Midweek Manoeuvres at Maids Mower Moreton

“Can someone spare them a flock of sheep?” was the comment as we machete’d our way through the outfield to find the square at Maids Moreton.  This was the In-Betweeners opening game of the Midweek campaign as last week’s game at Brackley had been rained off.

New skipper ‘Tommy Guns” was chomping at the bit and eager to lead his ‘experienced’ team onto the field of play – before the haymaking began. Due to absentees there were only 9 players, but Tommy had drafted in the bowling wheels of yesteryear: Timms Senior and Frederico Leonard (aka ‘Dad’) to add weight to the front row.  With the addition of other notable time-served characters in the shape of Farmer Chambers, The Crab and Chairman Kyle the average age would not have looked out of place for a Crown Green Bowls team!

Was this the first time that MGCC’s Skipper was the youngest player in the team?

Tommy won the toss and elected to mow, sorry – Bat.  So brother Joe took his Dennis and Jules his Hayter, to the middle and began to bale away.  A classy start and a few nice boundaries ended when Joe missed the straight one looking for his 2nd Six.  Luckily the M6 had not been too clogged and our man from Stoke – Sam Richardson arrived in time to replace Joe.  Runs came but with the bounce difficult to assess coming off dandelion, forcing the pace was a challenge.  Sam and Jules fell and Grant swiped and missed.  Skipper pushed a few and a healthy number of leg side wides kept the board ticking.  When Kyle went with 2 balls remaining, the Skipper declared!  (As neither Baz, nor Fred could be ar*ed to put the pads on).  Marsh had set the target of 76 from 12 overs.

Sam steamed in for the opening over with Jimmy from the Blue Pavilion end.  (Yes, Blue.  Unconventional colour for a pavilion, even more so, when you consider it doubles as the sight screen!  The Moreton openers easily kept up with the required rate of less than a run a ball.  Jimmy got the break through when Kyle held on to a catch at midwicket with roly poly finesse.  Entertainment was offered by the Moreton Square Leg umpire who repeatedly gave ‘not out’ to stumping appeals. Which would have been reasonable, if only he had waited for the batsman to get back into his ground first!  Perhaps he couldn’t see over the grass mounds?

Moreton kept up with the rate as Marsh failed to get enough wickets to defend the low total.

Looking ahead to next Monday and home fixture against Gawcott – on a cricket pitch.