In an effort to encourage more people to contribute to the match reports our estimable Despot Gareth has offered automatic selection for the next game and continually told people the reports don’t have to be long (although maybe longer than Coxy’s famous report of a game versus Architects from a few years back which simply read “Awful” and when pressed by Gareth to expand managed “F**king awfull”!).
However this has failed to reap any dividends and Club Treasurer, the aforementioned Coxy quickly ruled out the suggestion of free match subs for any match reporter, so your correspondent is going to try another ploy suggested by one or two veteran lards and produce a template for match reports so you can then fill in the essential info and then add as little or as much as you like. Don’t worry Mr Green, this is not compulsory just an aide to those that might need it!
Match Report
Date: Wednesday 14th June 2023
Opposition: Stamfordham
Venue: Stamfordham
Weather: Warm and Sunny
Teams:
Mallards – Tom Browne, Mark Butcher, Dave Cox, Si Holland, Liaquat Latif, Colin McCaffery, Pradeep Nair and 4 of Pradeep’s mates – Akhil Krishnan, Sreekarthick Krishnan Pillai, Ajoy Prakash and Sajeev Sajan – welcome aboard fellas!
Stamfordham – Usual mix of keen young bucks with a smattering of wiser heads
Toss won by: Stamfordham
First Innings: Stamfordham chose to bat first and made the pitch look like a belter with their first 3 batters all retiring in the 30s despite the best bowling efforts of Tom, Karthick, Coxy, Akhill and Sajeev. First wicket fell with over 100 on the board to a great catch on the long on boundary by Tom off the bowling of Liaquat, followed soon after by an almost identical catch by Tom this time off the bowling of Si Holland who closed out the bowling with Ajoy from the other end who took the final wicket to fall with a smart caught and bowled off the last ball of the innings to leave Stamfordham on an impressive 165 for 3 off 20
Second Innings: Somewhat unsurprisingly (to regular readers at least) the pitch didn’t appear to be so good when it was Mallards turn to bad but despite loosing newbie Akhill from the last ball of the first over Pradeep (assisted by Stig and a generous smattering of extras) managed to just about keep up with the required run rate for the first quarter of the innings (41 for 1 off 5) However the runs then dried up somewhat and Stig fell in the 8th trying to up the rate and Karthick followed soon after. Pradeep kept going to retire and Coxy and Liaquat closed out the innings on what I will generously (to who?!) describe as a wearing pitch without losing any more wickets but also without threatening to get close to the target finishing 50 runs short.
Notable Bowling: Ajoy’s spell of 1 for 11 off 3 and a great spell from Si
Notable Fielding: Tom’s 2 catches in the deep, and Colin chasing balls on the boundary despite pulling/tweaking something or other!
Notable Batting: Pradeep’s 31 retired and Coxy’s 33 not out (reached off the last ball of the innings) which included a massive 6 over long off (I think!)
Friendly Fire Contenders: The usual collection of misfields from several ‘Lards but nothing out of the ordinary!
To sum up: Despite the result still an enjoyable night’s cricket in a lovely part of the world against a good set of lads and 4 new names to add to the illustrious roll call of ‘lards, just hope I spelt them right!