Comfort Blankets v Duathelete ( international challenge)

Blewbury made the epic journey to North Moreton, leaving their beloved plastic pitch behind, but were so far out of their comfort zone, that they felt compelled to bring a couple of  their "stars" to act as a comfort blanket. Apart from this slightly rude behaviour, they acted in exemplary fashion, playing the game in the right spirit, and to be fair, we did field an international duathalete in our team (not that you would have noticed)

Moreton batted first with Wicksy returning from Africa to open the batting with Tim, and both prospered with unbeaten knocks of 25 & 27 respectively. A slowing of the run rate followed, but with the duathalete next in, anything was possible..............................................but sadly, a touch of housewife's knee meant it was not to be today.

 one of the above is an international duathalete with housewife's knee- can you spot who it is ?

This put pressure back on the later batsmen, with Thompy & Sammy responding to the challenge to push us past 100. 108 did not feel enough, but we started positively enough with skipper Jonny on fire, picking up 4 wickets. With Blewbury reeling on 16 for 6, we needed to go in for the kill, but we were aware that their stars were still to bat. Wicksy has recovered from Malaria and a whole host of  other tropical diseases, but the grizzle shoulder is still persisting, preventing him from bowling. Davey T , Dave T, Josh, Simon, Thompy and Smithy all stepped up to the mark, with varying degrees of success, but the game was actually lost when 2 key catches were shelled- hard chances both, so I won't be naming them, but Sammy & Wicksy know who they are. The Barrett barrage of Bear Lane luckily didn't cost the club a small fortune, as he narrowly missed a window and a car, but Blewbury ultimately coasted in, thanks to their comfort blankets.
Final mention to Mark & David who performed admirably on debut, and certainly did not look out of place- well done Bomber for making them look so good !

Next week the footballers aka Blewbury will be here. Watch out for a couple of turncoats...............

Played 1 Won 2

A belated first game of the season for the Thursday night team, played here at The Croft, on a Friday- naturally. When Jonny moved the game to a friday, he must have been privy to a long range weather forecast suggesting it would eventually stop raining 36 days after the hosepipe ban came into force. Inter Allsorts were the intended victim, and Jonny was initially faced with a selection dilemna when 15 people wanted to play. Thankfully he was spared having to tell Bomber he was dropped, as Bomber pulled out with "housewives knee" earlier in the day. Nigel succumbed to cat flu, and with some natural wastage, we achieved a "perfect" 11. After so much rain it was important to adjust to the conditions, and for IA this initially meant they should stop asking where the goalposts were. We agreed a test match format of 2 innings per team, and IA, although they seemed to have some players with performance enhancing gizmos on their ankles, only scored 22 in their first effort, which they seemed quite pleased with, until they were reminded about the lack of goalposts. Jonny led from the front with 3 wickets, but star performer was Simon with a hatrick and 4 wickets from his 2 overs- rumour is that he's a shoe in for the National Village team now. Tebsy took a wicket on debut too which alone was worth his annual membership fee.

So deeply unimpressed werre Moreton with the target of 22, that they declared their first innings without bothering to go out, thus asking IA to bat again with a lead of just 22. A few new bowlers, encouraged by the opportunity to gain valuable fantasy cricket points, stepped up to the crease, and Dave T picked up a couple, and even The Landlord bagged a "collectors item" wicket. IA managed 34 at the second attempt, with one of their players having the dubious distinction of getting out 3 times in the evening.

So a target of 57 to win was set, and the big guns stepped out for Moreton; both were dropped early, and whilst Ed perished soon after, Tim eventually conjured some runs from his Mongoose, top scoring with 17. Ashton couldn't contain himself, with such an easy opportunity to cash in on some mediocre bowling, and he duly got himself a duck. Simon looked quite relaxed at the crease, and even found time to send a mass email whilst at the wicket, telling everyone how good viagra is for him. It was left to Jonny & Kaz to calmly finish off the thrashing-both undefeated in double figures.

The new scoreboard coped well with the flurry of wickets, but, of course, we still don't know if it will register 3 figures.

Next week Cuxham away