The 4s have once again learnt the hard way that catches do win matches and with only 3 points collected we once again sit alone at the bottom of the league!
The return of captain Jimmy meant the return to losing the toss and being asked to bat first again!
Things started badly when Cunners (0) went first ball. Mallet joined Steve Colmer in the middle and these 2 did well for several overs before Steve (7) joined Cunners back in the pavilion at about 20-2. Mike Hope came in next and these 2 did a decent job of occupying the crease in tricky conditions. Both Civil opening bowlers were getting movement off the pitch. Eventually Mike Hope (12) lost his off stump and Ben Singlehurst came in. A change in bowling didn't change our luck and Ben Singlehurst was also bowled. 40-4. Jimmy came into join Mallet, who is fast becoming the 4th teams batting crab, but at 49 Matt (16) was run out. Enter last weeks high scorer Barney who very steadily played himself in before helping Jimmy try and pick up the run rate. These 2 got to 85 before Jimmy (28) was out. Rhys (6), Gus (4) and Fahad (1*) all assisted Barney in getting the score up to 132-8. Barney finishing on 47* with a mix of good fortune and some very, very good shots. One point to work on, especially for the top order batsmen - although the oppo did bowl well, they did also bowl 1 or 2 loose deliveries an over. We did not capitalise on these. Whilst it is important not to give wickets away (and we do always talk about batting 46 overs) the main aim is to score runs and we missed out on a few on Saturday when the opportunities were there.
Civil who only started with 10, lost a player in the field so only had 9 to bat with so hopes were high at tea. Sadly hopes were probably too high and we all thought that we were going to get a few quick wickets and that would be that. NO - although we had more than our fair share of chances we simply did not work hard enough in the field and the two openers raced along to 80. They did ride their luck on several occassions but when the opportunities came we were not good enough. Had we taken 1 or 2 of the 10 or so chances we had it would have been a very different story. Eventually Ben Singlehurst got the breakthrough, caught at point - although the catch was taken by their sub fielder!! Let's try and rely on ourselves to take the catches in the future please!!! This was probably all a little too late to change anything, although Jimmy and Joe did take a wicket a piece before Civil made it past the winning post with 7 wickets (in theory) left.
It was a very disappointing way to lose but hopefully we will learn to play hard, compete and concentrate right until the final ball. Torquay away next week so we can expect an even tougher game up there, we certainly will need to take our chances there if we want to get anything out of the game! Losing is becoming very boring guys, lets sort it out!!
http://www.plymouthcricketclub.com/article.php/20120527093214118