Athlone vs Horningsham

Saturday 30 May 2009

The second visit of Athlone to Horningsham was quite in contrast to the first. 12 months ago deep puddles lay over the outfield, and fielding positions were dictated by the discovery of dry land rather than the coaching manual. This year we played under a cloudless sky and burning sunshine. Last year the most powerful off drive splashed to a halt 10 yards from the bat; this year well timed pushes sped to the cover boundary. At least, they did when Athlone were batting. For the other difference is that this year Athlone came with a full side – made up players from 4 decent Irish teams –and were much too good for us.

In the absence of Angus, Ollie Moore stepped up to captaincy, and immediately looked the part as he lost the toss and we were put in to bat. Curiously neither side wished to bat first.

The Athlone opening attack were excellent, runs were hard to score, and with several of our top order keepng themselves fresh for the TCL game on Sunday, we knew we were going to have to play to the best of our ability to set a defendable total. In fact when we declared at 180 for 8 at tea, we felt we had done rather well.

Paul was first to go, cleaned up by an inswinger that was simply too good. Enter Robert Stern, who began with the modest objective of scratching 5, which he achieved, then hit a beatiful straight four and realised this was his day. Tony Reeves started watchfully and was just opening up when his innings was cut short by a stumping that aspects of his demeanour led to conjecture that he possibly was surprised to be given out to. Ollie went in and by way of demonstrating that he was untroubled by the burdens of captaincy, attempted to be stumped by a yard second ball; this not working, he attempted several times to be caught; that still failing, he bashed a breezy 25 before been cleaned up trying to place a straight ball over long on. Nick Hughes spent just long enough at the crease to punch one of those straight fours that has been the hall mark of his batting in the nets. Your correspondent is unsure what happened during Sam Lock’s innings as it took place while he putting on his pads.

This brought James Oborne to the crease to join Robert. These neighbours held a tactical discussion, both agreeing to do their thing. Robert’s was to get caught behind – bringing to an end an excellent, stabilising innings of at least 31 - while James's was to apply the thick edge of his bat to hit 5 fours and a six (tipped over by mid wickets hands), and this, together with a couple of powerful boundaries by Bobby Chadwick, took us to a total which might have been 168 (as per the the batting scorecard) but somehow was actually 180 for 8. The unclaimed 12 runs will be auctioned to interested batsmen later in the year. Had the opposiiton not dropped 6 catches and missed a straight forward stumping, we might have made less. But we went into tea hot, thirsty and quite content.

We had forgotten that in dry conditions, and without Stuart Hyde bowling for us, we really needed 240. Not that it seemed to matter at first, as Sam bowled superbly, taking out the opening bat third ball, and sending the number 2’s middle stump back ten yards soon after. Sam's match figures of 2 for 28 off 13 were remarkable. At the other end, Ollie was not getting the consistent swing he found against White City but but he was always threatening, and bowled one stunning inswinger to remove the number 4. That, however, was as good as it good for Horningsham, as an unbeaten partnership of 150 took the game relentlessly away from us and in the end we were comprehensively outplayed.

After the match, in the welcoming surroundings of the Bath Arms, Athlone gave us, very generously and unexpectedly, a beautiful Guinness presentation pint glass, which we shall have engraved and perhaps in future years we should play for the Athlone Cup. If so, the current holders, and most deservingly so, are Athlone themselves.

(NB, the scorecard is approximately accurate).
JO