Sportsman CC 243-9 (40 ovs) beat Walsall Health CC 176 (31.1 overs) by 67 runs

The Elf played host to the Sportsman CC lads for the second time this season, who were captained by Jack Wiseman on his final game for the club before moving away. Wiseman won the toss and elected to bat first.

Hemsley and Underwood opened the batting for Sportsman, the latter hitting a few boundaries before Dave Stephens got him LBW. After this though the wheels came off for the Elf in a 10 over period of shoddy fielding. Both Chucks, Greg and Tom dropped dollies and there was some abject fielding to boot as well. It was only youngster Dan Dunn (who had two drops off his bowling) who continued to plug away up the travelator for a well deserved wicket of Hemsley for 40.
Tom Davies got a bit of tap from Soreng and Vijay before Soreng played one shot too many and played on for 63. Davies got Waqas after he smoked a few boundaries and in his last over finally a catch was taken when Dan Armstrong caught Vijay at short cover.

With the match getting away from the Elf a bit, it called for the Ice Man Chris Hall to bowl and his picked up excellent figures of 3-13 off his minimal four overs to keep the run rate late. There was also a standard wicket for spin king Jonny Preece off his five overs. The visiting side posted a daunting 244 for victory.

Brothers Chuck opened to batting in what was becoming a fruitless an opening partnership as Jason Roy and Rory Burns. Ian played round a straight one, Dan Armstrong missed a straight one and was out LBW and Leo chipped a nothing ball for a catch at the Elf were struggling on 17-3.
Rob Hewlitt smashed a few boundaries but Dan Dunn ‘played for the spin….but there wasn’t any’ and was bowled before the score reached 30.
Greg came and went for 6 before Rob got a typical Rushall delivery where the ball just died and he was out 7 short of what would have been an excellent fifty.
Tom Davies was finally out this season giving catching practice to mid on, Jonny Preece got another ‘DNB’ and Rich Fell was out for a hard fought 18 before the partnership of the match took place. Chris Hall and Dave Stephens needed well over 100 runs to win and both gave the runs a good go, hitting plentiful boundaries between them in a partnership that exceeded 50 runs. In the end Dave was out for 37 in what was the 4th LBW and sixth of the day to end the match.

Tea Review

No crisps or olives 😦

Shower club

Chuck was making some weird noises again

Dai Watch

More changes than a one man show this week from the Welsh wonder. Coats and hoods up and almost a vest and shorts by the end of it. Still haven’t seen the fish jacket though…

Tom Davies