Three on the Bounce Keep Milford Up

The last match of the season saw Milford’s first team take the short trip over the railway line to play local rivals Hillam. A win would see 2nd division survival guaranteed.

Ironically after such a rain effected season the last match was played in near perfect conditions. Pleasantly warm with a light westerly wind and not a cloud in the sky. The Hillam ground looked a picture and a credit to their ground staff. My first visit to their new pavilion, its very big and impressive but faces the wrong way, the sun warming up the rear of it for most of the day. Also there are no scoring facilities so I got plonked by the front door under the porch.

Milford skipper, Jonathan Mills, got back to winning ways with the toss and revealed his cunning plan. Rather than bowl with a shiny new ball, as we normally do, we opened the innings with an old ball. The idea that it might allow our bowlers more control and able them to generate a bit of swing.

Steve Winspear and Loz White opened the bowling, Steve’s usual partner Andrew Clark unable to play this week as he had spent the bye week breaking a toe playing football. That proved to be a lucky break for Milford for Loz bowled the best spell of opening bowling by a Milford bowler for many years.

Bowling from the old pavilion end he was immediately in the groove, a great line and length plus a little swing making him almost unplayable. Perhaps the ploy of using the old ball helped, maybe the Hillam wicket wasn’t as good a batting track as it appeared, whatever, nothing can take away the fact that Loz’s bowling was nothing short of superb.

After an opening maiden over Loz had Hillam’s opening batsmen Martin Pugh caught at first slip by son Dan. An excellent reflex catch finally clung onto after a couple of initial juggles. The dismissal the perfect example of the bowlers art, well pitched up just moving away late to take the edge.

Loz continued to tie his end down but Steve at the other end began to struggle, his fourth over costing 17 runs. Skipper Mills quickly reacted and brought on Adam ‘Elmer’ Gee but his first over was far from ideal with 9 runs coming off it. Hillams little revival was put on hold when Loz claimed his second wicket by bowling wicket keeper Luke Frankland. He then went on to finish off his first spell with a third wicket. In nine overs Loz had dismissed the top three Hillam batsmen, bowled 4 maidens and conceded just 10 runs. Adam at the other end was by now getting very worried seeing his hold on the 1st team bowling trophy slipping away.

The Hillam batting started to fight back and Rob Edward and Dave Garfitt put on 25 runs for the 4th wicket. Eventually Elmer’s usually accurate radar zoned in and with the benefit of some uneven bounce began to tighten the screw. He finally joined Loz in the wickets column by bowling Garfitt and trapping Hillam captain Will Vaks LBW.

The match was finely poised with the dangerous Rob Edwards still at the crease and looking more and more comfortable. It was then the other member of the White family made his significant match winning contribution. Edwards pushed a single and turned to take a second to get back the strike, Dan running in from mid wicket picked up a threw in one motion to Billy Thompson at the stumps. Billy quickly took off the bails to leave Edwards stranded. Top fielding and a big wicket as Rob hadn’t until then looked in any trouble.

The score now stood at 78-6 and it seemed all the Milford players were well up for it, none more so than stumper Paul Hebden. He was convinced he had taken a brilliant stumping off veteran John Cain’s bowling only to look over to the square leg umpire after getting half way down the wickets in his celebration dance to see him shaking his head. The situation was made worse by the fact we had only one league umpire to officiate today so Hillam’s John Tucker was doing his spell at square leg at the time. Differing opinions about the decision were exchanged and finally both parties were persuaded to return to their corners. The match was turning spicy !!!!!

Paul soon got his revenge when he caught Jez Petty shortly after, that wicket the first of the last four for Hillam. The home team only managed to add a further 17 runs to their total as the old pairing of Gee and Cain finished off the tail in pretty short order. A much relieved Adam finishing the innings with another 4 wickets in the bag for just 31 runs which insured he had retained the 1st team bowling award for another year.

So Hillam were dismissed for just 95 with 11 overs remaining. If the Hillam batting had been a disappointment their teas certainly were not. Not often you get two teas for the price of one, not only had they laid on the traditional cold selection but 8 large Dominos pizzas were delivered. So a slightly extended tea interval was taken to enjoy this feast. The pizzas were great and the open sandwiches huge, the ham & tomato with a little dash of ploughman’s pickle my personal favourite.

Peter Batty and Milford skipper Jonathan Mills stepped out to open the batting for Milford, the weather still lovely though some high thin cloud was just starting to drift over from the west. It’s always difficult to decide how you bat when faced with knocking off a relatively small total. Do you go for glory and try to finish it quickly or play it safe and just close out the game with the odd single.

Maybe Jonathan was unsure how to proceed or the mental effort of captaining the team in the field had taken its toll but he was back in the changing room after just 2 balls. Umpire Dave Morley given little choice but to adjudge him LBW when he was struck on the pad straight in front with hardly any foot movement to suggest any other possible decision. A disappointing end to what has been Jonathan’s best season with the bat, his early season form though has made sure he will be the winner of the Chilton award this year.

Dan White came in at number three and together with Pete calmly set about extinguishing all hopes of a surprise Hillam victory. Slowly they pushed the score towards the total as Will Vaks, the home skipper, vainly tried all his bowling options. It wasn’t till he called on John Tucker from the pavilion end that he appeared to have any chance of taking a wicket. Tucker is a very strange bowler, a slow right armer who appears so easy to hit but who’s nagging line & length lures the batsmen into giving their wicket away. Patience is required and initially it looked like Dan & Pete had resisted the temptation, alas just before the pair had extended their partnership to 50 Dan resolve broke and he tried the big shot. His attempted sweep getting nowhere near the ball to leave him bowled out for 25.

Greg Handley was next in and made a very cautious start, he may have been warned by Mrs Handley not to hit their house with the ball !!!! Together with Pete he played safe only hitting the loose ball. In fact the Milford batsmen gave up taking runs of Tuckers bowling preferring the easier offerings at the other end. Tucker bowled 6 consecutive maidens. Milfords steady progress was helped by the keeper conceding 12 byes in this critical period.

Just when it looked we had the match won Pete Batty was stumped for a best of the day 28. A fantastic patient innings which all but saw us home. A little wobble saw Greg go soon after but Billy Thompson & Paul Hebden saw us home without further drama.

As it turned out Thorner, our relegation rivals, were beaten so we could have survived even if we lost but it was great to finish on such a good performance. Thanks to all for putting up with my increasingly meandering match reports and food reviews and lets look forward to next year.... it's only 7 months away.