Concorde fail despite champagne moments
We
had the best Presidents' day for some time, very well attended, with good
food (courtesy of Lynne S., Liz S. and Kath Pettard) a good atmosphere
and closely contested match. Unfortunately one of our famous batting collapses,
which thankfully are fairly rare these days, spoilt our unbeaten record
for this season.
The Presidents XI, led by our Chairman, won the toss and elected to bat.
Old Concorde stalwart Des Pais opened with Terry Pope of Ripley, who scored
150 plus against us last year. 
After a solid start Alex had Des caught
behind by H. and managed to contain Terry P. conceding only 12runs from
7 overs. Matt H. gave good support and unluckily had Terry dropped at
slip before he really got going. Inevitably he did get going eventually
although we managed to drop him no less than 4 times. Rather sportingly
this year Terry retired at lunch on 67 n.o. to give others a bat, including
Matthew Haddow, a player we are hoping to recruit, who scored a stylish
50 n.o. Mick Reeve declared at 226-6 at 3.30pm. Bowling figures were Alex
C. 7-3-12-1, Matt H. 6-0-29-0, Ashley W. 5-0-31-0, Edgar F. 13-2-54-3,
Jerry W. 9-0-40-0, Toby 4-0-23-0, and myself 5-0-21-1.
In reply, we had to reshuffle the batting line up, in the absence of Rob
Symondson, with Jerry W. moving up to open with Edgar. After a comfortable
start, Jerry nicked one off their good opening bowler and departed for
24. There then followed an excellent partnership between Edgar and Alex
C., playing his most impressive innings for the club, and they took us
to 150-1 before Alex skied one having made 73. It still looked like a
stroll with the likes of Ashley W.(although with injured hand) and Doug
Michael to come with less than 4 an over needed. Bring on the kamikaze
squad! Edgar inexplicably ran himself out going for a suicidal second
run, although the 1st run did bring up another solid 50 for him, Doug
swung at a straight one and was bowled, Brian H. managed to swing himself
off his feet and fell on his wicket and then yours truly, completely out
of character, chased a multi bouncing wide from Terry Pope and was caught
at cover. At least Edgar, Brian & I have all now submitted our entries
for worst moment of the season. Ashley made a quick 25 but when he dragged
one on, the end was nigh. Toby and H. put up a brave effort at the end
surviving 6 overs with all around the bat before Toby was taken at slip
with 8 balls remaining. We were all out for 199. Now the recognised performing
batsmen know why I tell them to be selfish and stay in, to hell with that
'give everybody a bat' nonsense. Our best performance after tea was by
Paul Spittle who was behind the bar.
