AWCC v CCC

Ashton Wold CC vs CAMRA cc
Sunday 19th May 2012
The first home game of the season was finally upon us and as always we were happy to welcome CAMRA to our home ground. It could have been argued it was too soon for cricket as players arrived in coats and various winter garments to be greeted by Ashton cutting the wicket and the square leaving what can only be described as a soggy unpredictable wicket (in true Ashton style.)
Ashton won the toss and put CAMRA into bat, good captaincy from Awdry.
The game went underway with J.Wood and D.Heath as the opening bowling partnership, CAMRAs opening bats seemed to be managing the tricky conditions until Dan Blatch snaffled one in a nonchalant fashion at cover off woods bowling. Blatch now finding cover the appropriate place to position himself as an alleged fielder of the year. Wood went on to take another wicket as Heath offered no breakthrough. It was then time for the long awaited return of N.Barnes and his extreme yet tempting pace deliveries, Barney proved to be straight on the spot and along with Sugar’s bowling the new partnership showed the previous pairing how to do it, bowling tight lines and picking up a couple of wickets. Captain Awdry then finally gave into the temptation that proves too much for most captains and brought on the golden arm of J.Allen, mucky poop gets wickets and this happened. After a period the batsmen adjusted to Allen’s flight bowling so Sugar returned to the crease. A couple of wickets led Ashton to face the batting partnership of Bradbury and White, one member seeming to possess the entire cricketing prowess the other lacked. Bradbury in usual fashion batted quickly, scoring numerous boundaries which led to the introduction of Blatch to the bowling line up, this was partnered with the return of Heath to finish his spell. Blatch bowled tight lines accompanied by a much improved second spell from Heath to slow the run rate of CAMRA and restrict them to 146 with Bradbury reaching his 50 with a six from the final ball of the innings, charitably bowled by Heath.
Teas were taken and Allen demonstrated yet another string to his bow with fine salmon sarnies.
As the game resumed Ashton unleashed the somewhat unlikely opening pairing of Blatch and Lucas to the middle, facing the CAMRA tried and tested opening pairing of Jex and White. Jex was on the spot and accurate as always probing away and eventually taking the wickets of both Blatch and Lucas after they had provided us with a slow but respectable start. G.Palmer then took to the middle and was accompanied shortly after by his son S.Palmer. Gerald displayed some interesting but effective shots which partnered with forceful batting from his son led them to a 50 partnership before the fall of Gerald’s wicket. Buckley having successfully avoided the pace bowling then came to the crease, and scored eloquently alongside S.Palmer who was quickly approaching the 50 landmark for himself. Shortly after Palmer reached his 50 the wicket of Buckley fell, fortunately for Ashton the game was nearly won. Despite a brief and erratic innings from Heath and an interesting innings from Awdry suggesting perhaps wicket keeping isn’t the worst part of his game Palmer stayed firm and guided Ashton to another victory.
Good game played in good spirit.



Many apolagies for the lateness im a stupid fat head
DH