Bladon vs Holton & Wheatley
Sunday 25 April 2010
Original Report by Alan Banyard
Opening Partnership takes Holton to Impressive victory.
Graham Nichols, maiden fifty
Over recent seasons, Holton have struggled to gain their first win and the losing streak against Bladon stretches back several years. However the team has been strengthened over the winter with several new signings.
Traditionally a difficult time to raise a team, partly due to the extended football season, Holton had a dozen, with Neil Robinson being the unfortunate one to be stuck in traffic en route being number 12. Holton fielded two debutants from India, Kiran Nair and Mahesh Poolakkaparambil. There was also a guest appearance from Australian Mark Sheehan.
The game got underway, in the grounds of Marlborough school in Woodstock, in cloudy conditions with Guy Burford (capt, stand in keeper) asking Kiran to bowl against Manuel and Lochlane. Gerry Fourrie took the other end.
Bladon took the early initiative, mainly due to some impressive batting from Lochlane and the score rapidly progressed to 50 at over a run a ball. Kiran was quick, if a little wayward in his first game, but this will surely improve after a few games. Fourrie was as usual accurate and nippy from a short run up and got a few to rise steeply towards the ribs on a green wicket. In contrast to his partner, Manuel was kept quiet and first change bowler John Kelly deceived him with slow full toss and he was brilliantly caught by Graham Nichols one handed diving to his left in the gully (59 for 1).
Graham Hawkinns partnered Kelly and successfully reduced the run rate. However it was Kelly who continued to make the inroads and he soon had Lochlane caught at mid off by Fourrie for 49 (68 for 2).
Soon after it began to rain, quite heavily for a while and play was about to be halted. Luckily, the rain stopped in the nick of time.
Bladon had a strong middle order and Dougitt and Ollie moved the score on to 119. Mahesh came on to replace Kelly and produced the spell of the day. Like Fourrie, Mahesh had a short run up, was quick, but also managed to put some turn on the ball. First he had Dougitt bowled for 36, then a couple of balls later had the new batsman out for a duck, caught by Kiran Nair (119 for 4). Next to go was Ollie, again bowled for 36 by Mahesh (132 for 5).
That signaled the end of the Bladon front line batting. John Kelly, who had switched ends had Hambridge out LBW for 0. Mark Sheehan took the last spell after Kelly and turned out to be another bowler with a short run up, pretty quick if a bit short in length, but well beyond the batting abilities of the Bladon tail enders. Sheehan ended with impressive figures of 3 for 9. Bladon were all out on the last ball of the allotted 35 overs for 149, a modest total after being 119 for 2.
There was one very unfortunate incident during the innings. Whilst making a very good diving stop at mid off, Gerrie Fourrie took a tumble and badly injured a thumb. He will almost certainly be ruled out for a month at least. Neil Robinson, who at one stage appeared to be playing for Bladon, was called up a substitute and allowed to bat in view that Bladon had a late replacement.
| Bladon innings | ||||||
| Manuel | c G Nichols | b J Kelly | 4 | |||
| Lochlane | c G Fourrie | b J Kelly | 49 | |||
| Dougitt | b Mahesh | 36 | ||||
| Ollie | b Mahesh | 21 | ||||
| De Bono | c K Nair | b Mahesh | 0 | |||
| Hambridge | LBW | b J Kelly | 0 | |||
| Floyd | c J Kelly | b M Sheehan | 6 | |||
| Matt | Run Out | 4 | ||||
| S Poole | b M Sheehan | 3 | ||||
| Clapham | Not Out | 0 | ||||
| Edwards | b M Sheehan | 0 | ||||
| Extras | 26 | |||||
| TOTAL: | all out, 35 overs | 149 | ||||
Fall of wkts: 1-59, 2-68, 3-119, 4-119, 5-132, 6-132, 7-143, 8-146, 9-149, 10-149
| Bowler | O | M | R | W |
| K Nair | 3 | 0 | 22 | 0 |
| G Fourrie | 4 | 1 | 18 | 0 |
| J Kelly | 7 | 0 | 41 | 3 |
| G Hawkins | 7 | 0 | 26 | 0 |
| Mahesh | 7 | 0 | 26 | 3 |
| M Sheehan | 7 | 4 | 8 | 3 |
With John Simpson not available, Holton began there reply with a new opening pair of Hugh Kitchin and Graham Nichols. Nichols started particularly impressively hitting 7 boundaries out of a personal tally of 30, whilst Kitchen made steady progress as well. The Holton 50 came up in only the 9th over as Edwards and Minuel both suffered. Both batsmen were in fine form, particularly with late cuts from short deliveries going to the boundary.
As Lochlan and Clapham took over the attack, there was little change and after 17 overs the hundred had been reached. Whilst Nichols had lost much of the strike, it was Kitchin who came to the attack and had actually overtaken his partner at one stage, when he was finally caught off Clapham for a well earned 47. Holton were 101 for 1 and well on their way to victory.
Alan Banyard then departed quickly, run out without troubling the scorers and Kiran Nair came in for his first Holton innings. Although only making 8, it was an important innings as it allowed Nichols to progress until Holton were close to victory (133 for 3). There were big celebrations in the Holton camp as Graham Nichols reached his maiden Holton fifty, very well deserved.
Nichols was finally caught off Ollie for 65 and it was left to Neil Robinson and Mark Kelly to complete a resounding victory.
| Holton & Wheatley innings | 4s | ||||||
| H Kitchin | caught | b Clapham | 47 | 8 | |||
| G Nichols | caught | b Ollie | 65 | 11 | |||
| A Banyard | Run Out | 0 | |||||
| K Nair | caught | b Clapham | 8 | 1 | |||
| N Robinson | Not Out | 5 | 1 | ||||
| M Kelly | Not Out | 4 | 1 | ||||
| G Burford | did not bat | ||||||
| M Sheehan | did not bat | ||||||
| Mahesh | did not bat | ||||||
| G Hawkins | did not bat | ||||||
| J Kelly | did not bat | ||||||
| Extras | 22 | ||||||
| TOTAL: | 4 wkts, 29 overs | 151 | |||||
Fall of wkts: 1-101, 2-104, 3-133, 4-147
| Bowler | O | M | R | W |
| Edwards | 5 | 0 | 36 | 0 |
| Manuel | 6 | 1 | 27 | 0 |
| Lochlane | 7 | 1 | 31 | 0 |
| Clapham | 7 | 0 | 35 | 2 |
| Ollie | 3 | 0 | 14 | 1 |
| Floyd | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |