Friendly Match

New Ash Green 63 all out
Nortfleet 51 all out
New Ash Green won by 12 runs.

I haven't had a full report for this game, but the message relayed by Dave Harrington gave the above approximate scores. From this I gather that the wicket was awful and no one scored many runs. Dave got 5-11, and Pete Burke and Marc Klus shared the other five wickets.

If anyone who played in the game would like to give me a full report and exact scores and bowling figures I'd be very pleased!

Lower Halstow v New Ash Green
Sunday 23rd September 2001

Friendly Match

New Ash Green 151 all out
Lower Halstow 137-7
Match Drawn.

Having had the numbers of players available for this game go up and down like a yo-yo from 7 to 11 with people changing their minds with the wind New Ash Green wound up with 10 men, or, in fact, nine men and one lady for this match. Their hosts managed 11, which was quite a feat as their selection committee had forgotten to tell them there was a game until the night before the match, but they couldn't manage a tea.

Barry Lineker won the toss for Lower Halstow and put New Ash Green in on a sticky, muddy wicket. This did not intimidate NAG openers Dominic Adolphe and Mick Sumner, partly because the opening bowlers frequently opted not to use the wicket, or least not the batsman's half, and Adolphe was particularly brutal on the loose balls, bringing up 30 in the first 4 overs. A short but very heavy shower then forced the teams off for 15 minutes, and after the interval the pitch was even more lively and the bowlers more accurate, and batting became harder work. Sumner was run out and Charles Duguid soon followed. Matthew Quantrill and Adolphe had to work hard to keep out Simon Bennett, who was now bowling with some venom on the difficult surface, and eventually Adolphe was frustrated into parrying one to the gully for 30.

Quantrill was then joined by Heather Shannon, who showed how to play a straight bat and played her part in a partnership of 27 before being bowled just after scoring her first run, fooled by Lineker's loop. Quantrill was beginning to get his eye in, and with support from all the rest of the batsmen he played a succession of powerful pulls against anything slightly short, including a rare six over square leg, and also three powerful reverse pulls for four, the trademark shot of his opposite number! He was not so good on the full toss, though, and was eventually out, mis-hitting a ball on the full, for 74, ending a partnership of 41 for the eighth wicket with a hobbling Duncan Shannon. Dave Harrington was out shortly afterwards when he got over-excited by a short ball and tried to score his first run of the season, only to see the ball carry straight to fine leg, leaving New Ash Green with a respectable 151.

With more rain showers continuing to make the pitch muddier, the ball soggier and softer and the outfield slower, 151 was a very defendable total. Paul Sumner and Matt Pennell both took one wicket for 11 and 10 respectively in their opening 7 over spells and Lower Halstow were under early pressure. With Matthew Scanlan also bowling well, managing somehow to get some inswing out of the ball to get 2-17 and Dave Harrington in his element taking 2-19, New Ash Green were well on top. Increasing darkness, drizzle and the need to keep the game alive saw New Ash Green resorting to various types of spin, with some respectable stuff from Duncan Shannon and Mick Sumner, some lightning fast overs off a half a pace run up from Dominic Adolphe (though he still managed to overstep for a no-ball on his first delivery!) and a spectacular over from Charles Duguid in which the batsmen did not lay a bat on any of the 16 (yes, that's sixteen) deliveries, a video film of which is to be submitted to the ICC panel for examination of his action! Kindly the umpires decided to wait for official sanction before calling the no-balls, or we'd still be out there as I write trying to finish the over, so the 10 runs that came were all accredited to wides. With most of the team, and one umpire, in stitches and struggling to remain standing it was an over that would have earned him the Joker, Melon and Clown award, despite Dominic making an excellent effort himself, but sadly the award finished with the league season.

In the end the batsmen resisted temptation, perhaps slightly surprisingly as they were never too far behind the rate considering the nature of the bowling, and the game ended as a fairly tame and very damp draw.