No formal statistics were found for 1989, but a reasonable informal record of matches and results has been constructed, although there is no trace of what happened in the scheduled match against a new team, The Plough. This was not the best of seasons for Mallards. The team was defeated in eight of the first nine matches. Of the eleven matches known to have been played, just two were won plus a draw against a new team, Social Policy, where rain curtailed the event. Aficionados will find interest in the runs-wickets performance overall. Mallards scored a match average of 86 runs for 6 wickets, compared with their opponents (97 for 4). The difference appears small but was sufficient to result in only 18% of matches won. The team twice got to a score of 120, but also recorded one of their lowest ever totals, 35 all out (against Genetics).
From memory, this was the season that the club recruited, through Alistair McKillop, a demon opening bowler from Philadelphia CC of the North-East Premier League. Jim Matthewson was certainly quick, and made us appear impressively aggressive, bowling with three slips, a gully, a (distant) wicketkeeper, and a fine leg. The ball, however, though frequently beating the bat or getting a fine nick through sheer speed, invariably found its way through the fielding cordon to the boundary. Jim might have raised the batsman’s pulse in this pre-helmet era, but his main effect was to increase the ‘extras’ total. Jim obviously learned from his experience with Mallards, returning to league cricket, and eventually becoming captain of Philadelphia’s 1st XI in the mid-1990s.
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