Todays date is

Sunday 1st May

Home v Lynton & Lynemouth II NDL

Another very good game of cricket, but again not the right result for us. Charles has at least managed to sort winning the toss, and this time decided to bat. Mike has worked tirelessly on getting the pitch ready for the new season and despite all the wet weather we've had recently it behaved very well. In fact rather than shooting, as the ball is sometimes prone to do, the batsmen were finding the ball pinging round their noses as the pitch dried out.
L&L II were a good mix of youth and experience, and bowled well throughout the afternoon. Despite cutting for 4 and a single in the first over, Mike found scoring tough as the bowlers began to find their rhythm. So much so that he played 21 consecutive non scoring shots! He and Peter put on 57 for the first wicket, followed by a stand of 93 between Mike and Phil for the second, before Mike unluckily dragged a ball onto his stumps from wide outside the off stump. Up to this point Phil too had found the going very difficult, edging and mistiming shots, and being very lucky on a couple of occassions to survive. But with overs beginning to run out he began to hit the ball with more conviction and power, almost taking Steve's head off with one shot! Sorry Steve! He reached his first century for 12 years with another mistimed shot for a single which maybe should have been despatched for 6. After being very well supported by Steve who kept the score ticking on at least 1 a ball, Phil was finally joined by James who only made 1 net practice and thus struggled to time the ball. He saw out the last two overs without scoring, and leaving us with a total of 227 for 4. In itself a reasonable score, but closer to 250 would have been preferable.

Tea was taken at 4.45pm, and a wonderful spread was enjoyed by all thanks to Carol. Mmmm eggy sandwiches!

So, having just batted for the best part of 2 hours, and fully laden with eggy sandwiches,mmmmmm, and hammy sandwiches, and cake, and more cake, Phil was given no time to rest and had to open up the bowling. This he did with a monstrous wide! The L&L batting was, like it's bowling, long. Their opener, having been unlucky with the ball, made amends with the bat by hitting a powerful century (two in one afternoon - ah just like the old days) before being caught and bowled by Nick with an excellent reaction catch. Phil had managed to winkle out the other opener, but the run rate of 5 an over was always within their grasp. The sooner we get the likes of Will, Rohan and Andy back, the better. We look desperately short of bowlers. The captain would I'm sure be grateful of at least one more just to break things up a little and try something different. Still, we perservered, and the match went down to the last couple of overs, so despite not winning, we're certainly not being outclassed. The two matches so far didn't go our way, but on another day they quite easily could. We have a weekend off from the league next week, so we can regroup and face the next game fresh and eager for victory. PC

Sunday 8th May

Home v Rackenford

It looked lovely and warm as the usual suspects gathered at Hayne for the first Friendly match of the season. It was actually bl@@dy freezing, with an arctic wind howling in from the West. Who said cricket was a Summer game?

Charles made it 3 out of 3 on the toss and elected to bat first. With Peter away on other duties Mike and Charles revived their longstanding openeing partnership, and were dong well against the Rackenford opening attack until Mike had a rush of blood to the head and was caught. Charles was joined in the middle by a pensive looking David Carr, fresh back from Reading for the day. Despite having to run off to relieve himself after a couple of overs (excitement?) David looked his old self, swinging at everything and causing the fielding side agonies, before missing a straight one - so no change there either!

Rohan strode to the wicket full of the confidence found only in expectant fathers. He and Charles had all but seen off the two opening bowlers when Robbie finally gave in to the bowler and sent Charles back LBW. Only Rodney has ever appealed more with less success.

Steve was undone by one that shot along the deck, so Anthony was out in the middle sooner than expected. He rose to the challenge and backed up the free scoring Rohan impeccably. He finally went to a good caught and bowled for his career high, and was greeted by a round of applause when he returned to the pavilion. Rohan then had a silly moment and threw away a Century, advancing down the wicket to sky the slow bowler to mid-wicket, but his 95 had put us in a very strong position. Brent and Ted saw us through the last few overs, adding some very useful runs and improving Brent's average to a hitherto unheard of value.

Tea was taken courtesy of Jane and her assistant with Phil Evershed-Martin doing sterling work on the washing up.

The Rackenford innings had a slow but measured start until a mix up in the running brought about the first wicket. Charles missed the stumps at the bowlers end and the ball went through to David Carr who mis-fielded. The batsmen went for a second run against the golden rule and David threw to Steve who took off the bails. This marked a mini-collapse with the next 4 Rackenford batsmen falling in quick succession to some tight bowling from Ted and Rohan.

Owen led a revival, giving only one chance in his 66 not out, but once the 6th wicket stand was broken by Nick and Dave pulled off another run out with a direct hit the rest followed without causing the scorers too much trouble.

Jug avoidance fines go to Rohan for missing his ton, and Nick for bowling a leg side wide on his hat-trick ball.

The first win of many this season (I hope), built on solid contributions from all 11 players. It's a pleasure to be a Captain on days like this......CS

Monday 9th May

A note from the captain, if you are not already a signed up member of the 100Club, then please do so and help support the club. For only £5.00 a year you could have the opportunity of winning £120.00!
Don't worry, I have the unlucky number that's only won £4.00 in 18 years, so you're bound to be lucky.The main thing is that you're supporting the club.

Wednesday 11th May

Home v Pinhoe

For the first time this year the Captain guessed wrong, thus giving Pinhoe the all important decision. As it turned out things were decided very amicably, as he would have fielded first anyway.

A minor selectorial oversight saw Charles donning the wicket keepers gloves once again, but this was not a problem as Colin and Rohan started the way they had left off in their last matches, bowling a good line and length.
Having bowled both the Pinhoe openers Colin was taken off and replaced by the Chairman. This is when wicket keeping errors started to creep in, but this may have had something to do with the high lobs he bowled and the low sun. They didn't cause the batsmen too many problems (2/0/26/0), but caused the keeper lots! But for John Wilson's efforts at fine leg we would have faced an even more formidable total.
David Lacey came on to follow Rohan up the hill, and he too suffered as the Pinhoe middle order started to find their feet. Jack managed to keep a little more control form the Urinal end, but the innings was in danger of slipping away until Gus and Darren came on for the final 8 overs.
Gus bowled a very tight spell once again (4/0/7/3), bowling the two danger men in successive overs. Once again he had a hat trick chance, and once again he received a fine for avoidance......
Darren's 4 overs of right arm round tweakers went for 17, and he was disappointed to only get the one wicket as he thought several of his LBW appeals were very close.....
Cheriton were set 140 to get in their 20 overs, a tough ask even on a small ground. With Charles unable to time an egg he relinquished the opening duties to the in form Rohan. He and Mike set about the bowling form the start and raced to the 50 partnership in only 6 overs. Mike very sportingly came in on 54, and Rohan managed to get bowled the very next ball, bringing two new men to the crease. Charles and Darren started slowly, then the Dragon roared and Darren raced to 26 before a slight loss of balance allowed the ball to dribble onto the stumps.
Gus was caught out by the low bounce and departed to the Captain's assurance that he was worth his place as a bowler anyway. It was meant as an encouragement.
Colin came in in much the same mood as Daren, and attempted to play the same shots (see the pics from Tuesday for the sort of thing I mean). A few calming words from the Captain seemed to work, and they set about knocking the 14 singles needed for victory, which came with 4 overs to go.

A special mention must go John and Andy who selflessly umpired throughout the Cheriton innings on an increasingly chilly evening. CS

Tuesday 17th May

Home v Ottery St Mary EECL

With neither of your regular reporters playing this match, information is only sketchy! Yours truly cocked up by forgetting to leave the scorebook so initial scoring had to be recorded on a scrap of paper! Apologies to all concerned. With Mike still fighting off the virus/bug that kept him out of Sunday's game, and Charles and Phil unable to play for other reasons, it was quite a different line up from last weeks game. In came Darren for his second game of the season; our star wicket taker Nick,played his first game in this league; Phil E-M made his second appearance of the year while Mark Lomas made his first.
Now it gets very sketchy. Ottery batted first (whether they won the toss or not I don't know) and two of their batsmen helped themselves to scores of 40 and 80, and in doing so gave Cheriton a difficult target of 197 to win! In their innings Richard Foan took a hatrick, and by all accounts Steve played a blinder behind the stumps taking 2 stumpings which sees him reach 50 career stumpings -congratulations Steve.
It was Steve who was the mainstay of the batting performance. With Richard getting caught on the boundary early on it was left to the rest to do the scoring. This was obviously a big task in the light of some very accurate bowling from Ottery. The main highlight was Nick (Gus-Honeybun) top scoring with 24 including an extraordinary shot for 6 by all accounts!
To add to the shambles as far as scoring was concerned their book was whisked away very quickly before we had a chance to record all the neccessary information, so I shall add the figures when I get them.! PC