Jags 142-9 (Parrish 28*, Phillips 23*, Brett 23, Routledge 2-17, Ledenberg 2-20) beat The Leys 123-6 Ledenberg 25*, Avery 25*, Boyd 3-23, Brett 1-16) by 19 runs.
Man of the Match - Liam Brett
For many of us, this is our favourite fixture. It's like the first cold pint in a pub garden on that evening in May when it becomes just about warm enough to enjoy without freezing your cojones off. It just tells you the good times are coming, sunshine, summer, cricket and all that good stuff. It's also often our first fixture of the year, so is a portent of the things to come.
Here comes the sun, little darling, here comes the sun... it's alright...
We've played the Leys for just over 10 years. They have lovely grounds, the school and Latham road are both pristine and the setting makes us all appreciate the tangible benefits we didn't get, as our parents weren't rich and none of us had a private education.
A glorious sunny evening, a perfect setting and a platter of pre-game snacks, including surprisingly good vegan sausage rolls, was delivered to the ground for the start of proceedings and the strip looked more or less perfect. Ben Savage even commented, "I don't think we'll ever play at a nicer ground", oh how we laughed, you wait, Mr Savage, for later in the season.
Matt won the toss, and opted to bat, with the tried and tested partnership of Matt and Ant opening proceedings. Scoring kicked off at a good pace, with a few extras and Ant chipping in with a spanked 4 that I can recall. Early bowling looked pretty good, and the pre-game banter with Liam made it clear that lots of the players were qualified coaches, and one lady (Carla Rudd) had played in the actual Hundred tournament for the Southern Braves.
Ant was first to depart, bowled going for an almighty hoik to the legside for 5. Whilst he didn't contribute many runs, he did manage to entertain us with two contributions for the evening. He'd actually brought his own one person policewoman fan club with him tonight to cheer him on. He also told us he was out for a few weeks now as he is travelling to Orlando to compete in the world footgolf championships, or something.
Fardell strolled out and scored behind square early and Matt struck a crisp on the gallop drive back over the bowler's head. The bowling was pretty good to be honest, not viciously fast but accuate. Banter in the field was also generally quite solid as well as the sun dipped below the high trees to one side of the ground. Fardell was dropped twice, one an unbelievably easy caught and bowled chance that was harder to drop than it was to hold. The bowler is a coach no less as well. Matt presented a very tough late cut chance that was also dropped. Fardell perished next, basically not really playing a shot to one that was on the stumps, top of middle and off dislodged by a ball from our resident South African for the evening (there is always one) Ledenberg.
Threadgold walked out, new to fatherhood, and not looking that tired at all having welcomed Charlie into the world fairly recently. He pushed Matt onto his first retirement of the season, with a lovely square drive and a hook/pull for 6 that I can recall to get the skipper back on the benches, within easy reach of the platter of food.
Threadgold and Tom Cozzie played together for a while. Cozzie looked nervous early on, but was given the boost of confidence he needed by a thoroughly mad spell of bowling from Fung, who combined wides with no balls with goodness knows what to help Cozzie through early season nerves and into his stride with a straight drive back over the bowler's head. Threadgold kept rotating the strike and scoring was going well at not far off 10 per 8 ball over. The Saffer was much harder to play and Tom then fell bowled to one where he yorked himself a bit by coming too far down the track and down went the stumps.
Phillips wandered out, his wrist fractured so badly that medical science has given up on finding a cure, and his banter still the same as it ever is. He and Dan rotated strike nicely for a bit, before a collosal mix up. Dan cut behind point, Adam called yes, Dan said no - and then they met for a chat in the middle before Dan tried to remake his ground, falling agonisingly short following some good fielding work from Rudd. The good news in this passage of play was that Dan had been run out by an actual professional cricketer, a small silver lining, but it has to count as something.
Here she is, using the evening to add a key Jags scalp to her Cricinfo page
Barker briefly joined Phillips, scoring a little before perishing hoiking it up high. We then had debutant Jake Boud welcomed to the crease, fresh off a 50 for Histon at the weekend and raring to go. Phillips scored a very nice clip behind square for 4, and kept the running going nicely at this point. Jake was getting his eye in, before Sam of the Leys decided to rare up his medium/fast engine and put an unplayable good length top of off delivery into the mix to send Jake packing.
Liam joined Adam and we were treated to the most delightful passage of play, where Phillips found his range somewhat, and Liam introduced an air of class to proceedings, with a lofted cover drive for 4 being the highlight of this, or indeed many an evening. He scored at both pace and with class to sail us past a hundred and on target for a nice looking total. A late cut sticks in the mind in particular, and when he perished, caught, it was to a similarly nice lofted cover drive, in keeping with the nature of his evening; even his dismissal was high class.
Mr Bennett joined Phillips for the last few balls, and hit a couple of singles to rotate strike and get us nicely to a 142 total, which felt around about a touch above par. Phillips managed a creditable 23* to finish, and had kept all those around him ticking over nicely throughout so we never got bogged down on scoring.
Bowling began, as it often does with Brett and Bennett. The light was dropping quite quickly, so we get a wriggle on. One opener scored two behind square on the ground first ball, before deciding that the aerial route was preferable, and chipping a high chance snaffled by Fardell at backward square.Bennett started well, wayward in parts, but mostly solid. Batsmen 2 and 3 took some time to get going, but eventually did, with both needing a bit of time to settle (Avery and Ledenberg) before unfurling a few nice shots, one a square cut and a couple of South African bludgeons past the bowler that I can recall. Bennett managed to stop a fairly certain 4 by wearing one on the arm off his own bowling, and stepped out of the attack, saved for death over duties.
Scoring was probably behind the rate, with bowling from both openers very solid, and some very good fielding from Threadgold, Bennett and Boyd that I can recall. The batsmen pressed on gamely, and both ended up retiring. Mr Ledenberg pulled out of a shot and had some choice words from some chat in the field as well, that was off putting and not sporting. The best part about this was that he managed to pull out of the shot and still hit the ball somehow. Madness.
The professional came to the crease, and was joined by someone called "unsure" in the book, or "Juaj" or something of that nature. Whoever he was he was sporting a swollen looking knee, having unwisely chosen to practice in the nets beforehand. Practice, sounds like cheating to me. Jake bowled the pro off an inside edge, a nice ball of verve in a good spell of bowling. We then got treated to Phillips fielding on the boundary, where he managed to do this best T-rex impression, and we all laughed. He took it well.
How Phillips actually reacted to a spot of good natured banter...
Another batsmen fell to Jake, this time caught by Barker at mid on. Leys were quite behind the rate here as the sun began to settle behind the trees, casting long shadows. Savage stepped into the attack and enjoyed the finely coiffured playing surface with his left arm balls seeing a spot of traction here and there. He eventually removed another, the book says "bowled Savage, caught Boud" but I don't think it quite captures what happened. Savage bowled a mid tracker, the batsman humped it towards deep square, 9 times out of ten it's a nice four, but Boud had other ideas and sprinted to his right, slid on his knees like an 80's rockstar on stage, and snaffled the chance whilst giving a nice late shout of "got it" to stop Mark somehow messing up a very crickety moment.
Phillips came into the attack and bowled an actually pretty decent spell, a bit of dross, but some pretty good stuff. Parrish had to be very alert behind the stumps mind - as outside off and legside were in play with every ball.
Late in the game it looked like Leys were a long way off the rate, but the number 8 (Miller, who was about 2 meters tall) joined the game and was presented with some variable bowling from Mr Barker. He smote, or smited, the ball to all corners, in an eventful over that saw the Leys get within touching distance by hitting 20 from it. He fell next over, bowled by the irrepressible Boud (a close second for man of the match in my book).
Sam Coe joined proceedings at the end, and we know from previous years (most of them) that he can be very dangerous as an opponent, so the strategy was very much not to give him much of the strike. Savage finished his spell, economic with the one wicket and it fell to Bennett to see out the end with 24 needed from the last over. It was really quite dark, and we offered spin or slow bowling to the opposition, but they politely declined and Tyler did his usual twirly thing. They didn't get close in truth, and Coe took a single, and there was a 4, before he gave his stats a boost taking a wicket last ball.
Hands were shook and attendance at the Panton was good, although the tree in the courtyard had yacked sap all over the place, so it had a sticky feel underfoot. Most of the chat centered around golf and totally legal and legitimate poker games, with a modest few minutes given to how nice everyone is at the Leys, and a tiny bit of actual cricket chat.
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