Milford’s Weekend Double Over Whixley

It was our first league double header of the season, when both teams play the same opposing club home and away. The first team were playing hosts to Whixley while the 2nds made the trek north up the A1 to play at their home ground. Whixley have been a team the firsts have never had much success against and with the team missing a bit in the middle order with skipper Paul Hebden and Rob Perigrine unavailable, expectations were on the low side. Billy Thompson and Steve Hall were in for the missing men and Loz White was back this week. So on paper the bowling was strong and so was the top order batting but if they didn’t manage to score we might struggle.

Elmer Gee was captain for the second time this season, his first home game, and once again managed to get a full team to the right place at the right time. He also had teas sorted, the Thompson’s volunteering, and won the toss.

For the second week running the weather was been kind, sunny & dry, not quite as warm as last Saturday at Leos but still mustn’t grumble. Elmer decided to put Whixley in as the wicket would only get better as the game progressed the sun drying out any of the mid-week rain. He also mixed up the opening bowling attack bringing veteran John Cain on straight away at the football ground end to partner Loz. Whixley had decided to start their batting with the combination of youth and experience, 14 year old James Webster with the evergreen Pat Greenwood.

If I had a £ for every run Pat had scored over the years against us I could probably have bought a very nice 10 year old low mileage Ford Fiesta with one previous careful lady owner and when he was dropped on his third ball with the score on 2 by Steve Winspear at mid wicket it looked like I might be able to trade up to a VW Polo.

Despite the drop Whixley found it hard going early on, the 1st ten overs only seeing only 27 runs on the score board. Young James had a lot of problems getting wily old Cain away. John was producing a real peach of bowling spell at the far end. With perfect line and length neither opener was able to score consistently. The odd ball just bouncing enough to discourage the batsmen to attack. It was this extra bounce which accounted for Webster when he popped an easy catch up to Dan White.

John bowled his 12 over allocation straight through finishing with excellent figures of only 19 runs conceeded and one wicket. Loz almost matched John in his opening 9 over spell, just his last over taking a bit of a hammering when Pat Greenwood started to show the range of shots we were more familiar with from him with 3 boundaries in 3 balls. Pat was joined in the middle by Whixley's Australian Rhys Elmi and the scoring rate started to increase.

The pair had pushed the score onto 52 when Steve Winspear had Pat trapped in front of his wickets when on 44. Steve seemed especially pleased to have made up for his error earlier in the innings.

Whixley skipper for the day, Stuart Whitham, was next in and did not trouble the scorers but his replacement, wicket keeper John Richardson, combined with Elmi to produce Whixley's best partnership of the day with 78 runs. Together they started to bring Whixley back into the match and by the 33rd over it looked like they might push the total to over 200.

Milford really needed to break this partnership and Elmer turned to spinner Sam Thomas. Sam has been really impressive this season but I think he would agree with me that today he just wasn't firing on all cylinders. The line, length and flight that he had found in previous weeks seemed to desert him, only the occasional delivery been in that class. Fortunately Sam produced one of those for Stuart Morley behind the stumps to catch Richardson out of his ground for a very sharp stumping.

This was just the break we needed and Elmi quickly followed Richardson back to the pavilion when skipper Gee himself bowled him. The Whixley tail though proved stubborn refusing to collapse and batted the full 45 overs. They never really produced fireworks but managed to push the score up to 173. Elmer finishing the best of the Milford bowlers with 3 for 32, including a couple of his favourite rabbits.

As mentioned earlier today's teas had been provided by Billy Thompson and his wife. An excellent spread it was too, a grand selection of open sandwiches with pizza and other savouries to fill the tables. 7.5 / 10 from the scorer, only the lack of home baked sweet stuff stopped it been rated any higher. Yes I know I’m getting fussy in my old age....

On only two occasions this season has the Milford batting line up scored more than 170 so it was no certainty that we would knock these off. The top order really needed to take a big bite out of this target for us to stand any chance. Stuart Morley found himself opening with Peter Batty when no other volunteers stepped forward. Bit hard on Stuart after wicket keeping for 45 without conceding a single bye but at least it stopped him from stiffening up.

The innings needed a good foundation on which to build from and this is just what Pete & Stuart did. They put on 71 for the 1st wicket inside 18 overs then they both fell for 28. Peter the first to depart bowled by James Smith, then Stuart was judged LBW to Smith in the bowlers next over. Amazing both batsmen had almost identical strike rates having faced but one ball different in their respective innings. Joint snails awarded.

It was up to Martin Bramley and Dan White to continue the good work. This they did with Martin taking the lead. Slowly Dan started to look more confident and four and six seemed to signal that he was going to start a charge to the finishing line. Alas the six was his last scoring shot when he was caught by James Webster. At first it appeared he had juggled it and dropped it but he just managed to get his fingers under the ball before it hit the ground. An almost impossible decision for the umpire to give but credit to Dan he accepted the word of Webster that he had not grounded the ball.

Though only 50 runs shy of the total when Dan departed those in the know realised it was important that Martin stayed put. He was now the key to our victory. Always confident to play his natural attacking game Martin reached his 4th half century of the season off 58 balls. The most trouble Martin seemed to be in during his innings was when he got a ball full on his already damaged big toe. After a couple of minutes of hopping around the square and the muttering of 'Freddie Truman !!!!' under his breath a few times he was fit to continue. Together with Steve Winspear he pushed Milford closer and closer to the target.

Just when it seemed that the game was won Steve edged one to Whixley keeper Richardson. Eighteen runs needed, surely we couldn't loose this from here. Martin then hit two sixes to calm the nerves in the score hut and a cheeky late flick through the vacant first slip area by Steve Hall, for a boundary, saw us cross the winning line. A six point win against Whixley, something of a collectors item.

For Sale. Ford Fiesta 1.1 GL, 2002, Beige, Low mileage, one careful lady owner. Contact the score hut, Swan Croft SMCC. First come will buy.