 184-7 (R.Woolhouse)
Corona: 99 (The Horse 4-35)
View the Scorecard
Dave P won the toss and chose to bat, figuring the weather wasn’t going to get any better. Rich and Dave made a solid enough start, soon realising that the very slow pitch required a straight bat and watchful eye. Still, it was difficult to maintain discipline and Dave G, Jon G and Dave P all fell foul of the very slow track and accurate bowling of Hassan who picked up three caught and bowleds. Rich went on to notch up a very impressive fifty that included some trademark straight, clean hitting, but also some tasty, rarely seen ‘touch shots’. When he fell, nine-man Strongroom were suddenly in severe trouble at 101-5 after 25 overs. Corona however were unable to press home their advantage due to a superb, match-winning 78 run partnership in 13 overs by Andy Taylor and Jolyon that comprised keen running and calculated aggression. Andy and James ‘The Horse’ Horsman fell in consecutive balls, but new recruit Sarfran came in for a cheeky one-over innings to help Jolyon further consolidate the shift in momentum hugely towards Strongroom.
Tea Report 5.5/10 Adequate last-minute D Gower effort with heavy budget-supermarket accent.
Heavy showers forced two breaks in play - towards the end of Strongroom’s innings and early on in Coron’s reply. Corona made a bad start to their run chase with a soft early run out. Furhad took a liking to some short stuff from the Horse and suddenly Corona were with the required rate. They continued to do well despite losing their other opener. Jon bowled a tight, short spell that began to reign Corona in and Horse profited in replacing him when Furhad tried to go aerial one too many times. The Horse came back splendidly, learning from his first spell to pitch the ball up, clean bowling three middle order men. Rich and Jon also got in the act, with a remarkable six Corona batsmen having their stumps uprooted. Dave G returned with a mixture of medium pace and spin to finish the job. The only disappointment was Jolyon who bowled his worst over of the season, unable to lift himself with the game almost won and still basking in a haze of glory from his earlier mighty batting efforts. Despite a slightly ragged end to the game, Strongroom dispatched Corona with reasonable ease. There were no major and few minor fielding lapses, with three very good catches pocketed. James Claro was tidy behind the stumps until getting one on the end of the finger.
Corona responded badly to the rain, feeling that they had the worst of the conditions. It was certainly pretty muddy, Glastonbury cricket by the end, but the change in weather also brought the ball onto the bat better (this perhaps partly why the Taylor-Rebbeck partnership prospered so well) and made it more difficult for the bowlers and fielders so it was not all in favour of Strongroom.
As with the previous fixtures against Corona, this game had a degree of niggle between the teams, focused on disputed umpiring. Accepted, Strongroom did not always behave themselves perfectly graciously in responding to Corona players remonstrating with the umpires, but Corona continue to consider themselves unjustly victimised in having appeals turned down, and this has been unreasonably and repeatedly interpreted as Strongroom cheating and their response has unwisely been manifested in tit-for-tat umpiring reaction. Corona had one run out appeal turned down, but close run outs from direct hits are not easy to adjudicate for amateur umpires who mustn’t have any doubt in giving people out and direct hit does not automatically mean ‘out’ – no big deal. Many of the lbw appeals in the instances when Corona were unhappy with the umpires were not even close to being close. For example, a left armer bowling over the wicket who is not bringing the ball back in to the right hander is simply unlikely to be pitching balls in line with the stumps that will go on to hit, and the philosophy of ‘the more times we appeal, the more likely we are to get a positive decision’ is flawed. Some Corona players once openly admitted “it wasn’t out but you have to try”. In addition to better behaviour from all players in the game, calmer Corona captaincy would have helped to build on what were largely good relations between several players on the two sides. There was plenty of good natured humour throughout the game, but the niggles undeniably eroded much of the enjoyment. Corona might have a different point of view, but there seems to be a gap in communication and philosophy between the teams.
Written By: Dr.David Gower
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