Jagex 146-6 (Van Daal 46*, Colledge 24, Fardell 32-2, Thimh 15-1) beat Ensors 108-5 (Douglas 26*, Chima 25*, Lait 18-2) by 38 runs.
A new week, a new win, once more against accountants. We should play bean counters every week. Also this week, Jamy's beau Laura brought a few friends along, and later in the day we had Mrs Zoe Morgan and Andy from IT even turned up with his wife and kids in tow. It would appear we are drawing quite a following on the Amateur Evening Cambridge Cricket Circuit.
Ensors are a new team on the fixture list this season, and I know in years gone by they have put out some magnificent teams of real strength. Sadly this week they were struggling for players, so Jagex kindly lent them Fardell and Broadbridge to make it a 9-a-side. The wicket was very green again this week, and we went for 15, 8 ball overs, given the light and pending rain.
Jagex opened the batting with Colledge and Jones. Colledge looked relatively assured and under control on an overcast evening. Jones did well for a spell, hitting a nice four, and keeping out some decent fast bowling. Unfortunately he backed away to one that came on with the arm, and nicked it through to the keeper to depart early. Colledge then had Jeroen "Boom Boom" Van Daal for company, and Jeroen did what he does best, hammering the ball to all corners. He hit his first ball for four through the off-side (I didn't know he knew were the off-side was) and even showed off his little trade mark bunny hop when one came to him near leg stump. This particular ball missed leg by a fraction.
Van Daal quickly retired, bringing Steve Morgan to the crease at the heady height of fourth in the batting order. Fardell came in to bowl for Ensors, and gave Steve his first run. Colledge then demolished Fardell for 6 and then a 4, before being bowled trying to finish well for 24. Morgan was joined at the crease by Brett. Sadly Steve didn't hang around long, top edging a slog off Fardell's bowling to leave the keeper an easy catch.
Brett was joined by Wise for a spell, before Brett perished to the innocuous looking Fardell dibbly dobblers, taking one on, but only finding deep wide mid on. This left the two Americans, Wise and Nigri at the crease. They both scored a boundary apiece and looked in not bad touch until a calamitous run out. Both ran to the middle neither said a word, there was never a run, and Wise rather unfairly sacrificed his wicket to keep Nigri in. Lait strolled out to the crease, bringing his £20 piece of timber with him.
Ensors turned to their other Jagex import, Broadbridge, to turn his arm. Paul bowled a combination of highly lofted twirlers, and incredible no balls, but did the trick. A high slow loopy one was too tempting for Jamy, who charged down the track, missed, and was stumped. The wicketkeeper and umpire then had to very carefully explain to Jamy that this was another form of being "wicketed" and no he didn't get any more lives, and yes he was out. He strolled off in good graces once the intricacies of cricket had been explained.
Lait was very briefly joined by Cooper, who offered an easy catch one ball in. Lait was was then re-joined by Van Daal. Jeroen continued where he had left off, hitting 4's for fun in his favoured zone, cow corner. Not to be outdone, Lait also contributed a sprightly 11, including a nice square cut for 4 - clearly showing that it's not the quality of the gear that scores you the runs. Jeroen unfortunately found himself stranded on 46* at the end, which is a shame as it would have been our first 50 of the year.
Jagex opened the bowling with Steve Morgan and Liam Brett. Ensors opened with Fardell as number 2. After the other opener got off strike, Fardell found himself surrounded by a close in field and plenty of high pressure, poor quality banter. He managed to survive, more by luck than judgment, and scored a four off the top edge, through the keeper, to fine leg. I meant it to go there. Honestly. Steve was bowling some exciting lines, but got carted a little bit unfairly in his first couple of overs. Brett had reverted to pace bowling, and boy is he a handful, getting balls to do all-sorts. I even fended one away from my chin, that must have made him smile.
Jagex had been lively in the field with good stops from Derek and Colledge. The first wicket came when Fardell was caught napping at the non-striker's end when a ball had gone through the keeper. The striker hurried through for a run, Mark tried to catch up, but Steve Morgan at fine leg let rip and scored an absolute pearler of a direct hit to send Fardell on his way. Jagex continued to bowl good lines, with Cooper coming in for a spell. Ensors managed to get a partnership of sorts together with the opener and number 3 both hitting some nice shots and racing the scoring away to 60 from 6 overs, really threatening to chase the Jagex total down. Sadly for them there was another run out on the horizon, with neither batsman calling and the number 3 being well short of his ground.
Cooper's third over was a wicket maiden, no mean feat in 8 ball overs, with the batsman falling bowled to a full one. Ensor's number 5 was a more cultured bat, and managed to get the scoring going again after a slow spell, although Ensors were well behind the rate at this time. Most of the excitement at this stage arrived courtesy of the Jagex team being chock full of captains, all eager to tweak the field at a moment's notice. Steve Morgan was also really excited at his direct hit run out, and decided to have a couple of other goes at repeating the feat, with predictably hilarious results.
Nigri behind the stumps was chipping in with banter, and seemed to have developed some genuine wicketkeeper traits, including a novel technique of removing the glove to throw overarm. Van Daal did his level best to demonstrate to everyone that he is a batsman, and only a batsman, since he fielded like a veritable Monty Panesar on several occasions.
Colledge was called into the attack and carted about a bit, although he probably deserved better. At this stage Ensor's main threat, Chima, was trying to rotate the strike carefully and keep the score moving along. Then a captaincy masterstroke (not sure which captain made the call), saw the ball tossed to left arm round the wicket Simon Au Lait. He bowled with venom, accuracy and verve, smashing the stumps cleanly on one occasion, and on another we again saw the fabled double wicket, when the batsman played onto his own stumps, and the ball was deflected to gully for an easy catch.
Broadbridge came into bat briefly at the end with Ensors well behind the game, and his only fun was to have Steve Morgan try and run him out by throwing the ball straight at him. Easy Steve. The final batsman for Ensors managed to guide a 2 into the gap between Jamy Nigri's left hand and Jamy Nigri's right hand, showing commendable touch.
Our last 3 games have seen 3 straight wins, up next week, a double header - so the chance to get the win loss ratio up before the end of season curry.
A good game played in the right spirit when one team was short, was followed by another excellent tea, resplendent with the famous chicken skewers which really are worth the price of admission on their own. Also, everyone had a good chuckle at Fardell's run out.
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