Jagex Fall Short in Annual Sharks Procession

Sharks 141-4 (Ramsey 29*, Jim 28*, Brown 25*, Colledge 3-15) beat Jagex 139-7 (P Morgan 26*, Parrish 25*, Nigri 15) by 5 wickets

Spiffing weather, an absolutely wonderful evening.

Us not exactly getting off to a flyer, with Shimmers and Rich falling by the 3^rd over, both bowled by the left arm of Brown.

Van Daal not quite getting going, then falling caught and bowled in the 4^th over.

Morgan and Fardell steadying the ship, with Morgan scoring, and me, erm, not. I’ll say I dropped anchor. At least we survived 6 overs and brought up our first retirement.

Morgan biffing the crap out of their bowler Ramsey, hitting 3 consecutive 4’s before retiring on 26* and bringing Parrish to the crease.

Parrish keeping things ticking over, starting slowly and building an innings, mindful of the lost wickets.

Fardell fell edged behind. Holliday was clean bowled next ball and poor Lee had to stroll out to the face the hat trick chance, but negotiated it successfully, before biffing it over the fielders to add a cheeky little 3.

Sadly Lee fell to a cracking caught and bowled. He absolutely hammered it back to the bowler, who stuck out a single hand and clutched it from thin air.

Nigri and Parrish had a decent little partnership, with Parrish eventually retiring on a well struck 25*. Nigri was eventually bowled after contributing a spritely little 15.

Lait accompanied him for a bit, before being joined by Cooper. Coops and Lait kept the runs ticking along nicely, giving us a helpful 21 from our last 2 overs.

Lait and P Morgan opened the bowling, and initially did well.

Number 2 bat fell caught off Piers Morgan’s bowling, with Ben Holliday taking a one handed caught and bowled chance. I gave him my sunny-g’s 2 balls before the catch, so am taking some partial credit.

Their number 1, Ramsey, offered few chances and raced onto a 25* retirement.

Their numbers 3 and 4 stuck around for absolutely ages, slowly accumulating under pressure from Lait, Morgan and Shimmers. No wickets fell, but the scoring wasn’t particularly quick, although both retired.

The umpire gave some very unsporting wides. I recall one off Lait’s bowling that was particularly miserly. The corridor outside off is not a wide. Perhaps he needed a stretch.

Colledge shelled a really tough chance at long on before one of the retirees disappeared back to the hutch.

Shimmers almost direct hit run out one of their keen-o openers.

As batsman retired, Jagex slowly clawed our way back into the game. Parrish kept things tight for a bit and the fielding was again, fairly exemplary, with stops from Jeroen, Holliday and some boundary raiding from Lee. Piers Morgan also patrolled the boundary exceptionally well, with exocet like accuracy from a few throws.

Jamy’s chirping behind the stumps, which was wonderfully in yer face at times. He had a tough couple of thick edges behind, which would have been wonderful chance to take, had they been taken.

Cooper was welcomed into the attack and saw his first ball dispatched for a monster 6 by one of the retirees. He came back strong though, only conceding 9 more in two overs.

Colledge being brought into the attack – the destroyer – as we shall call him from now on. He bowled the new batsman third ball in with one that drifted nicely.

We ran out one of their batsmen going for the cheeky single. The poor chap looked less than amused.

Colledge stayed in the attack and managed to extract another caught, with Jeroen snaffling the chance on the 45.

We had a great fun run out, with a no-ball being pushed behind the batsman off his back foot, the other batsman running miles down the crease, then being run out with ease. It was such a stupid run out, that we actually didn’t celebrate for a good 30 seconds. The batsman remonstrated with the umpire to check the no-ball was given, and also remonstrated with his fellow batsman for not trying the suicidal single, and no doubt remonstrated with himself in the car on the way home.

The final wicket fell to Colledge, a high ball to mid on being snaffled by Shimmers.

We pushed them to need 6 off the last over. Lait came in and initially did well. We conceded some overthrows, only the second slight misfield of the match I remember, then a short ball was dispatched for 4 to end proceedings.

Jagex Smash Bean Counters

Jagex 149-7 (Colledge 26*, P Morgan 17*, Jones 15, McClarty 15, Edwards 15) beat PEM 68-9 (Haybrock 20, Brett 3-16, P Morgan 2-9, Edwards 2-5) by 81 Runs

Guest Writer - Matt Parrish

We won the toss and chose to bat first, Mark B and Rich heading up a very strong batting lineup for Jagex. Things looked ominous when their opener steamed in off about a 50 meter run up, bowling quickly with the ball often swinging in through the air and cutting out off the deck. Despite the high quality bowling though we made a solid start, highlights including a lofted pull shot for 4 from Rich and the shot of the day from Mark Bridle, with a drive on the up for 4 through the covers off the pacy opener. 

Mark unfortunately fell for 6 to the same bowler with an unplayable in swinger wrecking his stumps but it was in the 6^th over and the last of his spell. It was an important opening stand for us, protecting the rest of the side from some good bowling.

A new set of bowlers brought an increase to the run rate, Rich and Kris kept the runs ticking over nicely against some less hostile bowling, putting us in a great position at the halfway mark, setting us up for around 140. The partnership ended with a retirement for Rich before Kris was caught for 15 trying to keep the intensity going.

Another 2 batsmen to the wicket and another good partnership. Neil and Justin kept things ticking well keeping the rate up. Both ended up caught in the late teens going for big shots after a couple of quieter overs, playing for the team rather than the average with some strong batting still to come.

Liam got a few good hits in going big at the end, Lee unfortunately fell to a good ball from a returning bowler which left us with Jamy and number 9 supremo Piers to the wicket, who really made that position his own. The last 2 overs marked a big push, with a 4 and a 6 in consecutive balls for Jamy and boundaries all around the ground from Piers. We ended up on a competitive 149 from the 20.

We hit the field feeling like we were in with a shout, but we had high expectations for the oppo’s batting because…they looked like they’d be good. But we got off to a nice start with the Morgan brothers opening and keeping the runs down. Steve got the big breakthrough with a stunning full toss, which was hit well towards the offside boundary but Mark raced in and took a very good catch. That sparked the best fielding and bowling performance I’ve seen since joining the side.

Piers bowling became unplayable, bowling the other opener before getting a catch from myself short on the offside. From this point we had a new strut and confidence about us. #Cricketing the chant of choice and singing between wickets as we made light work of the rest of the order. Liam bowling a great 4 overs to bag 3 wickets, getting real turn when he bothered to pitch it on the track!

Justin with an excellent spell for 2 more wickets, clean bowling one, and then a caught and bowled with a big shout of EDWARDS to avoid what would have been quite a funny collision. Rich then finished off proceedings in his first over with another caught and bowled and that was that. All out for 67, 7 catches with no drops, almost no mis-fields and plenty of banter. Not to mention immaculate field placing!

So all in all a quite incredible win from the Jaguars, I just can’t put my finger on what was different about this game to the others…

#Cricketing #Mutiny

Hopefully we’ll keep the streak up for the rest of the season.

Matt

Stand-in Skip