I hate cricket

I hate cricket.
Playing bottom of the league Cosby, hopes were high for a good result.
Karl won the toss and invited Cosby to bat first on a wicket that looked very worn and very dry. Muggle opened up for the niffy, and looked a little tentative with his bowling action. Nick at the other end was his usual self, nippying the ball both ways on tight lines. The 1st wicket came during an indifferent Muggle over, when he bowled 4 balls down legside to their left handed opener Measures, before bowling the sucker straight ball and winning an LBW decision.
The 2nd wicket didn’t take long to come either, when the other opener, Meredith, looped a catch to Smig in the covers off Nick. Chris Pople then started to rebuild the innings, mainly by farming the strike consistently running singles off the 6th ball. Nick struck again taking out his partner who was obviously shocked to get on strike, another LBW. 64-3 at drinks soon became 64-4 when Karl deceived Chris Pople into playing around a straight one for another LBW, bringing another former Niffy player to the crease in the form of S Wagstaffe.
Wagstaffe and Holloway then put together a very useful partnership of 58 before Karl bowled Wagstaffe, 122-5. Wickets then came thick and fast. Gibbo bowled Baker, whilst down the other end Rich bowled Holloway, who had made a good 53, following that up 2 balls later by bowling Symonds as well.
Gibbo then had the man with no name caught by Degs at midwicket, with Rich finishing off the innings in the final over by trapping Gray LBW.

The reply started in positive fashion. Tom smashed his first ball for 4, and the partnership with Degs put on 38 quick runs, before Tom was LBW trying to paddle sweep Hurst. Smigs then went first ball, also LBW to Hurst, and then the scoring dried up.
Lack of confidence, nerves….? Whatever it was, the next 15-20 overs didn’t yield many runs. And after both Degs and Jono went caught and bowled in their mid-twenties, there was a job on to push for the win. Will came and went for 7, and then the skipper changed the batting order to put the big hitting Nick and Dan in. This worked wonderfully, with a couple of big sixes from Nick in a quickfire 26 dragging us back into a winning position. Dan was bowled by Measures, as was Nick leaving Rich with the tail to see them home. Or not. Rich chipped a full toss to midwicket, Karl was LBW to Measures and Gibbo bowled around his legs in the final over to hand Coby their first win of the season.
Credit to Cosby for fighting back to get the win, but the Niffy need to look at themselves, as this was a game that we should have won inside 30 overs.

Oh well, move on to next week, knowing that we have to put in the performance that we know we are capable of soon.