| Match Report |
Report by Peter Bainbridge
On a surprisingly warm and sunny afternoon considering the forecast, a Brentwood side containing four under-14s put up a game effort against a vastly more experienced Brookweald team in a 45-over-a-side match.
The reason for the diverse ages of the respective teams caused much debate. Just why is Brentwood seemingly so short of 'mature' gentlemen prepared to spend their Saturday afternoons chasing a cricket ball, whereas Brookweald are so well endowed?
Surely, if the public only knew that the back pitch boasted newly purchased boundary ropes and sightscreens of brilliant white, they would be flooding through the doors. Maybe that should be the club's catchy new advertising slogan. Come and join Brentwood: we have new ropes and very white sightscreens.
The rope was lovingly laid out by the eager home team who had been summoned by absent skipper Merwyn Emmanuel for an early meet-up (a message that Sam Dawes must not have got) and the sightscreens sparkled in the April sunshine following the five-month refurbishment programme undertaken so conscientiously by Kevin Brailey and Ken Hobbs.
Captain for the day Peter Bainbridge won the toss and elected to bowl on a green track which threatened lavish seam movement for those prepared/able to pitch the ball up. Not all the bowlers followed the advice and Brookweald made a storming start, pulling merrily to the boundary and reaching 100 for one by the 20th over. There had been an early wicket for Tijo Thomas, a catch popped up to square leg and plucked inches from the turf by Mick Payne, diving forward in the slow, graceful way those giant chimneys used to be toppled by Fred Dibnah.
Payne the bowler had surprisingly come in for some tap from the disrespectful batsmen and was about to be whipped out of the attack when he stretched out a long arm and took a fierce return catch with consummate ease. He then returned to his miserly best. George Bull, playing his first adult match, bowled superbly, following the brief of 'letting the ball do the work' and regularly causing problems. His reward came with a swinging full toss that earned an lbw and brought figures of 5-0-22-1. Jack Payne produced considerable turn with his off-spin and grabbed two wickets, which would have been three if he could have held a return catch - the ball ricocheted off his wrist onto the stumps, running out the non-striker. Luke Brailey bowled some tidy, loopy leg-spin amid the late charge for runs, and then Jack Payne returned and took two more wickets in the final over, finishing with impressive figures of 7-0-31-4.
Brookweald's total was well above par considering the conditions and it would need a monumental effort from the Brentwood batsmen to make a game of it.
After a pleasant interval (Come and join Brentwood: we have really powerful hand dryers in the toilets), hopes lay mainly with James Coleman and Dawes, relative old men in the team and armed with a fierce battery of shots. Brentwood made a sedate start against some tight bowling. Bull went early, Kevin Brailey and Coleman nudged and nurdled. Brailey, blinded by the sunlight reflecting off his sightscreens, nudged the ball on to his stumps. Jack Payne missed a straight ball. Brentwood were not looking too healthy. But Dawes and Coleman were now together. Play yourself in, Sam. Second ball cleared the square-leg boundary, two more went whistling to the midwicket rope, then he missed a straight one and was bowled.
Coleman manfully tried to win the game single-handedly, and after he smashed 25 from one over, Brentwood were left needing 140 from the last 20 overs with five wickets in hand.
Unfortunately, good catches saw the end of Luke Brailey and Ed Abbott and when Coleman was ninth man out for a tremendous 107, last hope had gone.
Perhaps it was a good thing that the game had been lost so decisively anyway - the U14s, in their youthful, minimal-attention-span, do-a-dot-here-and-then-text-my-mate there, kind of way had lost an over somewhere when scoring. It would have been messy if a league game.
Never mind. That's experience for you. The rope was carefully drawn back in for another day. The sightscreens were admired for a last time. The bar was entered, where more work went into the slogan. Maybe the club's problem is that players moving into the area see the glorious ground, watch our imperious first-team, get blown away by the hand dryers, and think they would be unable to match our standards.
Come and join Brentwood: rubbish cricketers are welcome. |