Walsall Health 69 All Out. Yoxall 70-3. Yoxall Win by 7 Wickets

“This has gone from being a friendly game to a very, very, very friendly game” Dave Stephens

It’s nothing new for Walsall Health games to be a friendly affair. For the uninitiated, we’re a club that only plays friendly matches, a mix of ages, backgrounds and abilities coming together to play cricket in the right way and have a good time in the process, but the curtain raiser of the 2025 season took the friendly values to the whole new limits.

While good attitudes are nothing new, there were plenty of new milestones to tick off. Firstly, a couple of Walsall Health debuts for Jordan Ames and Hamad, helping out with a short availability (was anyone really expecting such good weather after such a drab start to last season?) There was also a first time as captain for last season’s Clubman of the Year Johnny Preece, richly deserved for such a respected and valued pillar of the club. Preece wasted no time upholding the sacred traditions of the role by walking to the middle and promptly losing the coin toss and the Elf found themselves batting on a lovely, sunny day and a green-topped wicket.

Will Tomlinson was up to open alongside Jack Stenson and the batsman’s walk out to the middle in the sunshine was about as good as it got for the members of the Walsall Health batting line-up, with a string of low scores taking the sting out of the contest in no time. The Health have always flirted with batting collapses in the last few years but this was a full declaration of love for getting in and getting out. In fact only two of the batsmen managed to make it to double figures, and one of those was dropped before making the milestone. As the wickets column of the brand new scoreboard got put through it’s paces only Dave Hill and Number 11 Jonty managed to make it past 10 runs (with hindsight, there should have been a bat lift for the occasion.) Fittingly, both were out for 11 runs each. Jonty on his way to the milestone, was dropped by a certain match report writer who was ‘helping’ in the field for a depleted Yoxall.

At the risk of the game being over before all of the Yoxall players had even arrived at the ground, it was agreed the game would take an even friendlier turn and the game would be used as a de facto net session for both teams. Both sides would bat 40 overs regardless of wickets taken or runs scored. The Elf were all out for 69, Yoxall would chase 70 and all additional overs would be used to blow off some cobwebs ahead of hopefully a long summer of cricket. The Elf conceived to try and get out even quicker with their second spell of batting, at one point, there was even a worry that Mr DNB Jonty might end up batting twice in one day. Once was quite enough for Jonty, the pads were in the car and fortunately for him not needed again.

With the general attitude of ‘it can’t be much worse than the batting’, the Elf took to the field to defend their somewhat modest total of 69. The team got off to a good start with DS and Jonty opening the bowling and wasting no time testing the batsmen with some trying line and lengths. With a combined age of 130 years+ young, the two used all their experience to keep the scoring tight and came away with a wicket each and surely set a new Elf record for the combined age of an opening bowler partnership. With it agreed that each player would bowl 4 overs each, the two were seen off and with the bowlers rotating, the Yoxall batsmen went slowly and surely to wrap up the win with the loss of just 3 wickets, Will Tomlinson taking the third wicket with some tight bowling (admittedly most down legside but tight non the less) From their the team got some good fielding and bowling practice in under the setting sun.

The scoreboard will say it was an easy win, mainly because it was, but going forward it could be a blessing in disguise with each player getting some good game time in on an enjoyable afternoon.

The Elf carry on their season, hopefully in better form and with a few more runs with an away game at Springhill this coming Sunday, knowing no matter the result, the game will always be played in the right way.