Pirates skittled to end unbeaten run

The less said about the Pirates game on Saturday, the better. After starting the season with 3 wins, and fielding a strong side on Saturday, the Pirates crumpled to a humiliating defeat.
The toss was lost and Croydon chose to bat on a good looking pitch (they knew something we didn’t and this would become clear).

The first sign that something was awry with the pitch was the opening batsman marking his guard with the bail and managing to push the long side the whole way into the pitch with his thumb. Upon further inspection, the pitch was a thin crust of pitch sitting on top of what felt like jelly.

The Croydon openers set about demolishing the opening bowling partnership of Lodge and Brickley despite good lines and lengths, knowing that the pitch would deteriorate quickly and they would have to score there runs early.

Wickets fell at regular intervals, but not regular enough as some poor fielding and some equally questionable umpiring saw Croydon eventually bowled out for 179.

The highlight of our time in the field was J.B. and Brickers having a full-blown argument with the umpire.

For those of you that think this is odd for a pair that are two of the more mild mannered and well-behaved (at least on the pitch) gentlemen at the club, consider how you would react when you bowled a ball that went between the batsmen’s pads and the leg-stump and it was promptly given as a leg-side wide, and then it happened again two balls later. The umpire didn’t take to kindly to J.B. explaining very simply to him why he was a complete buffoon who didn’t know the laws of cricket, but somehow J.B. stayed on the pitch despite new punishment laws.

The Pirates looked a dreary lot, trudging off the pitch after approximately 40 overs, particularly having seen what they had to bat on get worse and worse as time went on to the point where a ball that pitched full of a length had taken off and cleared the wicket keeper.

After the best part of the day (teas), Smudge and Rhys went out to bat. Rhys applied himself well despite commenting later that this was the worst pitch he had ever batted on. Smudge got one that hit a crack on a length in his second over and moved sideways to take his off-pole out of the ground. 2-1, always a good start. Pete Mitchell was bowled next ball by the only genuine wicket taking delivery of the innings, an in-swinging Yorker first ball and we were 2-2. JB and Rhys then rebuilt well, taking us to 55-2 before J.B. (18) got one that rose sharply on him and was spooned to mid-wicket. Rhys(30) got one at the start of the next over that pitched full of a length and then took his glove as it went past him at head height to loop to the keeper. Brijesh then fell fishing needlessly outside off stump and all of a sudden we’d gone from 55-2 to 55-5. Tyler fell shortly afterwards before Gurbutt and Manoj rebuilt a little. Gurbutt fell for 10, getting a carbon copy of the ball that dismissed Smudge earlier in the innings. 81-7 soon became 87-9 and with the loss imminent Brickley was sent out to bat and explain to Manoj that the next bonus point was at 90 runs. Manny promptly skied a big heave, trying to get there in one shot, miraculously it landed safe. Brickley, a veteran of these scenarios, nudged a single and we were on 89. Manoj then went for another big heave, straight up, but somehow landing safe, just metres behind the bowler. We’d made the extra batting point, but were soon bowled out for just 93.

A combination of bad fielding and bad batting, as well as a pitch reported as unfit for league cricket by the panel umpires, led to a crushing first defeat of the season for the Pirates.
The only positive of the day was the way in which Rhys applied himself, working hard for his 30 with some fine shots and an innings which on a better pitch would have seen him go on to make 50 or more.

Onwards and upwards, with a tough game this week at St Albans Road against Wandsworth. At least we can rely on the pitch being a bit better…. If not necessarily our batting or fielding!