Scorecard

Penn Street Cricket Club PSCC v Interclub Match on Sat 01 May 2021 at 1pm
Penn Street Cricket Club Won Seniors won by 45 runs

Match report “Hurrah! Hooray! The first of May;
It’s the interclub cricket match today”

In truth, it is unlikely that anyone actually woke up and said that on Saturday, but it is fair to say that the game between Penn Street’s players over the age of 40 (a team which, for the sake of brevity and my already bruised fingers, we shall call the Seniors) and those under 40 (the Juniors) generated a certain amount of anticipation.

In PSCC’s own version of ‘blue on blue’ or ‘friendly fire’, the game pitted a Seniors side captained by Ady White against a Juniors one led by Archie White and featuring Ady’s presumptive son-in-law Matt Hewlett to boot.

Even before the game there were some remarkable scenes. Will Clarke emerged from his long hibernation, but without any trousers. Jack Mendy arrived with three pairs of trousers, two of which were not his. And Dave Jones brought a car battery as a part of his kit for the day. Meanwhile, Archie contrived to lose the toss twice, which resulted in the Juniors having to field under what passed for an afternoon sun.

Skipper Whitey the Elder strode out to open the innings with the aforementioned Welsh battery fetishist. Despite having spent the last half hour complaining that his leg hurt in a blatant attempt to deflect sympathy from a girlfriend who was both wearing a knee brace and on crutches, Matt Hewlett opened the bowling. It was a gentle opening over, with Dave helping himself to just the two boundaries.

Then came the moment the crowd had been waiting for. Archie White, last year’s player of the season, from the Wood End, bowling to his dad. The first delivery was an anticlimactic no ball. The second was tonked back over his head for two runs. A single took Ady to the other end for the start of the third over, where he continued the inter-family battle by hitting Matt for four. The everyone else was a mere spectator until Archie finally got his revenge, a mishit slog landing in the waiting hands of Chris Lovewell as Ady departed for 11. It would be 13 overs before another wicket fell.

Alistair Cossins (spelled it right this week – go me!) joined Dave and there then followed a huge and yet contrasting partnership, one all timing and control, the other power and might. The reader can decide which was which. The Juniors shelled two chances that could have turned the tide, one sharp one to Matt Yates (who did at least manage to land on the ground without injuring himself) and a skier to Jamie Fryer that we probably shouldn’t talk about too much.

The partnership broke the heart of the Juniors’ bowling. As one wag on the boundary put it “They must know it’s going badly, even Sam Martin’s gone quiet”. The opening bowlers were seen off, as was the change attack of Jack and Chris, who were forced to resort to tactics such as falling over whilst bowling, or not actually pitching the ball on the cut strip. Neither worked.

Dave retired after a 50 scored at a run a minute and this brought about another one of those contests within the contest that all had been eager to see – Jeremy Knox, the PSCC Kiwi who makes Kane Williamson look like a geography teacher, against James ‘Unabomber’ Sempill. This one wasn’t even as close as the battle between the Whites, as Jeremy took 17 runs off the first six balls he received from James. He went on to double that total before somehow wandering past a delivery from Will and being stumped.

No respite for the Juniors, though, as this just brought in one of the younger Seniors in Dave Adams. He eagerly embraced the Jones role of being absolutely brutal on any wayward deliveries. The Seniors’ score kept mounting and Alistair simply caressed his way to 50 and also retired.

The lesser-spotted Peterjon Williams was next to the crease and played an excellent supporting role, expertly rotating the strike so that Dave could have most of it. His stay ended when Jamie inexplicably held a catch off Jonny Barnett and when Asif chipped the same bowler to the Unabomber five balls later the Juniors probably felt that they were on something of a roll. Or, at least, as much of a roll as you can be when you’ve just reduced the opposition to a mere 210-4 off 29 overs.

This then brought the Club Secretary to the crease. He produced an innings straight out of the coaching manual – if that manual was one for 17th century swordfighting. In amongst all of the wild swishing, poking, prodding and jabbing at the ball he somehow managed to (a) score 24 runs and (b) prevent Dave from getting any of the strike. Once he was finally allowed to take part in the game again Dave showed what the Seniors had been missing for the past five overs by racing to his 50 in the three deliveries he received.

New batsman Richard Spooner wisely decided that this nonsense had to stop. He waited until the Club Secretary hit a half decent shot to Jack at cover, then called for a quick single that resulted in the liability at the other end being run out by half a pitch. This left five balls remaining in the innings, in which Richard and Walter Seymour, resplendent in a red jacket, took the Seniors’ score to 252-5 from their allotted 35 overs.

Tea was all too brief – and in some cases seemed to be entirely liquid – before the two sides were back out again. This time it was Steve Smith and Jamie to face the Seniors’ opening attack of Ilya Joel-Pitcher and Walter.

Steve saw off the first over – even helping himself to a sumptuous cover drive for four – but then things started to go a bit wrong for the Juniors as Jamie, promoted up the order either because of his batting heroics last week or because no-one wanted to risk seeing him eat pasta again, chipped his fourth ball towards mid off. Walter changed direction in his follow-through and leapt up and backwards to snatch the ball one-handed as Dave Adams waited right behind him to pouch the chance in a far more orthodox way.

That wasn’t even the best catch of the game. Brassica replaced brassica as Josh Tollerfield came to the crease, crunched a boundary and then tried to hit Ilya over long on. Asif ran back, sideways, around and somehow held on to a steepling catch whilst doing all of those things.

Enter Matt Yates for his first bat in almost three years. He looked like he hadn’t really been away and Whitey the Elder was forced to introduce his change bowlers, Adams D and Asif. It brought fairly swift rewards as Steve had his off stump removed by Dave and then Matt got himself out in the most unusual of ways. Attempting to cart Asif into the woods, he then yelled ‘Oh no, Goody’s there’, thus alerting the mid on fielder to the fact that there was indeed a small red ball heading straight for his face and he probably ought to catch it.

That left two new-ish batsmen at the crease in the form of James and Sam. Both resisted stoutly against some accurate bowling and some very determined sledging. James even managed an all-run four (Sam may still be recovering from that one). Further bowling changes were needed, this time in the form of Goody the Googly and the Club Secretary.

The changes made little difference as the pair went doggedly on, until the Club Secretary produced three extraordinary balls. Off two of them he dropped caught and bowled chances from James. In between, he temped Sam into holing out to Walter at long off. This left the Juniors at 99-5 and in more than a little trouble.

Ben Marlow came in to try to restore some sanity but swiftly fell when Ady took the third brilliant catch of the evening, diving away to his left at backward square leg (Ady knows where that is, he had a notebook in his pocket to tell him), Jeremy being the bowler. Matt Hewlett took up the attack, pounding a number of boundaries, one of which somewhat dented a pest control van. Again, though, he fell the same way as many others, caught in the bucket hands of Dave Jones as he tried to smash Richard’s bowling into the woods.

All of this time James had been there, making his way calmly to the highest score of the day and a well deserved rest on the boundary. If his 53 runs were not chanceless, he certainly picked the best fielder to give his two chances to.

At this point a change of bowling worked again for the Seniors. Jonny hit Dave Jones’ first ball to short mid-wicket, where the Club Secretary astonished everyone by holding a catch for once. Will, batting with a spare pair of pants in place of a box, fell to the same bowler and the game seemed to be up for the Juniors.

Chris and Archie had different ideas. The former crunched 40 runs off just 21 balls to give the Juniors an outside chance before he missed a straight delivery that also somehow broke a bail. Archie, though, went on to a personal best of 19 not out, en route hitting his poor old dad for 13 of them. Last man Jack failed to lay a bat on the ball but did make Archie run a lot, both of which were funny.

The Juniors’ innings closed on 210-9, giving the Seniors a victory by 42 runs. The match was rounded out with beer drinking and fines.

And if this report appears to be skewed towards to fortunes of one side rather than the other, do remember that history is written by the victors…




Penn Street Cricket Club PSCC Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
5nb 6w 1lb 
for 5 wickets
12
257		        
David Jones Retired Not Out  51 53 35 9 1 145.71 1
Ady White ct C. Lovewell b A. White 11 26 15 2 73.33 1
Alistair Cossins Retired Not Out  51 61 44 10 115.91
Jeremy Knox st S. Martin b W. Clarke 35 27 22 5 1 159.09
David Adams Retired Not Out  50 64 38 7 1 131.58
Peterjon Williams ct J. Fryer b J. Barnett 16 35 23 2 69.57
Asif Teja ct J. Sempill b J. Barnett 3 3 4 75.00 1
Richard O'Hagan run out (J. Mendy) 24 21 21 4 114.29 1
Richard Spooner Not Out  4 6 7 1 57.14
Walter Seymore Not Out  0 4
Ilya Joel-Pitcher   2
Paul Goodchild   1
A.N. Other  
A.N. Other  
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Interclub Match Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
M. Hewlett3.001700.005.67
A. White3.0022122.007.33
J. Mendy5.002700.005.40
C. Lovewell3.003600.0012.00
J. Sempill4.0045145.0011.25
W. Clarke3.0024124.008.00
J. Fryer5.002600.005.20
J. Barnett4.0025212.506.25
B. Marlowe3.001700.005.67
J. Tollerfield2.001400.007.00

Interclub Match Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
6nb 6w 9b 2lb 
for 9 wickets
23
212 (35.0 overs)		     
S. Smith b D. Adams 16 32 31 4 51.61
J. Fryer ct & b W. Seymore 0 6 4 0
J. Tollerfield ct A. Teja b I. Joel-Pitcher 5 11 5 1 100
M. Yates ct P. Goodchild b A. Teja 12 26 17 2 70.59
J. Sempill Retired Not Out  53 82 62 9 85.48
S. Martin ct W. Seymore b R. O'Hagan 18 42 26 3 69.23
B. Marlowe ct A. White b J. Knox 7 15 7 1 100
M. Hewlett ct D. Jones b R. Spooner 16 15 11 2 1 145.45
J. Barnett ct R. O' Hagan b D. Jones 1 10 8 12.50
C. Lovewell b R. O'Hagan 40 24 21 6 190.48
W. Clarke b D. Jones 2 9 10 20.0
A. White Not Out  19 18 10 3 190.0
J. Mendy Not Out  0 7 3 0
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Penn Street Cricket Club PSCC Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Ilya Joel-Pitcher5.0114114.002.80
Walter Seymore5.0034134.006.80
David Adams5.01818.001.60
Asif Teja3.0014114.004.67
Paul Goodchild3.003200.0010.67
Richard O'Hagan4.001326.503.25
Richard Spooner3.0031131.0010.33
Jeremy Knox3.0027127.009.00
David Jones3.011527.505.00
Ady White1.001300.0013.00

  • Umpire :
  • Scorer :
    Cally