A Ton for the Wife

Ben Rhydding 278-6 (Forrest 110), Birstwith 192 (Roam 1-32, Forrest 3-29)

Scorecard

I've been so busy this last month or so that I've struggled to find time to write up my Saturday cricketing blips. And then I realised that I can just use the reports that Forrest writes, when they win at least. It will be good to have a record of the banter. To be honest, it's for my benefit, to reminisce on in dotage, of little interest to anyone else. There are too many in-jokes that won't mean much to anyone outside the inner circle. A lot of it is lost on me sitting at the edge of the circle.

Anyway, Forrest got a good hundred opening the batting today, his first for a few years and possibly the best I've ever seen him score. It was a proper hundred, defending the good balls, hitting the bad balls, holding the innings together while others around him played more aggressively. Orla came to watch and we both got nervous for him in the nineties, more so than he was himself. He was very determined to score a century for his wife, a proud moment for both him and us. He even picked up three wickets, after missing three catches (all of Roam's bowling!), definitely not drops as they were each incredibly sharp, although I'd have backed him normally to have caught at least one of them. His body was pretty much broken in the field after an 80 mile running week and turning lots of singles into twos. It was great to watch.

BEN RHYDDING SLAY THE DRAGON FOR FIRST DOUBLE WIN OF THE SEASON

With Captain Copping's Barmy Army marching merrily along once again, it was over to the ones to do their part of the equation for a much awaited double win weekend.

Captain Six Fingers lost another toss but thankfully, the lads at Birstwith read a pitch like Nasser Hussain and chose to have a bowl.
I'm guessing the pre match chat with their overseas was not 'bowl half volleys on Robbie Miller's legs' but it sure seemed that way a few overs in.

He hit it so hard that he broke his brand new £400 bat. Perhaps he was still sulking about that because having smashed the openers out of the attack before I'd reached double figures, he proceeded to loop a half tracker from a military medium to mid on. It's a good thing most of the Nidderdale employ speedsters otherwise Rob would be in big trouble the rest of the year.

I've been kindly requested to employ some braggadocio in these reports and I guess this would be the moment, but I'm really not sure how much one can brag about plinking ones and twos with all the strength I can muster. At one point I nailed on right out of the screws and launched it... for a one bounce four to the short boundary.

It was certainly fortunate that Captain Tatts stepped up after a rough first few weeks and was game to do some running. Because that's all I got. You have to play to your strengths.

Despite the fact I was running him ragged, he continued to pepper the long boundary and put himself in the mixer for the sixes league with four big old bombs.

Tatts, exhausted and having deliriously suggested he might need to go for a run during the week, finally holed out for an excellent 60 off 46.
Keen to avoid accusations of playing it safe to get my hundred, I tried to run myself out three times in the nineties.

I finally held it all together to get to the magic three figures mainly because: 1) I couldn't hit it far enough to get caught in the deep and 2) I was scared Alex would yell at me if I gave it away again.

Chris whinged his way into a promotion to 8 and together with Hatton, who scandalously batted ahead of him despite only scoring 100 from 57 balls during the week, they slogged us to a total of 278.

Which according to their men in the field, was about par. No arguments here on The Road at Coutances.

The tone quickly shifted once their turn to bat came as it suddenly became a 'minefield'. As an emergency opening bowler who doesn't really know what the hell he's doing and is scared he's going to bowl a wide every time he attempts an inswinger, it was quite the compliment.
Roam took the first, to the relief of everyone not sending off the young man he'd got strangled down the leg side with a shush and a point. Well done Roam, he's thirteen.

From there it was a throwback to the halcyon days when you'd rack up a big score and immediately settle in for a 1 point losing draw. God I miss it.

By the time our old pal Jim came out at number four, the required rate was over eight and the top order had effectively batted them out of the game. He did at least liven things up by giving it some welly as we helped him along, dropping him four times. It would be remiss of me to not mention I managed to drop three catches. In my defence I was tired and I'm no Stu Calderon.

In between the drops we were great, the wickets shared around between Roam, Biggy, Stu, me and Alex. We bowled so well that we turned a pitch we'd just scored 278 on into a 'shithole'. I don't know exactly what that says, but it sure made my hundred look even better.

A brief moment here to be serious, that pitch was a real credit to the groundsteam. What would classically be described as a proper cricket wicket, where there's some juice for the bowlers if you bowl well and where you get punished like hell for bowling shite.

Once Alex finally clung onto a steepler from Jim off his own bowling, that was that. A damn good game with a packed Western Terrace.
The only unhappy spectator? Stu's Mrs, who was sporadically spotted napping throughout the day. To be fair, she was probably promised some St. Lucian heroics, but it was at least nice for us to win a game without him doing everything.