Report by Ollie Rabley
The 3s headed down to Winchester to take on Easton 3s in a confident mood, buoyed with a strong team following availability which gave captain Jeff a few welcome headaches in selection. It was a lineup that batted deep and had a variety of bowling options (those options being bowl full and straight or bowl wicket taking half-trackers).
Oaks Bowl First
Jeff’s reign as skipper got off to an excellent start, with a win of the toss. A damp and grassy wicket meant that bowling first was the only call to make. Ollie and Noah were first up to try and prove the confidence in the lineup was justified. Noah took a while to find his range (and in some cases actually find the pitch), and Ollie demonstrated that he has not lost the ability to bowl five decent balls in an over, combined with one ball of absolute dross. Finally getting his game face on, Noah chipped in with three quick wickets, which slowed Easton’s scoring after they had made a decent start.
Jeff turned to the spin twins of Ravi and Kalum to try and apply the screw in the middle of the innings. A wicket for Kalum off his second ball gave Oaks a fleeting glimpse of running quickly through the rest of Easton’s batters. Ravi followed that up with a wicket of his own. Not bad for someone who has not trained at all since the end of last season. Some may say that practice is overrated. I’m not going to be that provocative as the first team skipper may read this.
A stubborn 50 run seventh wicket stand took Easton towards a defendable total. But before the innings was done, there was time for Noah to come back and nick a couple more wickets to give him a well deserved fivefer. It was also great to see Ryan given the chance to turn his arm over and pick up a wicket.
The Chase
155 to win; a deep batting line up; a pitch that was improving to bat on…. No problem for the Oaks to knock those runs off. Unfortunately it didn’t work out quite to plan but, (spoiler alert) the Oaks came good in the end.
Jeff got a worm burner in the first over (if I may be so bold Skip, it might be worth thinking twice before playing back on a wicket like that!), but Dan and Kris set about creating a platform, mostly through Dan finding the boundary with regularity. Dan got done by a proper cricket wicket, with his stylish forward defensive shot no match for a a moving ball. Ben was unfortunate to get a dodgy lbw decision from the umpire, although the umpire (me) is prepared to stand by the call that was made. Kalum tried his best on a slow wicket, but a series of edges finally ended up with the ball rolling back on to his stumps.
Rolling Back the Decades
The brought 71 years young Steve Savage to the crease. He showed the benefit of having a bit of experience, as in a panic free way he set about building his innings. Kris appeared to be nicely set at the other end, and a decent partnership followed. The highlight for many was the three that they ran, after Steve chose to drive the ball to the longest boundary he could find. Steve did then draw on some of his experience to figure out that hitting the ball to the shorter boundary is much more profitable and less tiring.
Kris fell with Oaks still less than halfway to the target. Would that long batting lineup be required? Noah took it upon himself, with Steve, to make sure it wasn’t the case. More sensible batting followed as this young and old combination took Oaks to within sight of victory. Steve rolled back the years to get to 50, which his teammates disappointingly didn’t realise had happened. This may be the first and only time when a batter gets a round of applause when he got to 51.
Noah wasn’t able to stick around right until the end, but that gave Adam the chance to join Steve at the crease and be there when the winning runs were struck.
So all in all a good start to the season for the 3s. Great for Noah to get a fivefer, but he’ll need to start doing that sort of thing at Oakley Park or Newfound to get on the honours board. And there really are no words to describe what Steve is still able to do. He did all that after keeping wicket!!