Cowley CC v Dowdeswell & Foxcote CC Thursday 20th June 2013

Winning the toss Rich elected to bat as a couple of Cowley players were tardy in getting to the ground in upper Dowdeswell (sorry Rich). The forcasted rain had not materialised and the evening was very pleasant.
It went downhill from there for Cowley and we proceeded to make a right pigs ear of posting a total.

Lots of batsmen made promising starts on a slow, low pitch (which we should be used to really) but no one went on to put together a decent partnership. Conrad was first to fall for a lively 8, followed by Sam for 5 and then debutant Will Cook (no relation to Alistair I'm guessing, although his 2 boundaries were certainly classy), for 8; all falling to simple catches from mistimed shots. Dave was judged to be Leg Before for 8 and Cowley were in the mire already. Tom showed how much he has improved already with a clean six before also being caught. James and debutant Adam L threatened to put a partnership together but it was cut short as Adam was bowled for 3. Eric came and went quickly sending a return catch to the bowler while on 1. Adrian joined James to attempt a rearguard action and bat out some overs. James had other ideas however and ran down the wicket to a spinner once too often to be stumped for a useful 12. Adrian was bowled off his pads but reprived by DRS when all agreed it should hav been a no-ball for bouncing too many times (I bet Dave was wishing he could have had a review...). He and Jon took the game into the penultimate over, with Jon being the main aggressor before Adrian was bowled by a peach of an inswinger - no repreive this time. Rich joined Jon and still well shy of 3 figures Jon was last man out with 2 balls still to go for a top-scoring 17. Cowley were all out in 19.4 overs for a miserable 83. A very sorry state of affairs.

No rain to rescue us it was down to the bowlers to attempt to dig us out of a big hole. Their opening batsmen however oozed quality and took James and Sam to the cleaners in the first 4 overs. Eric coming on first change up the hill was to add a wicket to his earlier run thanks to an excellent catch above his head by Tom. Adam bowled a couple of economical overs for no reward. James held on to catches from the bowling of Conrad and then Tom to give us some cheer but the game was up. We spent as much time looking for the ball in the ditches/hedges/grass as we did bowling. Conrad bowled a tidy over before Jon came on and took a catch from his own bowling (the best figures for Cowley to go with his runs) to take the game past the halfway mark. Will was behind the stumps so Rich threw the ball to Adrian who managed to help Dowdeswell wrap up the innings quickly with a wide and then a six to finish with laughable figures of 0.1-0-7-0 (economy rate of 42).

So it had taken Dowdeswell only 10.1 overs to knock off the runs and it was early to the pub for a beer and a curry so Jon could talk us through Daves LBW. Well played our 2 debutants and back to the drawing board for the rest of us...