Can I Play You Every Week ?

Steve Winspear was the architect of our crushing victory against local rivals Hillam in our first half of the season match and once again he found the magic touch to tear through the Hillam batting. They must be sick of the sight of him.

Hillam came to the Swan Croft looking for revenge but since our first game against them a number of their usual 1st team players were no longer playing and as a result it was a slightly different looking team to the one we dominated earlier in the season. Milford were almost at full strength, the only changes been Will Hodgkiss coming in to replace Billy Thompson and the return of Matty Paul from his jolly holidays, compared to the team that earned a winning draw away last week at Old Leos.

The weather was warm & sunny but the ground was a little damp from rain in the week. The covers had done their job but it was still anyone’s guess how the track would play. Milford skipper Paul Hebden once again lost the toss (surprise, surprise) and was asked to bat which was what he was going to do if he had been lucky.

Milford opened the batting with Stuart Morley and Peter Batty but it was slow going. Former Milford junior, Michael Jarvis, been the main threat. He certainly looks fully recovered from his early season injury which saw him miss our first game. He claimed the wicket of Stuart and the following ball claimed the prize scalp of Dan White. Dan played a very loose shot and got an edge to Hillam skipper Aiden Jonson behind the stumps.

Hillam certainly had their tails up and things went from bad to worse when Pete Batty ran himself out shortly afterwards. Forgetting the old mantra of never run on a mis-field he found himself stranded in the middle of the wicket when he slipped trying to turn to get back in at the non-strikers end. Silly boy.

Milford now 16 for 3 and runs looked to be rarer than rocking horse droppings. Alex Ward and Ben White were now forced to try and rebuild the innings. Alex found it particularly difficult to pierce the Hillam fielding net but stoutly defended. In fact it could be an award winning innings come the end of the season as it put him in pole position for the Escargot Award. Alex manged just 2 runs off 34 balls giving him a strike rate of just 5.9. That puts him well ahead of usual snail candidate Stuart Morley. Stu had looked a shoe in for the award with his 4 off 42 away at Sicklinghall earlier in the season but Alex’s innings made him look positively spritely.

Though Alex’s innings was steady it did provide a breather to the collapse we were suffering and it saw off Jarvis from the attack as he had bowled the 7 overs he was allowed. Ben White slowly started to find his form and soon started to hit boundaries. Even the loss of Alex didn’t put him off, together with Will Hodgkiss and then Matty Paul he brought the Milford innings back to something much more respectable.

He was finally out for 63 becoming Martin Pugh’s second catch of the day. The spark Ben had ignited in the Milford batting was carried on by Matty Paul and then skipper Paul Hebden. These useful lower order runs pushed us over 150 and when Paul finally holed out to end our innings we stood at 162. Something that never looked likely when we were 26-4 about an hour earlier.

Though Matty Paul had made a major contribution to the batting recovery arguably his best performance of the day was his teas. An excellent selection was offered and all made by Matty. No help from his Mum as he was Macaulay Culkin this week, Home Alone. Matty had even managed to make home baked cake ! It was excellent. This certainly set the standard for all our other young single gentlemen in the team. Though his choice of butter for some of his sandwich fillings was a bit weird.

Normally a target of 162 wouldn’t be enough at Milford but as Hillam were a bit understrength then it was difficult to say who were favourites. Robin Bispham and Richard Milne opened the batting for Hillam and made a cautious start. The run rate was not really a problem as Hillam also had an extra over in which to reach the target and 4 and over shouldn’t be a problem at the Swan Croft.

Hillam’s big problem was Steve Winspear, once again he ripped through their batting line up. Having picked up 8 wickets in the first league match between the two teams he added a further 6 in another devastating spell. Together with Dan White at the pavilion end they reduced Hillam from 20 without loss to 32 for 7. It was only when Michael Jarvis and Dave Venables came together for the 8th wicket that the batting showed any resistance. Together they put on 38 runs to make Milford feel a bit nervous. Thoughts went back to last season when Hillam beat us with an unbeaten last wicket partnership of 61 which included Michael Jarvis.

Fortunately they couldn’t manage the same trick this year as Dave Venables holed out to Ben White when Liam Barlow was brought on to replace Dan. Jarvis also perished when he was caught at cow corner by Paul Hebden. A brilliant catch as the ball rocketed up high into the blue sky. Paul had time to boil and egg, read the paper and finish his crossword before it came back down but he made no mistake. Even looking into the sun didn’t seem to affect him, and no he didn’t have his eyes closed.

Jarvis’s dismissal saw the end to Hillam’s resistance and Steve Winspear collected his 6th victim when he bowled Will Vaks to close out the match. A lovely delivery which just clipped the off side bail sending it shooting towards the pavilion. Hillam all out for 82 inside.

Sadly for Steve this will be the last time we play Hillam this season so he will have to be content with ripping through other clubs batting line ups as he heads to getting 50+ wickets in a season.