Carter the Unconquerable Nullifies Thursley!

As the commonly quoted phrase goes 'History repeats itself' and anyone who watches the Twoo's this year will be no doubt agree. Yet again, the Twoo's had a full squad of players, they were playing away in incredibly sunny weather and (quite fortuitously) they won the toss and decided to bowl.

Quite simply the toss was taken and the Twoo's got to it! Stephen Houghton was captain and he meant business. Thursley also took the no nonsense approach and fielded a very strong side for the encounter. Mitch 'Golden' Brown and James Merryweather opened the bowling. Admittedly, the first few overs were very leaky but their hard work paid off and James (4 - 0- 26- 2) got the first two wickets in quick succession. The first one was bowled and the batsman left it only for it swing in and knock the bails off. Scott superbly caught the next in the slips. Mitch was not far behind bowling L. Smallbone for 10.

Thursley were 52 for 3 off 10 overs when D. Holt and Russell Benjamin came to the crease. They scored runs incredibly quickly, taking advantage of anything slightly outside the line. The runs began to soon pile up and when the partnership ended (by D. Holt offered a catch to Mitch Brown taking off the bowling Leo-Jak Carter) Thursley were sitting pretty at 164 for 4 off 28 overs.

The bowling partnership of Leo-Jak 'Legend' Carter (5 - 0 - 30 - 2) and Matty 'Cheers Leo mate, you're my best pal you are, top bloke, oh, what's that, you dropped one off my bowling and then added another four runs to whatever they ran, terrific' James (4 - 0 - 31 - 2) soon made dividends and three more batsmen were sent packing to the pavilion. Rus Benjamin fell for 65, K Wells was caught by Scott off Leo for 12 and A. Wells was magnificently caught by Leo (that man again!) off Matt James. However the brilliance of Leo's catch was equally reflected by his drop not long afterwards. Admittedly, though, he can hold his head high, of sorts, in that the throw that immediately proceeded the drop was so fast that it missed the stumps, bisected the field and went for four. You don't want to take that arm on!

Despite the flurry of late wickets, the scoring rate always remained high and Thursley declared at 261 for 8 off 42 overs.

The Twoo's went into bat with mind to reach the incredibly high target set by Thursley. The second shot of both Mitch and James was a six. However, the impetus was short-lived and Mitch lost his wicket early to the fast bowling of A Meears. James 'Mind the Windows' Merryweather, on the other hand, was not to be downcast and scored his 29 at a good pace. There were two very memorable shots in quick succession. The first one, he clipped his pad with his bat against the bowling of Benjamin, this was followed by some objectionable histrionics from some veterans of the game. When play resumed after a call to prayer, James responded by taking advantage of some erratic bowling to smash a six into the pavilion, breaking a window frame.

From then on, the Twoo's repeatedly lost their wickets. The only real defence came from Bernie 'Bolt' Bridger and Steve 'again, totally unrelated to the scorer of the greatest goal in World Cup 94, Ray' Houghton. They stuck around for 12 overs and looked quite comfortable against a very closely packed Thursley field. However, Bernie departed edging up in the air and was closely followed by Matty James, which brought to the crease the one, the only, Leo-Jak 'Jimmy' Carter.

The light was fading, the field was right up close (one fielder's foot was inches from being on the wicket) and the bowling was becoming more and more venomous. Nevertheless Leo showed great application and never gave Thursley a chance. They stayed at the crease for 12 overs and rightfully earned Wrecclesham two points when play finally finished at 8.30pm in the evening.

by the Ginger Owl