Jagex Lose to Deloitte in Mid-Summer Sun

Deloitte 144-3 (Suckling 28*, Jim 27*, Cumberland 24*, Gibbins 2-23) beat Jagex 140-7 (P Morgan 28*, S Morgan 25*, Fardell 19, Cumberland 3-29) by 6 wickets (they only had 10)

Highlights I recall:

A wonderfully sunny day and evening to be playing cricket on.

A decent opening start, against some pretty good bowling, to get us to a happy 41 from 5 overs.

Fardell fell, chipping it straight up in the air, using the side of his bat, to allow an easy wicket keeper catch. I got to 19, mainly by pinching the strike from Jones for all the easy balls.

P Morgan strolled in and unleashed the dragon – smashing a six with the most unorthodox, Jamy Nigri like shot you are likely to see this year. He bludgeoned his way through an innings with brute force, finishing on a four for 28*.

Jones seemed ill fated to get all the best balls of the innings, but manfully struggled on a through a few partnerships to help keep us going, rotating the strike nicely, before being bowled off stump by a doozy.

N McClarty, sporting his overnight travelling bag, kept one out before falling second ball, to the best ball the chap bowled all evening. It was so good, Neil thought he must’ve been stumped rather than bowled.

Parrish greeted his first ball with a disdainful wallop through mid off. Sadly he perished shortly thereafter, chipping to extra cover.

Coslett keep the innings going, joined by Steve Morgan for a spell. Steve hit his first ball for four using the straightest bat I’ve ever seen from anyone. He then proceeded to biff and bunt his way to 25*.

Steve Morgan got 25*.

Steve Morgan got 25*!!

Tom perished in the same way as I did, top edging to the keeper.

Brett gave it some real hustle at the end, hitting 16 off 6 or 7 balls before being caught.

Hugh hit a few before perishing at the death, bowled by one that cracked one of the bails! Willem strolled in to help run cheeky singles at the end.

Gibbins didn’t get a duck, hitting 2 from 2 – for a 100% strike rate – possibly the best thing that happened all evening.

We bowled well to start, with McClarty doing well behind the stumps and Messrs Steve and Piers Morgan bowling well early on to help keep the scoring under control, despite the dreaded right hand left hand combo.

Fardell, Brett, Parrish and Coslett all distinguished themselves in the field with various decent stops.

We had an – ahem – incident, when the batsman crossed for a cheeky single Tom, despite the batsman being a good six feet in, threw a direct hit at the stumps, but only succeeded in hitting the batsman in the face. The “thunk” was like something out of a cartoon, and the batsman took a while to, admirably, compose himself, and not punch anyone. He then manfully stepped back up and scored some more runs.

Piers finished with a wicket, caught and bowled, always a favourite.

I asked everyone to look happy and smile at this point.

Brett came on to bowl for a bit, and interspersed some ok stuff, with lots of balls that didn’t come near to hitting the track at all. I don’t know how you set a field to those (or indeed legitimate balls!).

Gibbins tied up the other end, with his magnificent, robotic action bowling. He got wickets, clean bowled, in his second and third overs, with decent economy. In both cases he tied the batsmen down for several balls, inducing the wild swipe, and hitting the stumps. The Gibbinator is on fire at the moment. Fourth over, not so good, but let’s forget that. He even fielded well!

Coslett came in for two overs of variable stuff. My sledging – “come on Tom, Liam has kept the track nice and pristine for you, let’s make use of it”, actually saw people laugh. A day to be remembered throughout history.

Parrish came in to hold one end down, whilst Willem took the other. Willem usually starts well and gets worse, but this was the opposite, with his second ball going for four wides (so 6 runs) before he discovered where the ground was and tried to bowl the ball in its general direction. Parrish did well at the end, but Deloitte had plenty in the tank, and had already steered the run chase to within sight.

A few more runs, or a couple of early wickets, and we might have beaten them. They had impressive batting depth though, something that is becoming all too familiar!